Okay, so here I am, over a year later after its release, and I can finally say that I've seen The Hunger Games. I was never really negative about it at any point but I was also not super amped to get to it or anything. It was just there. Waiting. Whenever I'd decide to watch it something else would just pop up - I'd have to save my family from a burst geyser or something. I almost didn't watch it yesterday either because my DVD player did a thing and I was too lazy to fiddle with it. Luckily my roommate was on-hand to connect his laptop to our TV.
The first time I heard about The Hunger Games and its premise I thought it sounded a whole lot like Battle Royale (which I've also not gotten around to seeing. It's just there. Skulking.) in terms of kids on some island/forest set-up having to kill each other. I'm not the biggest fan of kids killing each other in my movies or books (I still haven't read Lord of the Flies. It's sitting somewhere. Scowling perhaps?) I'm fine with kids killing adults though. That's fine. Anyway, back to the issue at hand. I liked The Hunger Games and think it's a good movie. It still disturbed me highly though. Straight up Mount Everest levels highly. It wasn't that it was graphical in its violence or anything. Something about it just got to me. Good art is supposed to unsettle you I guess.
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| Kids killing kids (KKK). Okay (K). |
Throughout the movie I sat there thinking, Dafuq is wrong with these people? But this shit's happened on numerous occasions in the real world before and is still happening in some form or another right now. Our history as a species is drenched in blood: war, prejudice, terrorism, racism, sexism and a string of other forms of hatred. Mindless hatred is just something we do and we're good at it. Add the spectator element from the movie and that's us right there. We love being the audience on other people's tragedies. We do show some level of sympathy towards others and their misfortune but mostly we view it with a morbid kind of fascination and think how lucky we are that it's not us going through that shit. The Hunger Games made me feel a certain level of shame in terms of how I'd probably just look on if that sort of thing were to happen in front of me. Just as long as it wasn't me it was happening to. I liked the movie but it made me feel really shitty. Then I watched The Hobbit afterwards, which cheered me right up and I could return to my complacent ways...
I am looking forward to the next movie, Catching Fire, I must say. Those Capitol bastards are clearly riled up by Katniss and that Peeta bloke for showing them up a little. Also, how do you go back to a normal life and shit after having to kill some people who you didn't really have anything against, except those 'evil' career tribute kids who were assholes and totally deserved to die... Even though they're kids, you know.
I figure I should read the books but I feel no real motivation to do that so I'll just wait on the movies and see how that goes.
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