Compassion? Sympathy? The value of a human life?
Violence, death, kids murdering kids… Laughter!?
I saw “The Hunger Games” movie last night and was quite impressed with how faithful to the book it was. I thought it was all very well done, but clearly a big part of the point in the story was entirely lost on some of the audience around me. Some people laughed out loud when a teenage girl in the movie ends up dead after being repeatedly slammed into a wall by a fellow teenage competitor in the gladiator-like to-the-death battle of The Hunger Games. They laughed! Laughed!!!
A big message (or point) in the book and the movie is that of desensitization to the suffering and pain of others, especially with regards to turning such things into entertainment. The Hunger Games are a yearly competition and reality television show consisting of a bunch of 12 to 16 year old kids picked at random from 12 impoverished city districts. These contestants must survive in a huge wilderness arena, survive the manipulations of the masterminds of the “game show”, and fight the other competitors to the death in order to be the last child remaining alive, the victor. This is all for the entertainment of the citizens of The Capitol, the ruling modern city that keeps all the other 12 Districts in poverty and servitude. For the Districts, The Hunger Games are torture and misery. They are required to watch as their children, their family, their friends, their loved ones, kill each other and face terrible danger and suffering until one young person manages to outlast the rest, becoming the “hero”, the winner of the survival game. Then it all happens again next year. The contrast between the horror and pain of the selected players compared against the vapid excitement and entertainment of the Capitol’s population is well portrayed in both the book and the movie, shining a blazing spotlight on our desensitization to violence, human suffering, and our fixation with reality television.
And some people in the audience at the theatre laughed when one kid was murdered by another in a fit of rage. Folks, you epitomize the very point that the book and movie is trying to make. YOU are the heartless desensitized citizens of The Capitol, relishing the “real life” murder and mayhem. For The Capitol, The participants of the game are merely characters in a story made more potent by the background realization that these people are real and not just actors running off a script.
The whole premise of The Hunger Games is awful, terrible, tragic, and revealing. We root for the good guys, suffer as they suffer, and rejoice and laugh when anyone else (especially the “bad guys”) hurt or die. It reflects the fact that we have a great capacity to be inhuman and cold to each other and that our usage of feelings, compassion and love can be entirely situational. We care for the people we’re lead to care for or want to care for, and we mock and ridicule the rest. We cry when the characters we love suffer or die, and we enjoy the terror and satisfaction of seeing the “bad guys” hurt, lose, and die. It doesn’t even matter if these characters are children or teenagers, as the book and movie plainly points out.
Of course not everyone is like this. Not everyone is so desensitized, heartless, or easily manipulated. But it’s remarkable that in a society that constantly tries to push the message of love for our fellow man (or woman), that so much of our ability to love and care about a human life is based entirely on whether or not we like or don’t like someone.
This is completely contrary to the theme and message of Biblical Christianity. Morals are absolute, and so too should be compassion, kindness, sensitivity and love. The Bible is the story of mankind’s fall from grace and God’s work to correct our wrongs, to teach us, and to ultimately redeem us by way of great mercy and love. Every life has value and worth. Every hurt is painful to God. Not just when the “good guys” suffer. Love and compassion is not about merely caring for the people and characters you already like. Christ’s purpose is about loving and redeeming everyone, no matter who they are or what they’ve done. It’s rehabilitation and love for all mankind, despite what our mistakes and sins deserve. Compare that to laughing at another human being’s suffering and death, whether fictional or otherwise.
Look at your own life and think on these things. Look at yourself, at how you think about people in real life or fictional stories that you consume. You can shrug it off and say, “They’re not real.” Or “I can’t do anything to help them anyway.” Or “They get what they deserve.” But really? Check yourself. What does that say about you, and what if everyone behaved like that or thought like that? Is that how you want to be treated, or seen?
Don’t lose your heart. Don’t distinguish between those worthy of compassion and care and those that are not. We are all created in the image of God and we are all of great worth in God’s eyes. This should be the foundation of our moral character and values. Not whether or not we personally know or like someone.
Fantastic writing! Thanks for doing this post. I wanted to do one about the movie to make some of your points but was struggling to find the words. You said it very well!
ReplyDeleteThe Hunger Games is one of those books that I believe is an important and worthwhile read. I would put it in the same category as books like "The Giver" and "Brave New World" in that it puts up a mirror on modern society or where these underlying social ideas can go. The characters involved who live in that world are emotionally shredded and traumatized because of the horror of it all and how The Capitol absorbs it all as senseless entertainment. Haymitch, a previous winner of The Hunger Games who must help advise the two main characters of the story before they enter the arena is a prime example of the scars the game leaves on its survivors. He's a selfish hopeless alcoholic who escapes the emotional pain of his "victory" by escaping to the bottle. He comes across nicer in the movie than in the book, but the underlying example of him still remains strong.
ReplyDeleteThe book and movie are good and important lessons and I recommend the book (especially) to everyone. Its well written, fast paced, and powerful in a blunt and heart wrenching way. I would not recommend the book (and definitely not the movie where it isn't just happening in your mind's eye) to anyone below high school age because of the story's premise and violence. The ideas presented so well in the story are important and meaningful, which makes it far better than a lot of content out there today. The lessons are good ones, though difficult to swallow (as they should be).