The Hunger Games is out, and pretty freaking good.
Who’s really in charge, here…?
From The Filmblog at The Guardian (UK):
Our version of Big Brother, unlike Orwell’s, is the product of the free choice of both its viewers and participants. It wasn’t created by corporate monsters or the military-industrial complex to keep us in our place. If, as The Hunger Games seems to imply, reality TV is an evil opiate for the masses, we’re eagerly doping ourselves. Panem’s problem is straightforward compared with our own: sadly, the failings of our free society are our own fault, and can only be addressed on that basis.
Nonetheless, the film sticks to the comforting message that misery stems from the actions of the authorities. Its protagonists are the innocent victims of a system that they’re powerless to influence. Its target audience, the young, are invited to pride themselves on the blameless nobility of their age-group, but not expected to interrogate the realities of their world, or question their own passion for The X Factor.
The anonymous blogger here points out an artistic / philosophical weakness in the film (and the book, I think): the picture of tyranny in it is vastly oversimplified.
“Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games,” says Peeta Mellamark. This is the struggle of the victim against the system, truly enough.
But the blogger doesn’t go far enough:
“It says here that ‘religion is the opiate of the masses.’ What do you suppose that means?” ‘it means that Karl Marx hadn’t seen anything yet.”If you reflect for any time at all on entertainment in history, there’s a complex relationship between tyranny and victims. We collude with authorities, yes…. but are we really growing unaware that the authorities have a vested interest in keeping the population passive?
Did anybody fail to notice that our collusion in our own inactivity serves somebody very powerful?
Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 5:00AM | by 
