A Hunger Games Controversy

I finally saw The Hunger Games. It was an intense movie that flowed more like a war documentary than a movie, but that went well with me. There was almost no obvious music. No, the drama was in the differences. Wealth versus poverty. Gluttony against starvation. Exhilaration opposing destitution. Superficiality posing as reality. Did I enjoy it? No. The reason I watched it was to learn. I wanted to learn about things that the books were marinated in. Sometimes a person just needs the watered down version to wash down the medicine.

The movie did well with explaining the history behind the 74th Annual Hunger Games. They showed the reality TV with Claudius and Caesar. They portrayed the starvation with the style of clothing found during the Holocaust. The dreary District 12 landscape looked like a concentration camp - which the Districts are, strictly speaking. The violence didn't need music, only a high pitched electronic tone that tuned out everything except for what was on screen. Clearly this wasn't to glorify the violence, or Katniss would have been blocked to take out more Tributes. She only killed when she absolutely needed to. That I liked.

More importantly the movie showed the relationships that Katniss forges. Gale as her hunting companion. Peeta as her co-victor. Haymitch as the coach. Cinna as the uncle figure. They show her fragility beneath the tough-girl mask she donned when her father died. Obviously she is a girl with a big heart that just wants her loved ones to survive. How much is that favor? Too much for her purse.

What was the controversy, however?

The profanity.

In the books there was not one single curse word. There were insults and slurs and slander of course, but no swear words. These weren't just any swear words, but the bullet the screenwriter's, or the actress, shot their feet with. The profanity was blasphemous. Any evil empire worth its reputation knows firsthand to wipe away any trace of religion that they could. References, even, would be uttered on pain of death. Take away the faith and you have a host of slaves that would do what you order because hope without a leader is a leash. The profanity was blasphemous. That alone would have unraveled Panem's skeleton. People would have asked in their minds, "What is this hell?", "What is God?", "Why am I cursing with a name?" It is natural to to ask these questions. Every society has their Socrates and Pathagorus. Panem definitely had theirs. What is this hell? What is this God? If the Socrates found who God is, a revolt would have been started. Why listen to the Capitol when one had a generous, loving God that valued His children? A Being that freed His children from oppression such as the Stalinist dictatorship President Snow wielded. That was the controversy that shouted at me the most during the film, the unraveling of the movie's spell cast over me. Kingdoms have been thrown down because of religion, because of that Being that dwells on high, whose purpose has been smeared only to be cleared again beause of a person or persons who thought it out.