Showing posts with label The Hunger Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Hunger Games. Show all posts
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Fanning the Flames
Okay, I admit it. I'm a fan and I'm still trying to figure out why. Yes, the books have all the classic elements -- suspense, a love triangle, quirky characters, and a strong sense of time and place. But there's more . . . and a comment by a neighbor last night sent me off on the trail.
“Kids killing kids! Now that’s a great premise for a movie,” he sniffed.
Well, when you put it that way, it does sound just plain ugly. So why do I like the series so much? And why do I feel obliged to defend it?
First of all, I understand that premise -- we lived it. Back in the sixties, we didn’t call it a reaping, we called it a lottery. All boy children on their 18th birthday were required to submit their names and were issued a number -- if your number came up, they handed you a gun and sent you to an arena called Vietnam where you and other children were forced to kill or be killed. As a boy child, you could volunteer to go, but you could not say, “No,” not without incurring the wrath of Uncle Sam.
There are differences, of course, between the Viet Nam era and the Hunger Games -- I’m not saying there aren’t. I’m just saying there are striking similarities. There are also striking similarities between the wasteful excesses of the pampered Capitol citizens and the wasteful excesses of pampered Americans. Most of us here in the US of A have the wherewithal and privilege of buying strawberries in January or asparagus in August, of tossing uneaten food in the trash, and of spending our money on cosmetic surgery -- while men, women and children in countries being exploited across the globe are dying of treatable diseases and starvation. I don’t know if the author of the book intended to draw these parallels, but they strike me all the same.
However, the books, and the movie, are not about children killing children, or even about unearned privilege or exploitation. Those are elements of the setting, but they are not the theme. The books are about love, compassion and courage. When those three elements come together, as they do in Katniss and Peeta, something unstoppable ignites, and tyranny goes down in flame.
The author of the series, Suzanne Collins, is apparently reluctant to give interviews -- and it is my guess that she wishes to avoid direct questions about the layers of meaning of what is not, after all, a simple story. There are the names, for instance -- Gale being a strong wind that can be indiscriminately destructive. Peeta, or Peter, is the rock. Snow, as in snow-job? Coin, as in the corruption that comes when money is king? As I re-read the books, I find more examples of the mirror Collins is holding up, inviting us to see ourselves more clearly. If what we find is disturbing, then we need to dig a bit deeper, down to our inner core of love, compassion and courage. It is there that the true Self rests, the one that resists being changed by the Game.
“Kids killing kids! Now that’s a great premise for a movie,” he sniffed.
Well, when you put it that way, it does sound just plain ugly. So why do I like the series so much? And why do I feel obliged to defend it?
First of all, I understand that premise -- we lived it. Back in the sixties, we didn’t call it a reaping, we called it a lottery. All boy children on their 18th birthday were required to submit their names and were issued a number -- if your number came up, they handed you a gun and sent you to an arena called Vietnam where you and other children were forced to kill or be killed. As a boy child, you could volunteer to go, but you could not say, “No,” not without incurring the wrath of Uncle Sam.
There are differences, of course, between the Viet Nam era and the Hunger Games -- I’m not saying there aren’t. I’m just saying there are striking similarities. There are also striking similarities between the wasteful excesses of the pampered Capitol citizens and the wasteful excesses of pampered Americans. Most of us here in the US of A have the wherewithal and privilege of buying strawberries in January or asparagus in August, of tossing uneaten food in the trash, and of spending our money on cosmetic surgery -- while men, women and children in countries being exploited across the globe are dying of treatable diseases and starvation. I don’t know if the author of the book intended to draw these parallels, but they strike me all the same.
However, the books, and the movie, are not about children killing children, or even about unearned privilege or exploitation. Those are elements of the setting, but they are not the theme. The books are about love, compassion and courage. When those three elements come together, as they do in Katniss and Peeta, something unstoppable ignites, and tyranny goes down in flame.
The author of the series, Suzanne Collins, is apparently reluctant to give interviews -- and it is my guess that she wishes to avoid direct questions about the layers of meaning of what is not, after all, a simple story. There are the names, for instance -- Gale being a strong wind that can be indiscriminately destructive. Peeta, or Peter, is the rock. Snow, as in snow-job? Coin, as in the corruption that comes when money is king? As I re-read the books, I find more examples of the mirror Collins is holding up, inviting us to see ourselves more clearly. If what we find is disturbing, then we need to dig a bit deeper, down to our inner core of love, compassion and courage. It is there that the true Self rests, the one that resists being changed by the Game.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Nothing is More Powerful Than an Idea Whose Time Has Come
There are so many things piled up in my head right now that I'm not sure where to begin.
Maybe I could begin with The Hunger Games, the popular series that I am currently reading. Maybe it has to do with seeing parallels between the United States and "The Capitol" -- both of which exploit others in order to maintain their luxurious life-styles, both of which maintain the status quo militarily, both of which have citizens that are largely clueless and don't really understand the human cost of their privileged status.
Then there is the video I just watched --
Watch. Join. Send love. And when March 23 comes around, go watch The Hunger Games and understand how we are all in this together.
Maybe I could begin with The Hunger Games, the popular series that I am currently reading. Maybe it has to do with seeing parallels between the United States and "The Capitol" -- both of which exploit others in order to maintain their luxurious life-styles, both of which maintain the status quo militarily, both of which have citizens that are largely clueless and don't really understand the human cost of their privileged status.
Then there is the video I just watched --
KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.
and all the layers of resonance. There is the 2012 connection and the hope that I cherish that this year may be the year in which humanity changes course. There is the outpouring of love and the recognition of how we are all connected that is at the core of how things have to change. There is the call to the young people who will be the ones who lead the change. And there is even James Inhofe, a man who has led the global climate change denialists, taking a stand against injustice and earning my love and respect for the first time. And then there is Kony, symbolic of man's inhumanity to man, perpetrator of his own Hunger Games, only 30,000 times worse.Watch. Join. Send love. And when March 23 comes around, go watch The Hunger Games and understand how we are all in this together.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
