Peeta Mellark- I Can’t Come See Your Movie

         Note to self: Don’t see a movie about a teenage character you “liked” in a book.

         That was a lesson I learned thanks to the Twilight series.  Screening the cheesy series for my daughter, I got sucked into the Jacob vs. Edward debate.  It wasn’t much of a choice- vampire vs. werewolf.  Still it was fun and mindless and all over the US at the time.  Its fine to get caught up in your head but then, when you see the age of the actors picked, you feel like a perv.  Was I just debating which 16 year old I liked better?!  Gross!  (Harry Potter did not teach this lesson to me because he was a child when the series started; it would’ve been very Woody Allen to fall for Harry!)

         Despite lesson learned, I now have a dilemma.  A series that I loved is out as a movie and I think I’m love one of the teenage main characters!  The movie “The Hunger Games” is based on the first of a series by Suzanne Collins.  (Not for younger kids!  But younger kids might like her Gregor Series.) Set in a future dystopia it is gripping and sometimes grisly.  It centers on a government-imposed televised fight to the death between children.   The battle is meant to tyrannize a downtrodden population and to remind them of a failed past rebellion. Despite the disturbing idea, the story is engrossing and fast paced. 

         The heroine is Katniss and Peeta is the boy who loves her and fights by her side.  I will say it- I love Peeta.  (Sorry, J.)  But, I think it is perfectly reasonable for me to love Peeta.  The book is told in the first person, which makes me-Katniss!  A teenage girl.  It’s okay for a teenage girl to like a teenage boy.  But a movie will force me to face the face that I am not a teenage girl.  (A problem on it’s own because I refuse to believe how old I am.  Someday, I might be an old woman with feathered hair and purple eye shadow.)  What I can ignore in a book, will be glaring in the visual domain—Peeta is a child.  It would be gross for me to love him.

         So, let me rethink this.  It’s not exactly that I love Peeta.  It might just be that I want my husband to take a few lessons from him.  Peeta thinks everything Katniss does is wonderful, even when it’s terrible and selfish.  His every thought is about making her happy or meeting her needs.  (And he’s a baker’s son so he does the cooking, I’m sure. Bonus!) He remembers what food she likes and her favorite color!   He is hopelessly devoted without being creepy- a la Edward from Twilight.

         I think I want my husband to be more delighted in my every action.  (i.e. “How amusing! You burned dinner again!” or “The place looks charming when you don’t clean all week!”)  Is that too much to ask for?  Some simple adoration?  But, then again, if he was following me all over the house telling me how great I am it might start to piss me off eventually.  Or, maybe, quicker than I think…  The first few days would be probably be great but then I would start thinking he was being sarcastic.  “How amusing; you burned dinner, again!” Every wonderful thing he said I’d probably be shouting back “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

         I guess that’s why Peeta is a fictional character.  Even though he sounds great on paper, that level of devotion wouldn’t work for long in the real world. And, now that I’ve come to terms with his perfection being a flaw, maybe I can let go of the idea of Peeta.  He wouldn’t work for me.  (And you’re off the hook for the adoration thing, J.  You’re welcome.)  I guess I can go see the movie now without feeling like a dirty old woman.  Glad we figured that out!