This is the weekend of The Hunger Games! Thursday midnight (and in some places, also at 3 AM), it opened all over the country. Even in our little rural theatre. Went Friday evening ($14.00 for two tickets plus popcorn), every kid in town took in the midnight show. The movie was excellent, for a young adult crowd. Also for me. I've almost finished book one, and I'd say it is quite faithful to the novel.
What is so impressive to me is how Suzanne Collins has captured and explicated so many of today's current issues for young people. Among them, the expanding gap between the very wealthy and the very poor, the emphasis politically on social control and repression of "radical" ideas. The notion of sacrificing the young as a means of control and as a means of entertaining the populace also struck me. The prevalence and popularity of so-called "reality" TV is mirrored in the book. The adulation and pressure put on youthful sports heroes, even at the cost of their health and/or lives, struck a chord. "Hunger" was a literal theme in the book. It's clear that our young people express a number of "hungers" in their lives currently. How will they express those as we move into a less secure future? What steps will be taken to control and/or suppress those hungers? Take the Donald Sutherland character - Mr. Control and rule - and put his beard on Stephen Harper and you have, voila, our country as it stands today.
In these ways, and others as well, I think one could look at The Hunger Games as a parable, a message to today's young people. In the movie, anything that allows youth to "band together" - even love and affection - is deemed radical and threatening to the Establishment and is punished. My thoughts went immediately to the "Occupy…" movement. Lots of young people, protesting the extravagance and waste of the inordinately rich, the entitled, the "in-charge" people; these kids and their supporters were branded as dangerous radicals, those who threaten the status quo, who had to be disbanded and arrested so they would be off the TV screens. I can't help but wonder if others will make these connections and push them as the books become more widely read, and the movies become cult hits.
As it stands, I'm almost done book one, and have two and three on my Kindle, waiting to be read, ASAP. I'm sure I'll think more on this, and have more to share.
What is so impressive to me is how Suzanne Collins has captured and explicated so many of today's current issues for young people. Among them, the expanding gap between the very wealthy and the very poor, the emphasis politically on social control and repression of "radical" ideas. The notion of sacrificing the young as a means of control and as a means of entertaining the populace also struck me. The prevalence and popularity of so-called "reality" TV is mirrored in the book. The adulation and pressure put on youthful sports heroes, even at the cost of their health and/or lives, struck a chord. "Hunger" was a literal theme in the book. It's clear that our young people express a number of "hungers" in their lives currently. How will they express those as we move into a less secure future? What steps will be taken to control and/or suppress those hungers? Take the Donald Sutherland character - Mr. Control and rule - and put his beard on Stephen Harper and you have, voila, our country as it stands today.
In these ways, and others as well, I think one could look at The Hunger Games as a parable, a message to today's young people. In the movie, anything that allows youth to "band together" - even love and affection - is deemed radical and threatening to the Establishment and is punished. My thoughts went immediately to the "Occupy…" movement. Lots of young people, protesting the extravagance and waste of the inordinately rich, the entitled, the "in-charge" people; these kids and their supporters were branded as dangerous radicals, those who threaten the status quo, who had to be disbanded and arrested so they would be off the TV screens. I can't help but wonder if others will make these connections and push them as the books become more widely read, and the movies become cult hits.
As it stands, I'm almost done book one, and have two and three on my Kindle, waiting to be read, ASAP. I'm sure I'll think more on this, and have more to share.
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