Hunger Games 2012

This film draws you in and keeps you hooked for a good 2 1/2 hours. What accounts for the success of the film and what does that speak of us and those who made it? It is a well told story with an unusual plot. The viewers of the online life and death drama are brutish and dull, They watch it with perverse and exaggerated relish. The dialog has a bizarre humor, like Tarantino. I can imagine squeals of laughter and delight in the cinema theater, as one character after another appear, like a circus or a zoo. The violence is not really graphic,so the watchers can stay in a relaxed comfort zone as they consume their pop corn. The power of the film derives from its central character, Catniss, the hunted huntress, seamlessly combining male and female qualities.

From Shakespeare onward, story tellers have understood that people love to watch blood shed. The Greeks had gladiators. We have wars, gangsters, genocides, bull fights. The game gets ever deadlier.