Too dangerous to let them live?

Nicole and I went to the Tuesday evening cheap movies, as is our habit when there is something worth seeing, to see Insurgent, the second in the Divergent series.  I'll say this generically so as to not create a spoiler, in the movie, two primary characters who are identified with the "good guys" shoot two "bad guy" prisoners, one in handcuffs, the other in a prison cell.  The scenes themselves aren't graphic, the movie is PG-13, but still rather disturbing, and certainly a harsh topic for inclusion in a movie geared for teens.  This reminds me of the discussion about the end of the last Superman movie, Man of Steel, where Superman kills General Zod by snapping his neck to prevent him from killing some innocent bystanders.  My friend and neighbor, Pastor Jeff Little from First UMC, objected strongly to that decision because as life-long Superman fan, he was adamant that Superman always has to find a way to win without killing anyone.  With the finale of the Hunger Games due out this fall, and a sequel to The Maze Runner on the way, it seems clear that the topic of killing to protect the innocent, or to advance a worthwhile cause, will continue to be present in the movies.  This is starkly contrasted with the epiphany of Harry Potter at the end of that franchise when he finds pity for Voldemort instead of hatred, and the ending of the latest version of Cinderella, which happily ends with a moment of Christ-like forgiveness for one who doesn't deserve it.

We live in a world with dangerous terrorists, with those willing to blow up churches, mosques, pizza shops, planes, anything and everything in order to kill as many men, women, and children as possible.  Our government routinely orders remote drone strikes in foreign nations as a response to this threat, along with whatever other clandestine means are used to eliminate those who pose a threat, often before they can act.  I'm not offering up a solution to the moral dilemma of having government officials acts as judge, jury, and executioner over the lives of foreign citizens; the quagmire we find ourselves in does not allow for easy answers.  This is simply an observation that art is imitating life, our comic book and dystopian movies that we view as entertainment have come face to face with one of the moral questions that our society has yet to come to grips with.  To save the innocent is indeed noble, but what is it when that saving involves killing others without trial, and what is it when they're killed preemptively?  These are questions worth asking, questions our films are confronting more directly than our government.

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.