Musings on the Hunger Games

This weekend I watched the popular movie after only recently finishing the first of the books in the series. The movie answered a few crucial questions for me, bridged gaps that left me grasping for more.

A Clash of Generations
In the book, it was really difficult for me to imagine what generation it looked or felt like. Of course, it’s essentially post-apocalyptic America, but the lifestyle of District 12 seems very colonial and the lifestyle of the Capitol seemed shiny-jumpsuit weird, so my mind threw together some clashing, inconsistent images.

In this sense, the movie was really great, revealing a District 12 that was a mix of the 1920s era coal-mining community with colonial sensibilities: simply dull, washed out clothing; most women in skirts, dresses and some bandanas; bartering and trading for a living, reliance on hunting.

Then, the training of the tributes seemed perfectly modern: simple, efficient clothing (women can wear pants) that didn’t seem to announce any era in particular.

The lifestyle at the Capitol was indeed a mix of generations: many dressed in the corsets and bustles of the late 19th century, but in vivid spring colors, much like is popular at Target and other affordable trendy stores these days, instead of the browns and crimsons of the 19th century.

Even the Capitol, with it’s super-metro city that recalls images of historic Paris and travel via helicopter, chariots, high speed trains... creates this complicated mesh of trends and time periods. Even the post-games interview seemed to have its own generation: more similar to a 60’s game show- everything bright, glossy and pretty.

All to say that my mind’s eye pulling arbitrary images from all sorts of places wasn’t far off from the movie’s mix-and-matched sensibility. I suppose it was a small relief to have this eclectic definition of scene and setting: that the future, apart from being cruel and seemingly hopeless is a wild array of the past and, of course, possibly not a far stretch away from where we are now.

Influences?
Since the movie, a big question has been rolling around in my mind: what about our generation brought us to be so pumped about a story like this? (I’ll throw a few of my guesses out, I'd like to hear yours)

It seems like this fresh new fusion of woods-smart girl power (Pocahontas), kids surviving with few tools (Hatchet), the loss of political innocence/trust (The Giver, The Island, etc) and probably hooked a good deal of Lost fans into a more satisfyingly definitive storyline.


A concern
My partner in crime for the evening, Whitfield, mentioned that he was disappointed in the lack of scenes that actually portray the tributes deaths, that PG 13 ratings had restricted the power of the storytelling. At first I wanted to disagree, for personal reasons like simply not wanting to see more blood or focus on the deaths of children or characters I’d grown attached to, but it’s true. This part of the book-to-movie process should be consistent- the intensity and cutting truth of it. Essential scenes, like the entire night of Cato’s death were critical to the character development of Katniss and Peeta.

Should we allow children to read something brutal and then make the visual portrait less powerful, dulling the sting of it in the name of selling more movie tickets?