The Hunger Games

Well, I might as well turn this blog into an archive of my comments on other sites. I recently (as in, five minutes ago) commented on a Video Game/Entertainment website's forums about the Hunger Games and thought I could expand on what I had said a bit more here. I write, after all, not for your benefit, but because it's cathartic for me; it helps me develop my thoughts into something tangible and releases the roiling pressure of the ideas imprisoned in my head.

So, the question posed on the forum was "what did you think of The Hunger Games?" The emotion bubbling under the surface of my thoughts since I caught it on Blu-ray, like, the day after release (thanks, Netflix!) was that I hated the movie. Not because it was bad, but because, I realized, it was true. Every bit of it was true. In fact, I nominate The Hunger Games as Exhibit B for the argument that something can be, in every sense, counter-factual and at the same time be, in every sense, entirely true.

So how was it a true story?

The first moment in the movie that made me begin to realize that I was not going to like it was the scene when, after Katniss volunteers for the games to save her younger sister (oh, by the way, I'll be discussing spoilers), she is brought onto the train to the capital city. At this point in the movie, it has been established that she is from a very poor background and has had to teach herself to hunt, illegally, just to get enough food to survive. The train car is, for her and compared to everything we've seen in the movie so far, the lap of luxury. Fine china, expensive furniture, bowls of fresh fruit sitting around, as much food as she could possibly want to eat.

I had two epiphanies while watching this:

1. There are real people in the really-real world who, every day, struggle far beyond the fictional Katniss in her fakely-fictional world.
2. I, like most people from a wealthy, first-world nation*, could afford to buy every piece of food in that train car and throw it away, uneaten.

It was at this point that I began looking around the room and thinking to myself, "do I really need a 1080p TV and Wi-Fi-enabled Blu-ray player? How many small African villages could I buy with this anyways?" When you realize the people in your social class are the antagonists of the movie, it's perhaps unsurprising that you end up not liking it.

As the movie progresses and Katniss arrives in the capital city, you realize just how completely uncaring the wealthy are for the plight of the poor. The "tributes", as they call the children from the impoverished districts, are treated as celebrities, and given exactly as much concern for their emotional well-being as is any modern-day celebrity by the society that worships them. Like honey badgers, the capital citizens simply could not be roused from their comfortable lives long enough to care. Elizabeth Banks' character is sort of the embodiment of this clueless apathy: It's such an honor to be selected for the games! How could you not be grateful at all the good we rich people do for you poor people?

This raises the question of how best to deal with poverty. For the most part, society is largely clueless on what to do, just like the people in the movie. For a recent example, in really-real life, the wife of one of the world's richest people, in what is, I'm sure, a perfectly well-meaning, compassionate, and heart-felt attempt to help the poorest of the poor has—are you ready for this?—pledged to raise $4.6 billion to buy contraceptives for poor women. Yes, contraceptives. Because that's really what the poorest women in the world need most of all. Not clean water, not cheap energy, not effective education and scholarship programs, not better medical care facilities for mothers and their children, not programs to strengthen the family and promote faithfulness between spouses, but a carefree and callous attitude about sexuality which will further enable adultery and the exploitation of women, and cause pollution and sewage problems in the part of the world least equipped to deal with it. Never mind whether or not it's actually what African women want. "Oh, you poor, benighted African women, who keep reproducing. Here, take this thing you don't want that will get rid of something you do. I know what's best for you because I'm rich and white." Melinda Gates is the real-life Effie Trinket.

It goes downhill from there.

In the movie, the solution of the rich people in the capital to the problem of the poor is not, of course, to actually help them, you know, with all that wealth and technology they have. That would, y'know, take hard work and sacrifice. No, the "solution" is violent gladiatorial games to keep them in line. And what's more, is that the people from the capital probably think they are helping. The president's pre-recorded speech before the lottery even hints at this. "The lone victor, bathed in riches, would serve as a reminder of our generosity and our forgiveness. This is how we remember our past. This is how we safeguard our future."

I don't have the words to discuss the theme of human sacrifice in the movie, so I'll let Fr. Barron do the talking:

The part at the end, about how we'd be fooling ourselves to think it couldn't here and now happen is, I think, an understatement. What I realized while watching The Hunger Games and reflecting on Fr. Barron's remarks about human sacrifice is it is currently going on, right now, right this second, in this country, as I type these words. I don't care what side of the political spectrum you're on, you can find an example of human sacrifice. If you're on the left, you have the narrative of the Iraq war as rich Americans going to war with foreigners we don't care about so we can get cheap oil to fill up our SUVs (I threw up in my mouth no fewer than three times while typing that sentence). If you're on the right, you've surely noticed the 40+ million missing Americans, who were sacrificed on the altar of the Almighty Orgasm when they were youngest, most fragile, and most dependent. If you want an example that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on, then read this.

Human sacrifice is a reality. The Hunger Games just calls it like it sees it. I nominate Suzanne Collins as an honorary Whale Biologist.

Violence is all around us. Most of it we don't see. Most of it, we choose not to see because it disturbs our nice, comfy lives. And on those rare occasions when we do see it, we either fumble around cluelessly trying to solve it (cf. Melinda Gates), or we actively try to further it because we benefit from it (cf. abortion).

So, no, I did not care for The Hunger Games at all. Which is precisely why I think everyone should see it.


*Mild aside: This is one of the things that disturbed me about the OWS movement. Granted, mammon is not your friend, and anyone who worships it is not your friend, and anyone who is willing to put mammon above his fellow man is not a friend of Christ. All valid points. But what bothered me most about the 99% vs. the 1% rhetoric (aside from the classism and scapegoating) was the knowledge that we are all the 1%. Every person alive in the US is in the richest 1% of people. We live in the wealthiest nation on earth during the richest period in human history. If you are reading this, you are more fortunate than that great swath of humanity that cannot read. If you are reading it on a computer screen, you are better off than that great majority who can't afford to own a computer. If someone printed it off for you to read, you are more privileged than the majority of human history, who lived before the printing press and cheaply available paper. The lower-class of today have access to technologies that J. Paul Getty couldn't have dreamed of. Before protesting your lack of wealth, why not give thanks for what you have. Before asking God for more, why not praise him for what he's already given you? Are you the type who promise God that, if you won the lottery, you would thank him every day for it? Do you already thank him every day? You've already won, in a way.)