Review of the Hunger Games: Why Bella Sucked and Oompa-loompas Should Be Pitied but Ultimately Defied

(Housekeeping: I've been working on a lot of really exciting projects lately. My final post about 5 Days is coming this Friday, and I've been putting a LOT of effort into it so I'm really excited about it. Some of you may also remember my Canadian Bag Sailing video. I recently edited it and made it a lot shorter. The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmUhkzqQtgU. I'll post the video on here once it lets me. Now, on to the post.)

The Hunger Games movie has been out long enough now that the diehards have seen it and those who haven’t heard of it probably never will. (Don’t worry though, there aren’t any spoilers in this post). As a book to movie film, I thought it was really well done. There were a couple things that were really junior-highy (mainly Cato), but for the most part I wasn't disappointed.

When I read them—and yes I read them, wait, quick rant:

Yes, I read the Hunger Games. Why do I get mocked for that? I read them for the same reason I read Twilight (and yes, I read Twilight). As someone who intends to be a future English teacher, I think it’s kind of important to know what teens are actually reading. That, and I don’t believe in shutting something down unless I’ve read it myself (a lesson I learned from all those years of 'disagreeing' with Harry Potter). And now that I’ve read Twilight, I can say with credibility that they’re not very well written (shocking I know). But as with Twilight, and Harry Potter, and now Hunger Games, I have to give props to the writers for capitalizing on SOMETHING that worked. It may not be the best literature out there, but it’s getting people to read, so they have my respect.

End rant.

ALSO, I work at Chapters, so when every third transaction is the Hunger Games (almost no exaggeration), I felt inclined to read them. That way, when a parent asks if there’s any gore in them, I can reply with an authoritative, “Yes!” as opposed to an, “I don’t think so…?” (To that parent, I’m really sorry. Thanks for not coming back and yelling at me.)

End rant again.

ALSO, it bugs me when people hate on the Hunger Games because it’s a knockoff of Battle Royale. Yes, it’s an un-original plot. Everything is un-original. There’s no such thing as original art anymore, and that’s ok.

Continuing on.

When I first read Hunger Games I compared it to the Truman Show meets Gladiator meets Survivor meets Twilight. I devoured the series in a week, staying up until 4 in the morning reading Catching Fire because of those darn hooks at the end of every chapter. It requires almost no brainpower to read and has a morbid enough plotline that the whole can’t-look-away technique is in effect; it's captivating.

One thing that Suzanne Collins did right was the protagonist, Katniss. It’s been a long time coming that teen girls have a solid, literary, female protagonist to look up to (in pop culture that is). What I really disliked about the second book of Twilight (yes, I read all four) was how incredibly dependent Bella is on the two guys. She becomes useless when they’re not around and spends almost the entire novel in a state of depression. Yes, Hunger Games still has Katniss torn between two guys, but it’s her strength, not her fragile femininity, that is the attraction. One day it would be sweet to see a teen book that ISN’T about getting the guy/girl (judging by the front covers of every book in the teen section I’m assuming that’s what they’re all about), but for now it’s nice to at least have a character who isn’t head over heels. I actually really like how the whole love triangle thing resolved; it was less cliché than I was expecting.

The thing that unnerved me though (moreso while I was watching the movie than reading the books), was the grotesque irony of it all. It’s a movie about a sick group of people who find entertainment in watching teenagers fight to the death. While I sat there sucking back my overpriced popcorn, thinking about how much I was enjoying the movie, I couldn’t help but reflect on how odd it was that I was finding entertainment in watching teenagers fight to the death. (Games-ception, anyone?). I wish this hadn’t made me feel as guilty as it did.

You could argue that it’s not the same—people aren’t actually dying—but that’s a fairly poor argument. It's about the ideals, not the reality of it.

The strongest argument supporting the movie is in its educational ability. It comes in the form of Katniss’ hairdressers. All of the Oompa-loompa citizens of the Capitol (seriously, I can't be the only one who just saw crowds and crowds of oompa-loompas) are complex; they’re not evil, they’re just unaware. They subscribe to the ideals of the society because it’s what everyone does, simple as that. Katniss slowly begins to realize how completely ignorant they actually are and ultimately pities them. Cinna, played by Lenny Kravitz (side note: when my friend and I were watching the movie she pointed out that all the scenes with Katniss and Cinna seemed oddly sensual. We decided to blame this entirely on the fact that it was Lenny Kravitz. Also, Lenny Kravitz and Lionel Richie are not the same person, I know that now). Anyway, Cinna is a redemptive character because he does his part to fight back against the ideals, despite being in the thick of the Capitol mentality as a designer for the Games.

Ultimately, the series does promote an attitude that defies the sadistic mentality. Most people who have read the books say that the first one is great and it kind of goes downhill from there. From a literary standpoint, that’s probably true, but the second and third book are necessary for not allowing the series be a total bloodbath. It supports fighting out against the brainwashed majority. Comparisons could be made between this lesson and real life issues such as the Holocaust. Going against the predominant sadistic mindset is what made heroes out of Bonhoeffer or Corrie ten Boom. You could also compare it to the less violent issues of today; the issues of conforming to a capitalist, materialist, consumerist mindset. The movie does a really good job of showing the sharp contrast between the rich and the poor.

As you can tell, I would love to go into a classroom and analyze the crap out of this series, but unfortunately I’m not there yet. What’s more unfortunate are the hordes of teenagers who watch this movie (seriously, since when did teenagers become SO obsessive) and enjoy it for the sake of enjoying it. If I had kids I would not let them watch it without having a talk with them afterwards because it’s too easy to take it in as entertainment and leave it at that. I know that this is a lot of effort over a silly teen movie, but it’s movies like this that will begin to define the minds of kids, who then turn into adults—adults who have mindsets that, unbeknownst to them, are strikingly similar to the Capitol. Instead it can be a really great opportunity to point out issues in class, gender, and group mentality. 

But hey, I’m not a father and I don’t have kids who I can force to sit and talk with. Instead I just write blogs.