I just can’t help myself. For my last blog, I’ve decided to go on a bit of a rant in regards to the latest Hunger Games film that has come out.
Maybe its just me, but it seems that movies today are becoming ridiculously more lucrative (a welcoming idea, considering that once upon a time online piracy was supposed to cripple the film industry). With each successful sequel, a good franchise can tack on an extra billion dollars to its name. The most recent of all: the Hunger Games.
What (I believe) is making this franchise so successful is its overall ability to speak to different demographics. At first glance, I thought it was just another crack at teenage girl demo, until all of a sudden I noticed EVERYONE watching the films, including my educated friends who I thought would be as skeptical as I was before paying for a ticket (at this point I should note that I saw the first two films in theatres). I’ve gotten the same spiel from a lot of different people, namely about how the film criticizes our ridiculously over-the-top fascination with popular culture and reality television.
On the surface, yes, it definitely dose offer some interesting reflections of how our culture is ridiculously fascinated with the lives of the rich and famous and our particular yearning for violence on film and television. But it also capitalizes off of the very fascination that it allegedly critiques.
The machine that is the Hunger Games thrives off of the box-office draw that is Jennifer Lawrence, who has been the subject of wide public interest over the past three years and has graced the cover of virtually every entertainment magazine known to humanity. She might as well walk around every day in a flaming dress.
But aside from the publicity of the films’ lead actress, the franchise also taps into mass audiences by offering what is essentially cinematic junk food layered with a thin candy coating in the form of what is allegedly ‘social commentary’. Audiences aren’t offered anything different from the regular blockbuster: we get a simple story with simple characters and a simple conflict, coupled with mass violence, shiny special effects, and fatally attractive cast members. The only difference is this time we get loose lesson in morality that is ultimately violated by the film’s very existence.
The Hunger Games shouldn’t be viewed as a cultural text that is going to inform the masses about a higher state of consciousness and being. It is a commercial product that is catered to extract money from the pockets the many, and will continue to do so for at least the next two years.
My god what would we have done if she had turned down the role???