It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => Entertainment => Topic started by: Pablo de Fleurs on December 08, 2013, 04:01:41 PM
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'Hunger Games' Taps the Desire for Freedom
Amy Payne | December 8, 2013 at 8:25 am
When The Hunger Games movie debuted last year, we published this post about how the novels truly represent the human desire for freedom. Since the second movie in the trilogy was released last weekend, it’s appropriate to spotlight that message again.
Why does the movie adaptation of The Hunger Games have more than 3 million fans on Facebook? More than 1,000 showings of the film, which opens tonight at midnight, have already sold out. It’s simple: Readers of the book have put themselves in the story.
It’s a gripping first-person narrative that prods the reader to wonder, “What would I do in this situation?” again and again. And it’s a fight for liberty—personal and collective—that is relatable. Like many enduring tales, The Hunger Games features everyday individuals fighting evil against all odds. In their country of Panem, entertainment and oppression have melded into a frightening mutation (or, to use a term coined by author Suzanne Collins, “muttation”). The iron-fisted Capitol keeps the districts (the states of Panem) down by pitting them against each other in a televised annual spectacle, the Hunger Games. Each district must send one male and one female “tribute” between the ages of 12 and 18 to compete in a fight to the death. The winner is lavished with wealth and food, which is scarce for most.
The Capitol is a gluttonous place where citizens’ needs are more than met, giving them time to fixate on adorning their bodies and seeking entertainment. They are the main audience for the Hunger Games, though the impoverished people in the districts are forced to watch as well.
While the Capitol could be a metaphor for Americans’ obsession with entertainment, desensitization to violence, and voyeuristic pleasure in “reality” TV, the notion of a government with absolute control—and citizens struggling for their freedom—extends from the American Revolution to the tea parties of recent years.
“We’re thankfully a very faint shadow of Panem in the United States, but increasingly we live at the mercy of politicians irrespective of party,” writes John Tamny in Forbes. “If this is doubted, try to evade your taxes, and when you get a letter from the IRS asking for them, ignore the letter.”
Tamny calls the novel “a boisterous comment about the certain horrors of big government.” And though Panem is an overblown caricature, the theme resonates. The government dictates the work citizens are allowed to do, the places they’re allowed to go, and the tribute they must pay to the Capitol. There is little hope because there is no prospect of freedom. There is no opportunity for individual achievement or innovation, and many turn to the black market—the closest thing they have to a free market—just to obtain food.
Author John Eldredge, who says “We’ve lost the fact that reality is a story,” has written at length about the power of a narrative that draws us in and makes us feel like we are part of a greater cause.
“In Algebra you can say, ‘I understand that!’ But in a great story you say, ‘I want to live like that,’” Eldredge says.
This is the reason the story of The Hunger Games inspires—the timeless truth that freedom is worth fighting for.
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/12/08/hunger-games-taps-the-desire-for-freedom/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social (http://blog.heritage.org/2013/12/08/hunger-games-taps-the-desire-for-freedom/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social)
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I've seen both Hunger Games movies, and both were inspiring. It looks like the next film will move into open resistance.
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I haven't seen the films or read the books. I've just read what others say about them. Based on what I have read about them, I think the most intriguing theme is the idea that their Capitol, full of well fed and pampered occupants, lords over the "Districts", when it is the districts that actually do all the producing and endure all the sacrifice. Kind of evokes another Capitol and its own "districts", no?
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The left has been trying to fight the movies by claiming they are about "wealth disparity" (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/26/hunger-games-fans-harry-potter-alliance) as if you could ignore the hand in hand govt/business totalitarian fascist thing - which both of our major parties are leading us toward.
But yeah, if only those officials in the govt had even MORE power, then that wealth disparity would go away .
They have to try and co-opt the narrative.. or they might have another Firefly on their hands.
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Good movies. This doesn't hurt the entertainment value either...
(http://cdn03.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/jen-luncheon/jennifer-lawrence-oscar-nominees-luncheon-2013-14.jpg)
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I was surprised that I liked them as much as I did. Going in (and not knowing anything about the story) I was prepared for another crapfest like "Twilight" but was relieved that it wasn't so.
The final book will be split into two movies, though, from what I have seen at imdb.com Which is not really a surprise since "The Hobbit" has somehow been made into a three parter.
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Just watched the first one on Netflix and yes, I agree, better than 99% of Hollywood drek, today.
I also saw the capital city as Washington DC, and how it has sucked the life out of the remaining country. Plus, can you just see anti-American Democrat garbage preventing one from moving, for example, from Seattle to South Carolina, like Boeing? Or any Democrat s**thole to a red state, for that matter.
The best science fiction extrapolates from today's events, in a believable way. From reality TV to the political situation, the Hunger Games does it in spades.
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Just watched the first one on Netflix and yes, I agree, better than 99% of Hollywood drek, today.
I also saw the capital city as Washington DC, and how it has sucked the life out of the remaining country. Plus, can you just see anti-American Democrat garbage preventing one from moving, for example, from Seattle to South Carolina, like Boeing? Or any Democrat s**thole to a red state, for that matter.
The best science fiction extrapolates from today's events, in a believable way. From reality TV to the political situation, the Hunger Games does it in spades.
... and Katniss. ::pimp::
(http://cdn03.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/jen-luncheon/jennifer-lawrence-oscar-nominees-luncheon-2013-14.jpg)
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Aye, nice. If you go for young and purdy...
;D
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Now, Libertas.
For me, old, fat and ugly ::hysterical::
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Yeah, stay outta trouble with them!
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... and did I mention Katniss?
(http://cdn03.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/jen-luncheon/jennifer-lawrence-oscar-nominees-luncheon-2013-14.jpg)