tea berry-blue

So! Hunger Games!!!

Hansi, who is making the fanfiction documentary I have mentioned taking part in a couple times before, actually came to my apartment to film me and Jess getting ready. She wanted to do it cinema verite style, which basically means filming us doing what we normally do.

I’m used to being on camera for interviews, and I’m used to acting on camera, but trying to just do what you normally do when you’re aware you’re on camera is a really weird experience, because it makes you very conscious of things like the fact that conversational speech is nothing like anything sensical, especially when it’s people like me and Jess, who know each other so well that we talk in a lot of common assumptions. But it was still fun and I hope it’s useful for the film. We went out to the theater together, and Hansi filmed us in Times Square for a bit. She wanted to film inside the theater, but was worried she’d get kicked out with the camera, so I offered to go inside and ask someone.

I walk in, and I immediately get completely gushed over by three of the AMC theater team, who were like “OMG EFFIE.” One of them was like “HI I AM A CAREER TRIBUTE FROM DISTRICT THREE!!!” And they asked me for a photo, so I asked if we could come in and film. One of them was a manager and he was only too happy to let us in to film, as long as we didn’t get AMC logos on anything. Plus, I told them Katniss was there, too, and grabbed Jess for their photo as well. So that was great. While we were in there, a girl making a documentary for her NYU student project also asked to interview us, so we did that.

We also got asked for a bunch of photos from other people, which was super fun!

We had been told they were going to let people start lining up around ten, so that had been the plan to meet up, and since we had to do the stuff with Hansi, we had figured we’d go get some food, and then get on line, but just as we finished the interviews with the NYU project, we heard they had decided to let people line up early, so we got on the line. Jess was starving so she went back out to get some food, and then I needed to stretch my legs from sitting on the floor, so I went out just to walk around a little. I went outside and immediately more people wanted photos! So I did a bunch of photos, and then went back into the theater– when Jess texted that they had decided to let people hang out in the theater.

So we got in, got settled with pretty excellent seats, and then I went out and got us large refillable soda. I don’t normally do that because $5 for a soda, but I shared mine with Kate and we refilled it and stuff, because, two hours waiting in the theater? TOTALLY. Kate got there pretty soon after, and then Darryl did, and Darryl was kind enough to go out with us to take some photos of our costumes.

Which meant more people asked us for photos. I seriously don’t think I’ve done so many photos in my life. Plus, pretty much everyone kept squealing at me and saying “Happy Hunger Games!” and stuff, so it was kind of adorable. There were a lot of people dressed as Katniss, and a couple people in Capitol wear, and a couple people dressed as Peeta, but no one else dressed as Effie, so that worked out nicely. One of the Peetas actually had a loaf of bread he was running around with which was kind of adorable since he seemed to be a very energetic young man and was kind of all over the theater with the bread before the movie started.

Then was the movie!!! I was mostly pleased with it. There was one pretty major character moment that I wasn’t crazy about how they interpreted it, but other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn’t the best movie ever, but it was pretty solid as far as I’m concerned. Without doing anything that is really a spoiler (although I suspect there will be spoilers in the comments), I have to say that the single most impressive major change to me was how they portrayed Seneca Crane, who is an extraordinarily minor character in the books, and Wes Bentley just did a phenomenal job expanding him.

After the movie, we immediately got stopped by a guy from some website who wanted to interview me. It was three in the morning, dude. I was like, “sorry, but I need to get up in the morning, so I need to go home.” I guess people who do interviews like this are so used to people being excited about being on camera that it didn’t register that I was saying no, because he kept trying to explain what he wanted me to do. Finally I was like, “look, lots of people talked to me before the movie, and I would have been happy to talk to you then but now I need to go home and sleep.” He still seemed kinda incredulous.

The movie theater, who had done an AMAZING job with crowd control and managing lines for the wait to get in, utterly FAILED on getting people out. They clearly didn’t think about the fact that they had people for nine screenings all arriving over a three hour period, and then all leaving at THE EXACT SAME MOMENT. The escalator landing got so crowded people were running back up the down escalator. We decided not to risk it and instead waited ten minutes for an elevator. I felt a little bad for that interview guy, cause I could have done his interview, but I also would rather not appear in anything that involves people gawking at people who dress up in costumes, and you never know someone’s angle.

Anyway, we got outside, and more people wanted pictures, while we hailed a cab, and then took a cab just a few blocks across town to Kate’s car, as she was kind and lovely enough to drive us home, which also gave us time to discuss the movie.

Then I went ZZZZZZ and today was another day with less makeup!!!!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

When I was twenty years old, while I was working on a student film, I was in a serious accident that nearly cost me the use of my right arm. Part of the upshot of this accident was that I had unintentionally trespassed on public property that was not well-marked as being off limits.

This was in the days before everyone had a cellphone. The friend I was with had luckily done EMT training and was able to do some preliminary care for me, get information like my blood type, etc, in case I passed out, before trying to flag down a car for help.

When the ambulance came, they were accompanied by a state trooper. The trooper was very kind to me, and assured me that he knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, and that he would testify to that end in court, but unfortunately, since I had technically committed a misdemeanor, I had to be arrested. He was as nice as humanly possible about it, and did the paperwork at the hospital, so that I didn’t have to go to the police station, but when I was twenty years old, I was arrested for accidentally trespassing on public property.

I think about this every single time I hear that George Zimmerman still has not been arrested for murdering a child.

You kill another person, you get arrested. If you’re innocent, or defending yourself, (neither of which I believe about Zimmerman) you prove that in court. That is what court is for. I went to court, I explained to the judge what had happened, the judge kind of laughed at me, asked how my arm was, made me promise not to sue the state, and dismissed the charges.

I unwittingly trespassed on public property, got severely injured, and was arrested.

The guy who sent a non-specific threatening email to the Sanford police chief, Bill Lee, has been arrested.

The guy who murdered an unarmed teenager has not been arrested.

This is hideously wrong.

I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now what to say about this. I’ve been saying a lot about it in person, but not a lot on the internet. Sometimes I don’t want to add more noise to drown out the signal, especially when I see white people co-opting the death of a young boy to further their own messages, and I don’t want to be part of that. I want to listen to what the people who are really being affected by this have to say. But I feel compelled to say something. In some ways I feel like waiting to say something until I could figure out what to say is problematic in itself, because we all need to speak out when horrors are committed. And I feel like a cad when horrible things are happening and I’m posting cute photos of myself going to movies.

Other people have spoken about this a bit, but I’m frustrated and angry when I see other white people pulling the “I am Trayvon Martin” thing, because it’s so dismissive of the real issue, which is that we’re not Trayvon Martin. None of us ever will be. We’re George Zimmerman. Even if we don’t go out and shoot kids for fun, when we allow the images in the media to perpetuate the idea that young black men are violent, when our own speech (I don’t want to talk about the conversation I had to have at lunch today) perpetuates an idea of black Americans as criminals, especially young black American men, we are accessories to murder. We are creating people like George Zimmerman. That’s on us. And it doesn’t matter if we have black friends, or black relatives, or black ancestors– that doesn’t absolve us. In fact, it’s worse when we do, and say nothing, because it’s our loved ones who are suffering and we’re not doing anything to ease that.

In the end, I think that’s why I keep thinking about the time I was arrested. Because I don’t have a right to compare myself to a kid whose life was in danger simply because he dared to buy some Skittles and go for a walk. I can compare myself to the man who took his life. The difference being that the only criminal act I’ve ever committed harmed no one but myself, and of the two of us, I’m the one who’s been arrested. I’m not trying to make this about me– It’s not. I’m using myself as an example because I know the details of the story, and I know what happened. I’m not angry that I was arrested. I get what I did wrong, and that that’s the way it’s supposed to go.I’m angry that apparently murdering a young boy isn’t as serious an offense as walking onto a bridge when the pedestrian walkway is closed, if the boy in question is black.

For those of you who thought this was a lone case of crazy, or who are trying to deal with people who claim that:
22 year old Rekia Boyd died on Thursday after being shot by an off-duty cop.
18 year old Ramarley Graham was murdered by a New York City cop in a “drug bust” (though they had no warrant to enter the home, and I’ve heard conflicting stories about whether there were any drugs present at all) just a couple of weeks before Trayvon Martin.

Love to all of you.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.