Jennifer Lawrence was joined by Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth at The Hunger Games hand and footprint ceremony on Saturday in Hollywood. The hand and footprint honour is much more prestigious than having a star on the Walk Of Fame. For The Hunger Games, though, the justification is all in the numbers.
The first three movies in the franchise have grossed over $2 billion worldwide. All three opened over $100 million in the first weekend. The fourth and final installment comes out November 20th and it too will likely make a LOT of money. So the honour is totally deserving. And awesome. Because this is a story about a girl, driven by a girl. Let’s be honest. Katniss is The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is Jennifer Lawrence. She’d never say it but it could have been any two other actors playing Peeta and Gale so long as it was Jennifer Lawrence playing the Girl On Fire. And that’s not a criticism of Josh Hutcherson or Liam Hemsworth. It’s simply recognising that this is a multi-BILLION dollar property that hinges on just the girl. And not the girl AND the guy. But the girl, full stop.
In her last post about Jennifer Lawrence a couple of weeks ago, with the release of a new trailer for Joy and following her essay for Lena Dunham’s Lenny newsletter about the gender pay gap, Sarah wrote that Jen’s narrative has been changing. Before her career was a “happy accident”. Now, she’s talking about the work, her commitment to the work, and her drive:
"I try to keep working so people can see other characters and other things I can do instead of taking vacation time, and now I'm aging like a president. I hate waking up without a goal or going to sleep without achieving nothing."
You know what I like about this? Every other day some expert keeps putting out the message to slow down, to shut off our phones, to sleep more, scaring people into thinking that they’re spinning themselves into a meltdown. Have you noticed that a lot of this rhetoric is aimed at women?
