So where are the Harry Haters and Twilight bashers in the Hunger Games madness that has overtaken the Public Square? This is an opportunity at least as great as previous manias to make some Culture War points to those captive to an Us-Other narrative in religion and politics. Where are the objections to Katniss and Peeta’s celibate shacking up on the bullet train, an outcry that we listened to about the celibate embraces of Bella and Edward? Why no alarm bells about the in-text and on-screen violence of children killing children without remorse?

The Christian Hall Monitors are still with us, it turns out, but there is little steel in their warnings about Hunger Games. If the books did make the ALA list of ‘books folks object to seeing on library book shelves’ this year, that seems only to reflect their popularity more than objections of any substance. For proof of the surprisingly soft warnings or even approval coming from the ‘usual suspects, see “A Parent’s Guide to the Hunger Games” by Rebecca Cusey, “An Exploration of the Books’ Relevance to Christians” by Janie Cheaney, The Hunger Games and the Gospel: Bread, Circuses, and the Kingdom of God (Kindle edition) by Julie Clawson, and Focus on the Family’s review of the series’ first book.

The last does note that “the h — word” appears once and that Gale and Katniss are a little lax in their Sabbath obligations:

A few times, Katniss mentions having good luck. Rue carries a good luck charm. Katniss says the woods where she hunts have been the savior of her and her family. She says her mother and sister can work magic with herbs (meaning that they’re good at making and administering medicines). Before becoming a tribute, Katniss devoted her Sundays to hunting and trading with Gale.

Besides this, though, the review notes that the violence, drinking, and gambling are largely critiques of excess and a culture gone mad rather than examples to emulate. A conservative journal, National Review, claims the book and movie as red meat for Red State true believers who hate the Capitol as Capitol Hill (The Hunger Games, Politics, and Your Kids – National Review Online).

Three thoughts on this:

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A dear friend wrote to me after seeing the Katniss Barbie doll, the one modeled on Miss Everdeen of the Esquire photo shoot, not Pippi of Panem of the novels, to express his alarm:

So, the question is: did Collins agent let her get hoodwinked and sell rights for things she’d never approve of? (Remember JKR’s promise that there would be no Harry Potter Happy Meals? I don’t think there ever was one, buy-your-own-wand aside.) Or has she in fact cheerfully and lucratively embraced the very culture she was claiming to subvert?

I mean, seriously–can you see Orwell approving little plush Napoleons?

I can see why my friend wrote me directly rather than post this thought, this note of disappointment in the Capitol-ization of the books, in that thread’s comment boxes. Who wants to say the ugly ‘sell-out’ words about the author? I sure don’t.

But I thought of Suzanne Collins this week and last during all the hullaballoo about the movie premiere. She was conspicuously absent, no? Except for the photo above (which came with a story explaining she didn’t do any interviews on the red carpet) she is out of the picture. Contrast the number of her interviews and photo shoots with those of the movie director, Gary Ross.

He is everywhere — at least as in the news as any of the stars and starlet, and with the speculation that he won’t be director any longer, he is more in the news than anyone. Ms. Collins is relatively invisible, only alluded to as justification for major changes in her screenplay and novel story line and meaning. In comparison with her triplet sisters in the Book-Become-Movie-Mania Bazillionaire Club on Roll-Out Day, Suzanne Collins makes near wall-flowers Joanne Rowling and Stephenie Meyer seem like exhibitionists off their meds and on a tequila bender.

Two thoughts: [Read more…]

In honor of Passover this week, here is a guest post from Hanna on the traditional symbolism of the Plagues in Egypt that appear in the Quarter Quell of Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire.

I think you’ll agree with me that this layering of supernatural and historical referents on top of the alchemical sequencing of that Games’ events gives the Tick-Tock time bomb its nightmarish palimpsest quality.

I was re-reading my Passover Haggadah and it struck me that the Gamesmaker plagues echo the ten plagues and the events of the Exodus and even the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai (though scrambled and hidden as is only right since they were created by un-redeemed humans, not by G-d).

So here’s my key to the Catching Fire arena as an allegory of our going out of Egypt (in Hebrew: mitzrayim or the ‘place of narrowness or constriction’): [Read more…]

A Shared Text moment occurs when a book or film has become so much a commonplace among members of an extended family or community that references can be made to it in other contexts to make points of meaning without fear that those in the conversation will not understand the points because they have not read or seen the film in question. Harry Potter is the first ‘shared text’ of the 21st century, for example, and it is something of a sport here at HogwartsProfessor to pick up references to Muggles, Quidditch, Owl Posts, and He Who Must Not Be Named in newspaper articles, teevee advertising, and editorial cartoons.

Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games is rapidly gaining ‘Shared Text’ status, if, as often as not, references to the story in print media and online still come with some helpful explanation.

Much of the discussion, for example, about Hunger Games and specifically the Film because of its great success at the box office is about its political meaning. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, that is because its spiritual allegory has been hijacked by the Gamesmakers who chose to downplay the one (and the anti-Hollywood theme) to score political points instead. Be that as it is, partisans on the left and right of the American political spectrum, statists and tea party members, are invoking the Hunger Games to make their assertions and denials. The story is entering our speech as Shared Text and specifically our competing political monologues.

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