DIANA writes:

I saw the blockbuster du jour, Hunger Games, on the second day of its release. Suffice it to say, I thought it was drivel, with awful production values and shopworn ideas. What most interests me here is not the movie itself but two reviews of it in conservative publications.  I respectfully disagree with the approval that The Hunger Games has been accorded in two conservative outlets, which I generally admire.

Paul Kersey writes about the movie at Vdare , but his review is really a reference to a more thoughtful and lengthy piece by Gregory Hood at Counter Currents..

The central premise of Hood’s review is: “Also, while centrally produced and disseminated by a culturally destructive elite, a truly popular story can’t help but reflect deeply embedded archetypes or widely shared sentiments, even those that are suppressed or forbidden by the people themselves.”

That dog won’t hunt. The last time they tried to sell me that was with All in the Family. Conservatives at first hated that show but Archie Bunker, as portrayed by the late, great Carroll O’Connor, became something of a hero. The audience transformed the butt into the reason for watching the show, it’s true, but, except on rare occasions, the producers were always on “The Meathead’s” side, and he always got the last word, so no matter what, the liberals won.

Same goes for Hunger Games. Just because it pays lip service to some vague, generalized anti-establishmentarianism, and that establishment is liberal, doesn’t stop it from being what it is: pseudo-feminist girl power trash, with a butt-kicking babe heroine, who shoots straight and true, a wimpy beta male love interest who for some reason can’t, and of course, all the good guys are black…did you read about that in the reviews, that the good guys are all black?

No, so read Mr. Hood’s review, paying particular attention to the character’s Cinna, Thresh and Rue, the first of whom (I gather, I haven’t read them) wasn’t black in the books. I would add to this that an unnamed black character in the film starts an anti-government revolution (so he’s another black good guy); that Rue’s death scene rivals that of Little Nell’s as maudlin camp, and that Thresh, a young black man, throttles to death a young white female contestant in full view of the camera, while his death is mercifully indicated off screen, and not shown. Stacking the books, anyone? (Without going into unnecessary detail, all of the Hunger Games contestants are shown as bad, evil and rotten, except for our heroine, her boyfriend – and the two black contestants. Why would that be? Shouldn’t all the Hunger Games contestants be shown as hapless unwilling child victims?)

The real joke in The Hungr Games is on us. At the beginning of the fictional, cinematic eponymous Hunger Games, we watch 24 kids club each other like baby seals, some of them to death. At that moment, as much as I disliked the film, I was still in the experience and thus not hyper-judgmental. Watching that, I snapped out of the experience and into reality. I asked myself, “Am I watching cinematic characters watch The Hunger Games, or am I watching The Hunger Games?” I realized it was the latter — I was watching the Hunger Games — and I felt awful.

It’s an ironic thing that conservative intellectuals are more admiring of Hollywood trash than libs are. Liberals mostly stay aloof from blockbusters, and prefer foreign fare, indies, and so on. Conservatives see things that just aren’t there. I think these two reviewers are seeing things in Hunger Games that don’t exist. It’s bad stuff, for an undereducated and degraded populace.

Conservatives should not  be taken in by this tripe.

                                    — Comments —

Daniel S. writes:

I too saw Hunger Games over the weekend and did not have the strong reaction that Diana has expressed (I agree with much of what Gregory Hood wrote). I cannot claim to have much of a reaction at all, finding the movie only mildly entertaining. On the other hand, I did not find the movie to be an expression of silly, girl power feminism of the sort promoted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nor was the protagonist Sandra Fluke with a bow. In fact her strong family devotion and self sacrifice stands in contrast to the self-absorbed, anti-family feminism so favored by our liberal elites.

The presentation of the ruling elites was one of the few items that stood out to me. They were bizarre, even freakish in their attire, with most of the males appearing effeminate and is quite decadent, the sort of people one would expect to find in San Francisco or some other culturally liberal bastion. Hardly the clean cut, tie-wearing, right-wing theocratic fascists that one is used to (think V for Vendetta). I think this is one of the most interesting aspects of the film and certainly something I might comment on further once I have had more time to flesh out my ideas.

The violent aspects of the film were relatively tame compared to what is routinely found in television and film, and little of the violence is depicted in graphic detail. Coming out of the film I thought concerns about the movie’s potentially violent content that the media frequently commented on were a bit overblown.

Aside from those few personal observations, I do not think the film can be branded as liberal, though it contains many liberal themes, as is to be expected. It is not a “conservative” movie either, though it does contain many elements that are not in accord with liberal orthodoxy, which I think does appeal to many conservatives in an age of liberal totalitarianism. Clearly this is not a traditionalist story that would be found in Tolkien or C. S. Lewis, but there are certainly several themes in the story that are not without their merit. Again, if I am able to find the time I should like to provide more commentary on the themes I only briefly touched on here.

James N. writes:

I have not seen or read it. All I know of it is the movie trailer, seen in TV ads.

However, that alone is sufficient to make a single comment.

In a world of savagery and competition for survival, women and girls will not be ass-kicking heroines. They will instead be traded like poker chips if they are lucky, and brutalized and then disposed of if they are not.

As it was in WW II China, in Eastern Europe/Germany, in Rwanda, in Bosnia, as it is in Congo, as it is always and everywhere when there is no government and people are thrown back on their own ability to survive.

Daniel S. writes:

James N. writes:

In a world of savagery and competition for survival, women and girls will not be ass-kicking heroines. They will instead be traded like poker chips if they are lucky, and brutalized and then disposed of if they are not.

As it was in WW II China, in Eastern Europe/Germany, in Rwanda, in Bosnia, as it is in Congo, as it is always and everywhere when there is no government and people are thrown back on their own ability to survive.

In the story there is a government, indeed a highly totalitarian one that maintains a tight control over the outlying districts, which produce raw materials for the Capitol. The “Hunger Games”, a sort of gladiator event, is indeed brutal, but that should not confused with the political structure depicted in the story. It presents not a Mad Max-type anarchy or the Wild West of a Clint Eastwood movie, rather the Capitol has a relationship with the subdued districts similar to the one the Soviet Union held with the Soviet block states, who were kept in line through violence and terror.

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