Down with metanarratives...
Up with individuality 'cause everyone's doing it!
So I don't usually buy into the popular entertainment, yet somehow I get swarmed by it and usually with hesitation I partake. My attitudes toward such things are probably more described as an inherent hipster. I feel as though partaking in such mainstream pop-culture will somehow give me a kool-aid moustache and I will join all the other brain dead punch drinkers.
The ironic part of that philosophy is that my curiosity gets the best of me and I must see what the buzz is about so that I can critically pick it apart. The second motivation was the fact that my 12 year old son had recently read the book on a recommendation from his teacher. And so I partook.
My favorite thing about metaphors is that only the writer truly knows what they are trying to communicate. I love asking people what they thought the underlying story was with the hunger games. I usually hear that it's anti-government libertarian rhetoric. But let’s see..
What I find interesting is that the overall theme of a rich and powerful elite exploits a dumbed-down mass of people. They employ surveillance and mass media to propagate (yes I just said that) a blood ritual of killing in a modern arena. The poor masses are required to watch their own children killing each other and watch this horrific event.
I felt as I watched this story that there was little to no difference between myself as a movie goer and those in the hunger games being forced to watch. I was there, distracted by the media and the world's elite to watch and be amused. Was I much different than those in the story? I am only reminded of the elite's power to get me into that theater...
Is The Hunger Games attempting to warn our youth of the dangers of a totalitarian government? Or is it simply programming us to become another district? I felt poorer and more brainless for watching. I'm district 14...I’m part of the metaphor!!
That was great Jeff thanks for shareing.
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