I’ve never seriously thought about getting a tattoo, but if I did, it would be a literary reference. That may seem hifalutin, but I’m not talking about a lyrical bit of Toni Morrison; I’d go for something more mainstream, and you can’t get much more so than Suzanne Collins’ dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games.
Have you read them? You should: the books (set in a future America where teenagers are sent to an annual battle-to-the-death tournament) have sold more than 65m copies, and the “gritty-lite” films have made Jennifer Lawrence (who plays outdoorsy heroine Katniss Everdeen) a superstar. There is much to love about Katniss, but my affection belongs to another: Peeta Mellark.
Peeta, called up alongside Katniss to compete in the games, is wonderful. First up, he’s the son of a baker, so he has the keys to my heart, aka bread. (A sense of humour and good looks are always welcome, but you just can’t beat a man with in-depth knowledge of baked goods.) At the height of the tournament, Peeta even uses his cake-decorating skills to camouflage himself from enemies. Above all, Peeta is kind. As a boy, he offers a starving Katniss some bread (and earns a beating for his troubles), and he is loyal, too – a large, shaggy dog made human. He can be annoying (Josh Hutcherson, who plays him, has the perfect face for conveying these traits), but my crush can withstand that.
So I think my tattoo would be a pearl, the gift Peeta gives Katniss. He’s one of life’s great second fiddles, and he knows it. There was a great love before he came on the scene – Gale, Katniss’s childhood friend and hunter extraordinaire – but for the most part he just gets on with it. That’s a man whose masculinity is secure.
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