The Hunger Games: An Observation

I feel very conflicted today, to tell you the truth.  This internal tension began about halfway through watching the latest "Teen-Novel-Sensation-Turned-Hollywood Blockbuster-Film" The Hunger Games.  I realized that I could not write a conventional review of the movie, not because I haven't read the book, but because I felt uneasy with the idea that this dark, violent and depressing story was being directed to middle school and high school students.  I know that, unfortunately, younger teens are exposed to far more graphic violence than is shown here, and there are themes explored in The Hunger Games that a Catholic, Small Federal Government type like myself can appreciate.  The question that came to my mind was "is this story popular because it's reflecting the anxieties of our youth, or are we hoisting this on our kids because violence sells?"  I find neither answer to the book's, now movie's, popularity very comforting.  The unease I felt watching The Hunger Games distracted me a bit form being able to really examine its artistic merits.

And the movie does have artistic merit.  I've never seen the Twilight movies, but did catch a couple in the Harry Potter series, and found this much more substantial in terms of the themes being explored, as well as just being a better movie.  The book's author, and one of the film's screenwriters, Suzanne Collins is reputedly a Roman Catholic, and themes of self sacrifice, the struggle against oppression and the manipulative use of the media to control and pacify the people run strong through story.  The importance of bread, which is hinted at in the movie, is more prominent in the book, or so I've read out in the blogosphere, and some have questioned if it isn't an allusion to the Eucharist.

I've also read that this type of post-apocalyptic, dystopian style novel is the latest trend in teen literature, replacing tales of vampires and wizards.  This apparent trend, more than the particular content of The Hunger Games itself, is what disturbs me, I guess.  Not that I thought that blood sucking ghouls or masters of the dark arts were such great role models for today's youth, but this story presents a vision of the future that is devoid of hope or promise (even though hope is also a theme of the story).  The characters live in a society dominated by a cruel central government that uses intimidation and manipulation to oppress the nation's various "districts."  The young are thrown into a kill or be killed contest; part gladiator games, part "Survivor" reality show.  All the time they are being watched by millions of people at home, supported by sponsors and prodded on by the promise of fame and fortune if they can make it to the end alive.  It is a strange mixture of the old Roman bread and circuses meets our contemporary celebrity obsessed culture.  Sound familiar?  As in any piece of imaginative fiction we are seeing a commentary on our present day social scene as much as we are being given a prediction of the future, probably more so.   If the future is dark, the present isn't exactly sunny either. 

This brings me back to the intended audience of The Hunger Games.  In the theater I sat behind an adult woman who was accompanying five children who were probably between the ages of about 11 to 13 or 14.  A good part of the rest of the audience were teens somewhere between middle school and sophomore year of high school.  I wondered what was going though their minds, especially the younger ones, as this violent story unfolded.  And yes, the violence is muted by today's standards, but the body count is real.  Katness Everdeen, the heroine of the story played by Jennifer Lawrence, is one of the most virtuous figures to grace a movie screen in quite a while.  She only kills in self defense and often times inadvertently, but she still has to make hard choices that cost others their lives.  In the midst of the mayhem and killing do the young eyes of the audience see the virtue or only the dread?   Young minds are not often subtle, so I ask if they take away from the movie that the world is kill or be killed, or do they think that already and this only reinforces the notion?  Like I said before, neither answer is very reassuring.  I wonder what they think of the future; do they see hope or despair? 

Junior and senior high school students are often assigned violent, disturbing material to read.  Shirley Jackson's The Lottery or William Golding's Lord of the Flies come to mind right away.  But they weren't necessarily written for young people.  Indeed most books assigned to adolescents in secondary school were not originally intended to be read by them, but rather by adults.  Here we have a book (as is the custom today, a series of books) directed to them, meant to speak to their hearts and minds, and whether we like it or not, helps to mold their world view.   In spite of my misgivings, I do see valuable lessons to be gleamed from The Hunger Games.  There is a subtlety and humanity to the characters that one doesn't find in the average action picture.  Death is not meaningless here as it is in your average horror flick; there is mourning for the dead, and one such act of mercy ignites the first sparks of a revolt that I assume will burst into flames in following films.  There are positive messages here, I just hope that in the midst of the hype our children are picking them up.

Here's a link to Fr. Barron's commentary that will fill in some of the gaps in my discription of the movie and offers his usual penetrating insights.