What "The Hunger Games" Says About Our Society

"We cheer for our favorites then cry when they get killed, it's sick. If everyone just stopped watching they'd have nothing." — Gale, "The Hunger Games"

Without a doubt, "The Hunger Games" is the best movie of 2012 so far. It hits all the marks for creating a film franchise aimed at prime young adult demographics — and it has the DNA of those stories — but it's also so much more. The film provides a commentary on our world today and the trajectory of where it is going, and it is that last aspect that is worth consideration.

The film depicts a futuristic society where the slaughter of teens is a televised event. That sounds grotesque to us today, and probably seems like something that could never happen, but I contend the elements to create a world like this are already in place in our society. That's what makes this film a fascinating social study.

Let me explain.

The first thing that jumps out is the class disparity in the film. The roots of this are already evident in our culture in 2012. Recently we've had the Occupy Wall Street movement, which essentially boils down to people on main street (the middle class) rebelling against a disproportionate financial system. My mom recently remarked that our next uprising was going to be related to economic disparity. It's hard to argue with that.

Clearly economic conditions play a role in the world of "The Hunger Games." It's supposed to be a post-racial world, which is a lovely thought that I'm not sure will ever really happen in the Western World. However, it is easy to see that the economic conditions, more than any other social disparity, will play a large role in the breakdown and division of society. It's already begun, so it's not hard to imagine that tension will only continue to grow if nothing is done to reverse the trend. The decay of our large, urban cities will continue to play into this. As will the breakdown in the education system, and the fact that the changing global economy threatens to leave huge segments of our society behind.

The way that "The Hunger Games" depicts the narcissistic opulence of the ruling class and the poverty and despair of the oppressed accurately portends what could lead to a serious fracture of the United States and the Western World. These are large problems that society needs to address, and thus far hasn't.

The second aspect of the world of "The Hunger Games" that stands out is the statement it makes about the nature of celebrity, spectacle, and entertainment in our society. This is also a troubling trend. Entertainment is often reflective of the changing tastes and values of society, and if that's true we're in trouble.

In 1998, "The Truman Show" offered the depiction of a world where voyeurism was acceptable on a mass scale. It seemed sort of unbelievable then, but it turns out that the film was just ahead of its time. Now, in 2012, our "reality" television closely mirrors this trend. Consider a show like "Big Brother," which follows a group of strangers living in a house competing against one another as the nation votes. The show airs several hours a week on CBS during the summer. But if that's not enough, you can watch several hours of live feeds nightly on cable and, if that's not enough, you can sign up for the 24/7 Internet feed.

Consider that when thinking of the televised construct of the Hunger Games in the film.

The second aspect of that is the blood lust in entertainment. As I said when I reviewed the film, historically that is nothing new. We like to think in our modern, civilized society that we would never stoop to such a level. But I think we're already on the slippery slope toward that. We already have forms of extreme fighting that are brutal, televised fights. And our fictionalized blood lust knows no bounds.

Movies like "Wrath of the Titans" and "300" are essentially about warriors brutally fighting to the death. That's what our summer films have become. For the past few years, "Entertainment Weekly" has even had a "summer death toll" counter on its website, which updates the number of deaths in summer blockbuster films each week. The numbers are alarming, especially as most of the films are aimed at audiences between 12-34.

But that's not even the best indicator of where society is heading. Consider horror films, a genre that has devolved to the sub category of "torture porn." Basically the films are now not even about scares, they are about people — mostly young people — being savagely and brutally tortured and murdered until one young person overcomes the odds and survives. Sure, the stories are fictionalized, but with the ever improving ability of creating realism in film, it's hard to tell the difference. So what, I ask, makes that a far cry from watching real teens battle to the death?

Some would argue we are a fry cry from the distasteful societal construct that would create a real-life Hunger Games. While that's probably true, I think it's easy to see that we're on a path that could lead to that societal construct.

While "The Hunger Games" works as a fascinating piece of entertainment, it also asks some serious social questions. One can't help but wonder if, in the midst of being drawn into the fictional world, we're also considering what the film and books say about the course of the world we're all living in as well. Much like "The Truman Show," this film might simply be ahead of its time.