Posted on 11/21/2014 7:05:34 PM PST by BenLurkin
Isn’t it the neo-nazis in Ukraine who use a three fingered salute?
There are some spoilers in this post, but here is a synopsys if you haven't seen them:
The story involves a country that consists of a rich capital district and subservient districts which are kept in poverty and exploited. There was a revolution 74 years previously, but the capital district won, and kept the others under totalitarian control. The capital knows it is totalitarian and unfair, but fears revolution more, and so it justifies its actions to itself. But the country is always on the brink of revolution.
As a sign of its complete domination, the capital holds annual "hunger games" which is a game where two kids from each district are drafted to an arena to fight to the death until one survives. While on the surface the rules are fair, in fact the kids from the capital district have tremendous advantages, and are usually the winners. This is done deliberately by the government to prove the futility of revolt.
The story concerns a young woman named Katniss Everdeen, who is thrust into the public eye when she volunteered for the games when her younger sister was drafted. She eventually wins the games, but in a way that is seen as a middle finger to the government. She did not want fame, and in fact runs from it, but more and more becomes a symbol of resistance and revolution.
President Snow visits Katnis Everdeen
After she wins, she is dragged around the country to make speeches about how great the government is:
“Beware of Greeks bearing Gifts”.
Also, Beware of Hollywood movies that seem to bear conservative messages; in the end, they really don’t.
Watch Kinji Fukusaku’s “Battle Royale” and be done with it.
The writer of the Hunger Games ripped off that Manga and Movie.
Yes, she did. And the Running Man. But neither hold our culture's attention like the Hunger Games do. We need to make do with what we've got.
"It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love." ―Katniss Everdeen
What strikes me about that scene is that it really takes a tragedy that personal and that horrific to spur people to fight their oppressors.
That's how things really go though. One minute, everything appear to be fine, or at least everyone is looking around thinking "why won't someone do something?" and the next instant, the facade cracks, and its on.
>>>Sutherland’s quote in the article about tea partiers seeing Obama as a black man not a dictator shows his level of small minded stupidity.<<<
If Hitler were Black, we would all be speaking German.
Arnold Schwarzenegger played this role too in the Running Man, but he can't help but be heroic about it.
Haven’t seen it yet, but the first two books were most conducive to being made into movies (IMO). And this new trend of all the tween series being milked into double movies at the end is ridiculous.
like "Animal Farm"?
I saw it as a retelling of Theusus and the Monitor, but books two and three stress the damage to children who fight wars: Post traumatic stress syndrome in Katnis and Brainwashing in Peta and the corruption of Dale are three examples of how war can damage the innocent who are caught in the middle of a revolution, no matter how just the war.
One review mocked the fight as being between Stalin and PolPot, and given the dictatorship of district 13 that sounds about right. I presume you read book three about how Katnis solves this...
the pro democracy demonstrators in Thailand also use the three finger salute. But they copied it from the Hunger Games.
It is a variation of kissing your fingers and then pointing the fingers toward the person leaving you to show your love.
I did read them. The governments were Socialist vs. Communist, not a whiff of Freedom as the first book and part of the second led you to believe.
I lost a whole lot of ‘like’ for Jennifer Lawrence over the summer. Stupid is a big turn off for me and she kinda solidified that over the summer regarding her nude selfies getting hacked off her phone. 30 years from now she’ll be begging for people to notice her.
Partly PJ disease. The decision to bloat the script out to four films was not good.
The author stated that the concept and even the characters were based on Rome and the Roman Empire - a huge, centralized state where the hinterlands were basically just places to get resources and labor, and all wealth flowed to the capital, where it was mismanaged by greedy, cruel politicians.
That is the way I read these movies. And yes I’ve watched them.
You could also relate them to World Wide mass destruction, dictator run countries, or what could happen after the Rapture. Either fits.
Agree, there are many who insist in attacking the movie and giving alternate interpretations, but it is a very popular vessel for teaching the young about the dangers of tyranny and parallels can be easily drawn between the films and the current all powerful dictatorial government that is rapidly moving to regulate and control every aspect of life. Picture President Snowe as Obama just a bit further along the power curve.
Actually the books were not as good as the movie. The movie was heavy into the predictable teen, which boy should she love, the bad boy or the good boy.
That was pretty much eliminated in the films and the story shone through.
I think some of this is just a knee jerk reaction that pop culture = anti conservative. It is true pop culture is rarely on our side, but we still need to support and encourage the bits and pieces of pop culture that does go our way.
I tried last year to convince some Freepers to use Catching Fire as a tool to see the parallels between a decadent, dictatorial Capitol and President with present times. I could not get them to agree. All they saw was Hollywood and the Author’s statements outside the novels and attacked any conservative message that could be drawn from the films. We do need to use pop culture, popular media to help the fight against Emperor Obama (President Snowe), but too many were too busy denouncing the message’s vessel and starting fights amount ourselves.
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