A recent Blogpost entitled Miss Universe Pageant or Hunger Games Costumes? was sent to me by the ever watchful James and I confess to being impressed by two things: the outrageous tackiness, even self-mocking quality of the Miss Universe costumes, which is to say, how demeaning they were to both the women and the countries involved, and, correspondingly, how appropriate this was to the link this Blogger makes between the costumes, the Capitol audience, and the Hunger Games children dressed for that audience to mock.
I think I was most impressed that Ms. Collins’ attack on this sort of thing has penetrated popular thinking sufficiently that we find this connection between book theme and visible reality being made, dot to dot, online and in magna voce.
Oh my word! Most of these costumes are hideously and hilariously on target for District costumes. And I agree that they’re horribly demeaning to the women who must wear them, who I’m sure have no choice in the matter. “District 12,” ironically, got the best, most flattering dress.
Yes, Chile’s mining costume seems a better fit, no? What irony, that these outfits can make the most beautiful women in the world look unattractive or silly! The designers of the Tribute costumes (with the notable exception of Cinna, of course) seem to relish the humiliation of the Tributes as much as they seek to represent the Districts visually. This leads me to wonder if the same motivation might be underlying the design of some of these costumes (or a lot of so-called “high-fashion” for that matter). is there a sense of “let’s see how much we can get away with” or even “let’s see how awful we can make these gorgeous creatures look while they struggle to walk across the stage in this monstrosity”? The stylists are supposed to be on the contestants’ sides, I guess, but I wonder if they are hired by the country and are not that much interested in what Tribute, I mean, contestant, turns up to be turned into a ship, bird, or other hideous exhibition.
Some of my students actually didn’t believe me that beauty pageants are directly connected to the Games, until we looked at these!
I’m guessing that the goal isn’t to humiliate the tributes , but rather artistic vision gone wild. The designers appear to have free reign, as long as their designs fit the Districts. The “top models” are the Tributes, and the “runway” is the Capitol, of course.