SPOILER WARNING: The Hunger Games: What Probably Happened After That Dude Went Up The Stairs
So I finally managed to see most of The Hunger Games on Justin.tv last night (was 18 mins late but it repeated (re-Peeta-d? k no (ca-to? STOP IT) ). I only lost a few minutes of the beginning (and I suppose I should also count all the imagery I lost from the stream lag (every fight scene was a blur of unfortunate facial expressions)). ANYWAY, never having read the books and knowing little of the storyline I was watching to get an idea of how crap this movie could be - and it really kinda was. So LETS GET A LITTLE REALISTIC.
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After what’s-his-face, the old fart, gets pissed off and walks away (which by the way is a totally fucking weak way to end any movie), he probably goes upstairs and fires the good-looking guy with the awesome beard. Someone more suitable is hired, and hence, every subsequent Hunger Games returns to a heavy focus of generating fear and maintaining control across the districts, while in the meantime, police presence is increased to moderate the growing tremors of another revolution (seen beginning in film). Hope is stamped out, things return to as it was before, or worse (sortof like post-G20 Toronto!). The 74th Hunger Games’ winning ‘underdog’ will be viewed as a hero, certainly, but an anomaly. Especially with the questionably generous amount of help she receives (for one example, according to the rules she should have died from infection early into the game,) it would be very hard for anyone in the lower districts to think that winning as she did could ever be viable.
It would have made a lot more sense to let Katniss get almost to the finale and be killed off to let a higher district win, just enough to give the lower districts (those most likely to be upset with the regime and revolt) enough hope to have ripped away. This would have been a perfect display of the power of the Capitol over it’s governed citizens, and it’s also a model of how abusive relationships last between individuals. Through a constant ambivalence between hope and fear, sliding ‘progressively’ into fear as a means of control and using hope to reinforce desired outcomes, some people can manipulate others into doing what they wouldn’t ordinarily do or not doing what they would ordinarily do. I do not understand why she was kept alive, regardless of how many sponsors she may have had; the games were designed as a tool for the Capitol, who should have had the final word on it’s proceedings. If they were smart about governing like they seem to be otherwise, nothing like Katniss’ winning should have ever been a possibility to begin with.
Also, why is a government spending so much money on something so wasteful and time consuming in the first place? Yes, it is (morbidly) entertaining, yes, it instills fear in the community of the Capitol and it’s power - but as that old fart said, why don’t they just round up people from each district and kill them off on TV? With that time and money saved, they could even do it two or four times a year instead of just once. Why bother giving them the hope they’ll only use to rebel, which is clearly evidenced as people begin to riot, somehow fuelled by some questionable wunderkind/relative stranger named Katniss (who wasn’t even anywhere near the lead by that point and was merely a subject of Capitol media hype, something the populous surely could not buy into after 74 years).
Oh PS Katniss, it would have been a bolder statement to martyrize yourself with Peeta after being told to stop and to not accept their bullshit titles than it was to do what they wanted, after all that hell, and go back to their world and wear their stupid crown for a day before being shot back into a slum to continue to live in praise. There are cameras everywhere, you could have said goodbye, and I’m pretty sure your sister would understand the importance of what you were doing and why you weren’t coming home. (And if not, who cares, she was small and mousy and she was only onscreen for like 5 minutes anyway).
…???
