Yeah...this one's got a bit of a following...
For those of you who are living under a rock or who only get your news and entertainment from the Sword, the best-selling novel The Hunger Games comes to theaters Friday. Don’t bother trying to reserve a ticket for the midnight show: the film is already setting records for pre-ordered ticket sales. Harry Potter, thy successor is Katniss Everdeen, and her patronus is the Mockingjay.
The Hunger Games is further evidence that some of the best stories are those initially written for the young. Youth is still imaginative enough to get lost in a good story, and idealistic enough that the big themes and large truths can be understood and appreciated through a fictional lens.
The Hunger Games Official Trailer
Suzanne Collins has marvelously captured the complex private mind of her heroine with her blunt yet cryptic writing style: the reader is in Katniss’ head, but Katniss does not want the reader there (she’s too private, and the reader gets way too close). The reader is only privy to what Katniss allows the reader to know, but upon the revelations, Katniss often seems upset with herself for letting her guard down long enough to share any of her heart with us: she doesn’t want the exposure to hurt us, too.
Funny thing though: we empathize with the stand-offish Katniss. We want to be closer to the dangerous Girl on Fire. We understand her because we’ve invested ourselves in her story. We root for her, because on some level, we see something of ourselves in her, be it her devotion to her family, her isolation, her strength, her intellect, her ingenuity in the face of complex obstacles, or perhaps we identify with just the absolute fury and contempt she feels for the state of things in her world.
We see ourselves in the captivating tales…
It is interesting to me that this story is viewed mainly through jaded and narrow political lenses by adults, but through the wide eyed lenses of Good vs. Evil by the young.
You are here.
Liberal readers identify the tributes as the Occupiers and the Capital as greedy thoughtless Corporate America, while conservatives see the tributes as the Tea Party, and the Capital as an intrusive and obese Government Bureaucracy. Aren’t we funny? Adults identify with the hero politically, and place their ideological enemy in the shoes of the current bad guy. Teens identify with the characters emotionally, and place those who’ve hurt them on a personal level in the shoes of the bad guy.
Anything for ratings...
Looking at the current political climate through this story is interesting. Our society is obsessed with fame and power. We do ridiculous and disgusting things to get ourselves on YouTube. People actually are trying to become contestants on the next season of The Bachelor, Survivor and (God help us) even Big Brother. The Biggest Loser producers actually had the gall to hold this week’s weigh-in at…you’re never gonna believe this…Pearl Harbor. The Pearl Harbor. Where the bubbles still slowly rise. How they got permission place their gaudy scale on that hallowed ground over that holy grave is a complete mystery to me, and the fact that no one seems to have batted so much as an eyelash is evidence of how deep our obsession with fame is. We have trampled our sacred places in our Amazing Race to the bank.
What can save a society that views manipulation, personal embarrassment, exploitation, pain and the suffering that results as entertainment? How do regular people survive their fifteen minutes when they ran rushing headlong into the cameras? What happens to children forced to kill? How do soldiers go on after the war?
Our government sends its youth into battle, and we follow them around with CNN’s cameras, Anderson’s attractive color commentary, Drudge’s secret sources, and the Fox Panel’s “thoughtful discourse” sponsored in part by Ford and McDonald’s and Aflac. There is actually a movie out now starring active duty Navy Seals in re-created actual combat situations. Real-Life war-mongering as entertainment. And, lemme tell you, they’re all successful in the only way that Americans seem to really care about: they’re pulling down major bank.
It could just be me, but there’s something really sickening about that.
I get that movies that depict realism have an important role to play: they make us think. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out the value of reality shows like The Real Housewives of Wherever. I imagine some people can live with themselves by giving the public “what they want.” I value our nation’s high premium on freedom of expression. I can understand that an informed electorate is a more thoughtful electorate, and that understanding our nation’s actions and positions in war and peace is vital forming our own convictions and to being a good citizen. But is that why people go see “Act of Valor”? I’m not sure: the real-world critiques I’ve heard run the gamut from “Couldn’t they have gotten better actors?” to “Dude! The battle scenes were so intense!”
Let the mind games begin.
All of the best stories (and even some of the crappy ones) show us ourselves, and our capacity for honest observation is the barometer by which we correctly interpret the truth. This is why interpreting poetry and fiction and understanding things like our history and the Canon of Scripture are so difficult: these things speak to us very personally, very individually, and we are interpreting the significance of stories told by authors who are difficult to reach, so we can’t know exactly what they were trying to say. Where we see each other in our common stories is a window into how we see ourselves. This is why Biblical interpretation is all over the map, and why both a conservative and a liberal can see themselves as Katniss. The more magnified the reflection of ourselves in the story, the more powerful the story, and The Hunger Games is a pretty good magnifier. The most powerful magnifier, though, is the Scriptures.
We read the Bible, and we choose to see ourselves as Rahab on the roof, but not as Rahab in the bed. We identify with David the King, not David the Killer. Yet, the scriptures constantly repeat the prophet Nathan’s words, “Thou art the man,” and we cringe at our reflection, yet we can’t turn away: the best stories cut deeply. They convict us.
Naw, naw naw, it ain't me babe...
It’s the same with the lesser tales: we see ourselves in Gale the Loyal, but not Gale the Jealous. We see ourselves as Haymitch the Educator, but not Haymitch the Weak, as Effie the Beautiful, not Effie the Idiot. We never actually see ourselves as Snow the Controller at all, though many of us fill his shoes rather comfortably. We can empathize with the Careers and the Rues and the Senecas when they aren’t actually seated next to us. Somehow, we can understand that everyone is Somebody the Hurting, but only when we encounter them on a movie screen, or in a book, and only very rarely when we meet them on the street.
Our country can come together metaphorically through our stories, as the lines at the movies this weekend will bear out. We can understand the broader point when it’s presented in the context of a good story, but once the story ends, and we put the book down, leave the theatre and return to real life, our understanding and our empathy disappear as quickly as the popcorn in the bucket, and we have to put our labels back on, get in our cars behind that moron in the giant SUV with the three screaming brats, and re-take our place in the war between the reds and the blues, the believers and the atheists, the Catholics and the Protestants (and the Baptists who, for the most part, refuse to associate with either category), the home-schoolers or the public schoolers, the gays or the straights, the whites or the African-Americans or the Latinos or the Asians, or…well, you get the idea.
Perhaps we should ignore politics and just read good books, and the Book, and try placing ourselves in the bad guy’s shoes for a while…we could stand a bit of humbling.