Emotionally unsatisfied by The Hunger Games

[breakinglight11]

Finally saw The Hunger Games last night. It was all right, not badly made, but I had a lot of the same problems with it that I did with the book. I only read the first one, and I was not terribly motivated to read the next ones. The character of Katniss doesn't have much dimension to her besides her steely determination to get through whatever it is she's up against-- survive, really, I guess --and I was really disappointed by how little the story treats with the issue of how horrible it is to be forced to participate in the violence. I feel like the notion of how terrible the violent child-on-child murder for entertainment is gets lost by how both the book and the movie just... graphically provide the terrible violent child-on-child murder for our entertainment. They kind of just handwave the horribleness-- yeah, yeah, this shit's bad, we're much more concerned with finding out how Katniss gets through this struggle and making sure all the right people (ie, the people we have not been led to sympathize with) died. I found it very emotionally unsatisfying that the heroine just sort of... plays the game. Everyone just plays the game. Nobody tries to resist being forced to participate in such a disgusting ritual; they just kind of focus on getting through it alive. No analysis is made, no attempt to strive for a higher moral truth. And nobody ever attempts to deal with the emotional consequences of playing the game-- you killed other kids! For somebody's entertainment! For no reason! And you never tried to resist it, or find some other way out! You're never going to think about it, you're never going to experience the repercussions to your soul? Well, no matter, all the right people die! Except for the ones we like, which we mourn without thought for the, "Well, what did you expect? That's the game!" aspect of their deaths. It's sad because we lost them, but not at all because of the fact that, good or bad, these children are being put through something ABOMINABLE. We liked the cute, angelic little Rue girl, and that big blond boy from District 1, despite being a horribly warped child raised to be a killing machine, we're glad Katniss ices. Again, no thought for the horribleness of being in the situation-- we just kill the baddies and cry for the goodies. A very immature way to approach the situation. The one nod to it was the previous champion Haymitch is now an embittered alcoholic, ostensibly driven to it by the trauma of the experience, but it's never directly referenced.

On the plus side, when did Lenny Kravitz get so hot? Damn, sir. Must be I like him better without the afro. And the gold eyeshadow. Man, did he rock the gold eyeshadow.

Comments

[blendedchaitea.livejournal.com]

1. I like your usericon. REPO! is one of my favorite movies. :)

2. What I thought was interesting about Katniss is I thought that her sense of "I am going to survive no matter what" making up the vast majority of her personality was a result of growing up in an environment of stark deprivation and class lines. When Cinna & co. dress her up and put sparkles on her, she /likes/ it, but she never had a chance growing up to explore any part of her personality besides that of the tough survivalist, so it never feels comfortable to her.

I'm finding that the more time I spend away from the series and talking about it, the more I find to like about it.