Moderator: Marduk
I don't read this as cynical. I read this as both realistic and positive. What objection do Christofferson or Halealaka have to this model of partnership?what we can count on men for, if we’re lucky and we choose to have a partner, is to be just that—a partner. Someone who stands in his own space even as he respects our standing in our own
I didn't intend to start a discussion about or provide an endorsement of the quote itself. When I said "favorite," all I meant was that I found it a little humorous that Elder Christofferson quoted from a review of the Hunger Games during general conference.Portia wrote:I don't read this as cynical. I read this as both realistic and positive. What objection do Christofferson or Halealaka have to this model of partnership?what we can count on men for, if we’re lucky and we choose to have a partner, is to be just that—a partner. Someone who stands in his own space even as he respects our standing in our own
(If we want to talk cynical in The Hunger Games, there's the sacrifice of children for bloodsport.)
If you read how he uses it in context, I don't think that's what he's saying at all.S.A.M. wrote:The cynical part is that this only happens if you are lucky. Finding a partner like this should be the norm.
That's how I interpret it as well.pillowy wrote:I think he's saying it's cynical because it sounds like living parallel lives is the best you can achieve, rather than being interdependent with each other.
I think as a critique of two relational models (only one of which was written by a Mormon), for, nota bene, teenaged girls, I much prefer the fend-for-yourself rather than creepily-codependent.Katniss does in “The Hunger Games” what we all hope to do in life: rise to the occasion. When given the chance to do the right thing, she does it. She finds the strength. She saves her sister’s life, and later her own. She is true to herself. She is someone you can count on. She gets things done, unlike Bella, the heroine in “Twlight,” who is beautiful in a brooding, lost sort of way, but spends most of the book waiting for a vampire or a werewolf or some other reasonable facsimile of a man to save her. Stop waiting! Get up and do something!
Katniss is irresistible in large measure because she is a she, because she has had to take care of her mother and sister since the death of her father, because she has learned to hunt, to beg for bread, to deny herself all of the weakness we women love to flaunt and rely on. All of the “please take care of me’s” were not available to her. I have no doubt she would have enjoyed them. Most women do, even strong women. Even strong women like to fall down once in a while and have “the big strong man” (or vampire) take care of us, but Katniss had no such luxury.
And that makes her the perfect heroine for our day. Not for our mother’s day, when Bella would have been a much more palatable heroine (at least for women who didn’t watch too many Katharine Hepburn movies). In our day we know we cannot count on someone else to save us, to make things all right. What we can count on men for, if we’re lucky and we choose to have a partner, is to be just that — a partner. Someone who stands in his own space even as he respects our standing in our own. Hunger Games main character a heroine for our day
