Wrong of Passage: Film Review

This afternoon I saw the film The Hunger Games, the latest in the young-adult genre of films. I, like most fans I think, was attracted by the dark futuristic premise of a battle-to-the-death.

From the beginning, the film moves quickly. It's an edge-of-your-seat action flick, well composed to deliver conflict, tension, and surprise at every turn. The cinematography animates the tension well except for the choice to use so much shaky-camera technique. There are sequences in the film which leave the viewer almost seasick. I suppose, however, that much of the choice to film in this way was to reduce the otherwise R-rated violent content to a PG-13 rating. The cut-away and blurring shots reduced the amount of explicit violence on the screen.

More attractive and troubling about the film are ingrained attributes of the story's world. From the beginning we know that a small group of lower class adolescents must compete to survive an ordeal manufactured by a wealthy and powerful upper class. Within the group of adolescents are the favored and the underdogs. This stratifiction resonates with the underdog-loving bias of American viewers: young, untested naivete against older, trained experts. As the film progresses, however, we find that the conflict goes deeper than the knives and arrows the youth sling at each other.

The underlying social conflict of The Hunger Games is generational. Every adult character is evil, impotent, or simply blind to the atrocity of the Games. Katniss, our heroine, has a mother who is unable to care properly for her two daughters. (Her father has been dead for a long time.) The adults of the Capitol are either so evil (as we suspect about the President) or so blinded by their opulence as to be of no help to the cause of oppressed districts and "tributes." The so-called mentor of Katniss and Peeta, the retired victor of the Hunger Games, though at times wise in the ways of the Games, is a surly drunk. Only the training consultant, Cinna, seems to desire the best for the teens; but even his concern is limited to the absurd context of the homicidal game show. To sum it up: adults are not to be trusted.

The rite of passage is as old as human culture. Innumerable stories from time immemorial relate the tales of youth becoming adults. This aspect of The Hunger Games makes the film viscerally compelling. Say what you like about the acting, the cinematography, or the animation; the central theme of kids becoming adults--the hard way--will rivet every viewer. As it should! This theme speaks to a central truth of all humanity: the world is a cruel place, filled with evil, difficult choices, and unintended consequences.

But we must not miss the subtle change in The Hunger Games, as in other recent works such as Riordan's Olympians cycle and Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Events. Whereas traditional rite-of-passage stories have focused on children battling for their wisdom against nature, a singular enemy, or  ignorance, The Hunger Games has made adults the enemy. Those who have passed through to adulthood (or have the money to avoid such passage) are the evil with which the youth must come to terms.

Every fantasy story is, on some level, prophecy about the present day. We must ask whether this shift in the rite-of-passage motif is true about our age. (Some researchers and demographers believe this to be accurate, i.e. Chap Clark.) Adolescents, the generational invention of the past century, have been left on their own to navigate the world, challenged or rejected by adults. If this shift has not actually taken place, then we--especially parents and educators--must take note of how media like The Hunger Games will shape, and therefore predict, the personal stories of the adolescents in our lives. If this shift has taken place already, then we--especially parents and educators, I say again--have ground to reclaim by establishing rites of passage that support our worldview and entering into the lives of adolescents as allies.

My Christian worldview encourages me to engage youth and be present with them as they journey to adulthood. I do not imagine that this journey will ever be simple, formulaic, or easy. But if they are to trust that the Lord is working in every stage of our lives, the passage to adulthood must be midwifed by those on the other side of the transition. We adults have the duty to see that the gifts of God in the lives of adolescents--like the compassion of Katniss that drives this film--are identified and encouraged, rather than exploited or squashed. At the end of the film, we can see Katniss' new tension--and perhaps a film sequel--forming: the world congratulates her for coming through the Games alive; but the cost may be her own sense of virtue and compassion. Put in other terms: Will her soul endure through what her body survived?

Or work is not over after our own rites of passage. By turning back to help others through, we have the task of ensuring that the world of Katniss Everdeen stays forever fiction.

~ emrys