Before we get into the article, let me take a minute and apologize for my sad pun of a title. To be fair, you should all be thanking me because I could have used a pun involving the word “quiver” and I think we all know that would have gone horribly awry.
Anyway… 2012 is officially the year of the archer. By the time autumn rolls around guys and gals alike will be clamouring to get their hands on a bow and arrow and take aim at a target. Preferably a stationary inanimate object, and not, say, their sibling or spouse. But either way, chances are a good portion of the population will be ready to draw back that string.
Why? Because this year there will be four pop-culture icons on the big and small screens whose weapon of choice is the bow and arrow. And I’m not even counting good ol’ Daryl (Norman Reedus) and his crossbow on The Walking Dead. That’s a whole other can of beans. The four I speak of are named: Katniss, Clint, Merida and Oliver.
Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), the girl on fire, is one of two examples of a fictional character that will bring girls to the sporting goods store in search of some archery supplies. Heroine of The Hunger Games Trilogy, Katniss is a prime example of a female BAMF. Mostly because she doesn’t really try. She uses that bow and arrow not for fun, but for survival, both in the Hunger Games arena and out. Whether she is shooting for food in the forest, or an apple out of a pig’s mouth to shock naysayers, or putting an arrow through an opponent’s gut (or neck, if you’re a reader) to avenge a friend, Katniss is always the picture of strength under pressure. When she finally picked up that quiver of arrows in the arena, you could feel her start to become herself again, no matter how dire the situation was at the time. Who wouldn’t want that feeling?
Then there is Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in Joss Whedon’s epic comic book movie, The Avengers. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Or maybe you’re the one guy that hasn’t seen it… If so, then I’ll tell you that he is one of the Avengers whose speciality is, you guessed it, a bow and arrow. And unlike the lovely Katniss, Hawkeye gets all sorts of fancy toys to go along with his weapon of choice. The arrows have special tips (he can change them, like one of those screwdrivers where you twist to choose the type you want) and they all do things like explode or track their target. Something tells me if I head down to Dick’s Sporting Goods, this won’t be on the shelf. And while his specific arrows aren’t going be available for the average archer (even the not-so-average one) Hawkeye was, like Katniss, bad ass. (And as the girl writing this – holy crap those arms!)
And there are still two more to hit the pop-culture circuit this year! In less than a month kids of all ages will be flocking to the theater to see Princess Merida (Kelly MacDonald) win an archery contest for her own hand in marriage. The heroine of the latest outing from Pixar, Brave, the first Pixar to focus solely on a girl, btw, uses archery as a way out of her constricting royal life in Scotland. Something tells me that when we leave the theater, my daughter is going to be asking to take archery lessons. And I bet she won’t be the only one. Merida is strong-willed, funny, carefree, and, obviously, brave. What little girl wouldn’t want to emulate that?
And last, and honestly, possibly least, next season on The CW we will learn the story of Oliver Queen aka The Green Arrow (Stephen Amell). I don’t know too much about it but the gist is: presumed dead billionaire playboy, Oliver Queen, returns back to his home and creates a vigilante alter ego that attempts to right a bunch of wrongs. Also he does crunches while hanging upside down on a salmon ladder and can shoot a bunch of bouncing tennis balls with arrows. Ohhh… there’s my point – he’s into archery. Sorry, I’m insanely shallow and may have gotten lost in the salmon ladder section of the preview. The point is, he shoots arrows on a network program. Again, ARCHERY!
Plus, let’s not forget there’s a little something called the Summer Olympics airing from Jolly Ol’ England at the end of July/start of August. And I know for a fact there is some archery involved in that. I saw it when I was four at the LA Olympics. I remember it vividly. (That’s a lie. Well, the remembering is. I was there. I have pictures.) Also, according to some friends that have seen screenings of Snow White and the Huntsman, there is a pretty amazing archer amongst the second tier characters in that as well!
What’s the point of this story? The point is that those of you reading this should run to go buy a bow and arrow if you don’t already have one, secretly get very good at it, and then when it becomes insanely popular you can pretend that you were into this way before Katniss Everdeen and Gale Hawthorne snuck outside the gates of District 12.