The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games movie was just released this week after years of sales of the trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins.  The moral effort made by Collins in her books, and in this movie version of the first book, are to be applauded.  The books and movie are a blend of Lord of the Flies,and The Gladiator, with a sprinkling of The Runing Man, Survivor, and The Truman Show.  The combination of Roman style gladiatorial fights to the death with modern reality television works well as a commentary upon our society's willingness to entertain itself with the misery of others.  Our morbid fascination with violence can be seen in the countless Youtube videos of street fights, the growth of the UFC and other extreme fighting shows, and the violence filled video games that children and adults love so much.
The emotional impace that The Hunger Games is able to have is due largely to its use of children as the fighters (as opposed to the adult slaves being used in The Gladiator or the classic Spartacus).  With each death of a child competitor our own innocence is further lost a bit unless we reject (as Collins hopes we will) such trivialization of life.  It isn't good enough to say that this is the world we live in; to throw our hands up and admit defeat.  As in Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Andrew Peterson (the Wingfeather Saga), there are things worth fighting for.  To defend the weak and the innocent against the strong is a noble pursuit, but to simply revel in violence for its own sake, for entertainment, or for cynical political purposes (as the government in The Hunger Games does) is to begin walking down a path that leads back to mankind's oldest obsession: self-destruction.