I’ve always been vocal about the fact that Mad Men is not precisely my cup of tea—I’m not overly compelled by the acting, but most importantly, the show has covered the half of the sixties I’m less interested in. I can understand why it’s interesting to observe, and even to sympathize with, the people who would face stunning losses of their privilege as the Civil Rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and anti-war movements emerged and blossomed into powerful new forces in American society. But I’m just more interested in the people who are busting out—it’s why I was a sucker for the Mattachine Society subplot* in the quickly- and justly-cancelled The Playboy Club; why The Weather Underground, which should be mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to pontificate about sixties radicalism, is one of my favorite documentaries of all time; and why I would love to see someone adapt Blanche McCrary Boyd’s Terminal Velocity, a great, sublimely weird book about a Southern co-ed turned Boston book editor turned lesbian feminist.

I understand this as a personal preference, but coming out of your chrysalis has always more interesting to me than retreating to your fort. And I’ve joked that I’d be happy with Mad Men if Sally Draper grew up and joined the Weather Underground, broke Don’s heart, and turned the whole thing into American Pastoral. Alternatively, I’d accept Peggy saying the hell with all this, leaving New York, joining the Boston Women’s Health Collective, and helping shepherd through the first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves.

This year may be the one when I finally get what I find most personally satisfying out of Mad Men: a more direct confrontation between generations and over values. I’ve seen the pilot, which is excellent, but which I won’t discuss until Monday (when I will discuss it at length) for fear of angering a very spoiler-sensitive Matt Weiner. But I will ask: what are you hoping to get out of Mad Men this season?

*Seriously. Somebody please make this show.

LeBron James tweets this powerful picture of the Miami Heat donning hoodies in memory of slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin:

And with it, the precise, efficient, and very sad phrases: #WeAreTrayvonMartin #Hoodies #Stereotyped #WeWantJustice.

We’re a couple of weeks away from the second season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, and I’m pretty excited to announce that SmartPop is putting out an essay collection about A Song of Ice and Fire that will drop shortly after the season concludes. Called Beyond the Wall, the book’s got a big essay from me up front about sexual assault and mythmaking in the world of the books that’s built on a number of our conversations here, but that goes substantially beyond them. If that’s not your jam, there are contributions from Elio and Linda, who run Westeros.org, and essays on book collecting in an e-book age, and the genre wars—in other words, it’s wide-ranging and I’m pretty psyched. Details on the book’s release are here. And I’m talking to the book’s publicists about maybe doing a party for its release here in Washington, DC, so keep an eye on this space for information about that as well.

Who knew? Ladies apparently like sexy things, namely, e-book sensation 50 Shades of Grey, which chronicles the adventures of a woman hilariously named Anastasia Steele who starts a sadomasochistic relationship with “a handsome entrepeneur” named Christian Grey and Hollywood is freaking out about it:

Why is the town so hot and bothered about what started as a self published e-book that flew under the radar until a Today Show segment and New York Times article turned up the heat? Those who don’t get it are scratching their heads and dismissing it as “mommy porn” and say while it will be aimed at the female demo that embraced Eat Pray Love and Sex and the City, these two go at it like rabbits in vivid S&M and bondage scenarios that will lead to a sure-fire R rating at least. Guys probably aren’t coming, and that rating locks out the young girls.

Those who do get it say that the author has tapped into a perfect storm of female sexuality and taboo romance with an unattainable man, themes common to works like Twilight Saga and True Blood. They say the book has stimulated an elusive zeitgeist hot button that every studio wants in a book to movie franchise. Guys might not get it, but it’s spreading like wildfire among females age ranging from young women to grandmothers.

I’m amused, but there’s something pretty pathetic about the fact that the entertainment industry is still surprised by the idea that ladies have erogenous zones, and sometimes like having them stimulated by pop culture. Have they ever been to the romance novel section of a bookstore? Or had an assistant who’s been to the romance novel section of a bookstore? I hope a lady executive lands this project and makes major bank off it. Though history suggests that even if that happens, her male counterparts won’t learn a damn thing from the experience.

I’ve written a great deal about how unfortunate it is that alien invasions are the main first contact scenarios we get in the movie, both because it’s unrealistic that we’d hold up for long enough for it to be interesting (much less win), and because there are so many more fascinating culture clash alternatives out there. But Nick Sagan, Carl’s son and a writer and producer in his own right, has some smart thoughts about one of the hoariest cliches in the invasion story—the idea that if aliens showed up, we’d forget our differences:

We’re so bitterly divided these days, the appearance of a true “other” might be the best chance of bringing us all together. But I wonder. If a fleet of alien ships appeared in the sky tomorrow, how do you think those who now call our president a Kenyan Marxist Muslim atheist would be most likely to react? Sure, they might turn around and say, “Whatever we may not like about Barack Hussein Obama, he’s as human as we are and we better put aside our differences to beat back these damn aliens!” I think the more likely reaction would be, “He’s probably one of them and it’s his fault they’re here!” Likewise, had a flying saucer invasion force descended during the tail end of George W. Bush’s presidency, I rather doubt the world community would have happily united behind his leadership. What’s more, these hypothetical extraterrestrials are unlikely to sit idly by as we try to figure out how best to move past our various differences. Human divisions would be child’s play for any reasonably competent alien overlord to exploit — check the masterful Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” for an example of how that might play out.

Using this as a jumping-off point, I can think of a couple of scenarios I’d love to see a science fiction movie explore:

1. If, in fact, we put aside our national differences and repelled an alien attack: What comes afterwards? District 9 explored this question on a small scale—white and black South Africans healed, or at least put aside, the deep rift of racism when aliens showed up, and employed the formidable machinery of apartheid to take it out on them. What lines might we team up along? What undesirables might we eliminate? Would we cure AIDS? Or kill a lot of poor people?

2. The arms race: If aliens invaded, but without the intent of waging total war, the effort to win them over as allies (if we could figure out what they wanted) would set off an all-time bonkers global competition. Can you imagine what would happen if aliens showed up and decided to throw their lot in with, say, Nigeria? The scramble it would set off and the global realignment would be fascinating, and deeply strange.

3. The reformers: To be fair, we are messing up our stuff pretty badly. So what if an alien species that, say, has an aesthetic attachment to our planet, shows up and tries to force us to stop? Would we play fair? Would we freak out and obey out of awe? Or would we split between folks who are grateful and folks who are profoundly resistant?

The bridge is yours.

-Yo Hollywood, women buy half of movie tickets. You do the math.

-What makes a recap a recap? And what makes a review a review?

-New Margaret Atwood!

-Awkward Must-See TV: Romney on Leno on Tuesday.

-This will be terrible, or great, but either way, I do adore me some Toni Collette:

This review contains some spoilers for folks who haven’t read the books.

Like many of our most popular cultural artifacts, The Hunger Game is a Leatherman of a series, a multi-purpose tool for discussing everything from war and insurgency (as always, read Amy Davidson) to an increasingly brutal college admissions process. But on the occasion of the movie adaptation’s arrival in theaters, it’s worth returning to the franchise’s title: this is a story about a country in which the unimaginably rich manipulate the desperately poor with incredible cruelty, and where a fossilized class system treats people who want to survive it, much less rise from one class into the next, with violence and sadism. The Hunger Games begins in a world where roses are imaginable, and bread is a commodity so valuable that its arrival is a symbol from the heavens and it can create emotional ties that last a lifetime. The Hunger Games is also about war, and democracy, and torture, and personal autonomy, but all of those consequences and conversations are offshoots of a basic setup: a world where a few people have anything and many people have almost nothing.

A movie about savage inequalities is almost absurdly timely, even if we don’t live in a world where the citizens of subject states each much send two children between 12 and 18 to fight to the death in a televised competition for the amusement of the vastly wealthy, and the temporary economic elevation of a lucky survivor and his or her family. And The Hunger Games is at its best when it puts the rich and their victims in contact, though it falters when it comes to portraying the competition between those who are desperately hoping to rise.

Some of the most biting work in The Hunger Games comes from the adult actors, and from a series of scenes that illustrate how excess can be as anaesthetizing as it is rewarding. “You two are in for a treat,” trills Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), the noxious MC of the District 12 Reaping, after Katniss and Peeta have been separated from their families and boarded the luxury train that is sweeping them off to their likely deaths. “Crystal chandeliers! Platinum doorknobs!” It’s more likely that the young people in her over-manicured care will appreciate regular access to food than the post-apocalyptic equivalent of the Restoration Hardware catalogue. But Effie can’t possibly acknowledge the immiseration that creates her elaborate outfits, powers the bullet train on which she travels, and covers the tables at which her charges can eat only once they’re marked for slaughter.

Later in the movie, Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), Katniss and Peeta’s drunken but not un-savvy mentor, blanches watching a Capitol family gives their children play toys for a battle they’ll never have to fight. For them, the Hunger Games are another opportunity to consume, to place bets and to host elaborate parties, rather than evidence of their own investment in injustice. The pageantry leading up to the Games distances the viewers from what they’re actually watching. The public coffers supply Katniss and Peeta with a sumptuously-furnished apartment, designer training tracksuits, gorgeous outfits to wear to pre- and post-competition interviews with the fantastically unctuous Ceaser Flickerman (Stanley Tucci). The movie doesn’t make this as clear as the books do, but the traumas of the games themselves are an opportunity for further personal consumer spending. If you give good show, as Katniss and Peeta do, their mentors can persuade sponsors to buy Tributes necessities ranging from a cup of hot soup to antibiotic creams that arrive, like everything else considered a luxury in this world, in hues and textures that make them look plucked from a Wet ‘n’ Wild line of eye glitter.
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This post contains spoilers through the March 22 episode of Community.

I didn’t particularly like this episode of Community, which fell in love with a concept in favor of an idea. And I think I’m particularly frustrated with it because the idea was a good one: that one of the hardest parts of having adult friendships is figuring out the moments when you have to push a friend rather than simply enjoy or enable them, and that sometimes friendships that have served you well in the past don’t work any more.

The situation that raises that question, and the concept this episode fell in love with is pure Community, and pure Abed. The aspiring filmmaker’s discovered that he can hire celebrity impersonators to role-play through movies with him, and he’s $3,000 in hock to his dealer. When we met Abed three years ago, the core question for him was whether he’d be able to resist the influence of his embittered, falafel stand-owning father and pursue a career as a filmmaker. We embraced his decision to pursue his passion, and helping him make his movies (or ending up the subjects of them) has been one of the things that’s united the oft-fractious study group. But going down that path’s opened Abed up to repeated excess, whether he’s ending up with a messiah complex or invading his friends’ privacy to make a documentary. Abed’s father may have been right that he needed some sort of discipline or maturing influence, but freed from his ambitions, no one’s been particularly effective at giving it to him.

And the most interesting part of the evening was Troy realizing how important that check is. As befits a Dreamatorium partner, he started off the evening by defending Abed’s whims. “Abed is a magical elf-like man who makes all of us all more magical by being near us,” he insisted when Annie was tempted to break the spell and force Abed to face the consequences of his new addiction. But by the end of the night he recognized Abed’s recklessness for the self-centered junkie behavior it is. “We just spent our whole night paying off your debt and you’re blowing money on Patch Adams?” he asks, indignant. And he finally faced up to his fear of confronting Abed. “You don’t like people who tell you what to do and I don’t want to be one of those people,” Troy confessed. “You have to stop renting celebrity impersonators…Sometimes you’re going to have to trust that I know better than you.”

Abed said he would, but whether that’s actually the case, and whether their friendship can survive honesty when it involves something Abed doesn’t enjoy hearing are open questions. That revelation obviously hurt enough for the Abed from the darkest timeline to reappear, suggesting that sometimes, you’re better off traveling alone.

For me, the two arcs on Community that have consistently worked best have been Annie’s coming back to herself in the wake of her addiction, and Troy’s journey from being a fratty jerk to a nuanced human being. I wrote last week that Britta and Jeff actually make much more sense as a couple of Jeff and Annie do, no matter how often Annie may get entranced by the sight of Jeff’s abs. And I think Annie and Troy ultimately make sense together, if we’re going to go that route: they’re people growing into a truer understanding of each other and how the world works. People who don’t work together, as friends or as anything else, at one stage in their lives can become more alike. That’s a wonderful process, but it also means that you can grow apart.

There’s a long tradition of pop culture fans banding together to raise money for or take action on good causes, whether it’s the Browncoats, fans of Joss Whedon’s Firefly series raising money for charity, or the Harry Potter Alliance, which has done everything from send medical aid to Haiti to campaigning for marriage equality in Maine.

And fans of Suzanne Collins dystopian young adult series The Hunger Games are no different. Pegged to the opening of the film adaptation of the first book in the series, a movie that could be the most profitable film release of 2012, Imagine Better, an umbrella group of multiple fan franchises spearheaded by the Harry Potter Alliance, partnered with Oxfam to launch a campaign called “Hunger Is Not a Game.” It’s a multi-pronged effort, but the main thrust is in support of Oxfam’s GROW campaign, which aims to make food aid more efficient by encouraging local cultivation to reduce shipping costs and waste from spoilage.

These are noble goals, and you’d think Lionsgate would welcome the good publicity that stems from them. It should be a gift to the studio that The Hunger Games isn’t just poised to be a massive blockbuster, but that it’s getting young people to think and act critically, so much so that they’re getting written up in the New York Times for it. And a month ago, that appeared to be the case: a Lionsgate representative emailed Andrew Slack, the executive director of the Harry Potter Alliance which is the organizing force behind Imagine Better, in February to say that while Lionsgate couldn’t join Imagine Better as a partner, they wished Imagine Better “the best of luck.”

Apparently no longer. Lionsgate’s senior vice president for business affairs and litigation, Liat Cohen (who’s been rather vigorous in defense of the project in the past), has issued a takedown notice to the campaign through Oxfam, accusing them of “piggy backing off of our motion picture” and “causing damage to Lionsgate and our marketing efforts.” The full text of the email is here:

Hello,

This morning I left 2 phone messages for your CEO Mr. Jim Daniell regarding your campaign “Hunger is not a Game” piggy backing off of our motion picture “The Hunger Games” and using Lionsgate’s fans and fan internet sites to promote your cause.

As I mentioned in my phone message, Lionsgate has formed a partnership with two large organizations fighting hunger, the UN’s World Food Program and Feeding America. We are encouraging fans to support this effort by going to www.wfp.org/hungergames.

What is not a part of the Lionsgate plan is the distortion of our Motion Picture title. That is what Oxfam has done with your “Hunger is not a Game” logo. And with the many website you have incorporated into your campaign. This is causing damage to Lionsgate and our marketing efforts.

We understand and support your cause and mission. We are on the same side. We are looking for an amicable resolution. For a start we request that you immediately remove any mention of “Hunger is not a Game” from all of your websites and its affiliates and stop using the slogan in your interviews and publicity or press releases. Additionally, please contact the undersigned so we can work out a mutually acceptable plan to go forward where we do not infringe on each other’s rights.

We are truly making an effort to work with you on this. We have the ability to take down your sites as a violation of our trademark and other intellectual property laws. We hope that will not be necessary as this is too serious a subject.

All rights reserved. Thank you.

Liat Cohen, Esquire
Senior Vice President Business Affairs & Litigation

It’s not clear that the takedown notice would hold up, but it’s still an aggressive move against advocates who are passionate fans of the franchise and have no desire to damage it.

“Fans have been changed by this story and have expressed a wish to change the world based on the message of this story,” Slack emailed me. “I would hope that Lionsgate would celebrate fans, not pick on them, for taking the message of their own movie seriously. It’s amazing that they’re working with two great partners already to fight hunger. But why get in the way of fans who are working with a third one?”