America is a totalitarian regime. Or, it was when George W. Bush was president. And maybe it still is. Or something.
As if we needed more proof that blockbuster entertainment needn’t have even a nodding acquaintance with cogent political thought, the people that brought us Suzanne Collins’s “Hunger Games” franchise can’t just quietly take their millions to the bank. They need us to know how unfair their payday is.
“The Hunger Games” DVD was released Aug. 18, and the special features section titled “Game Maker: Suzanne Collins and the Hunger Games Phenomenon” is filled with nuggets of liberal received wisdom about American capitalism and the horrors of life under the Bush regime.
David Levithan, from the publisher Scholastic, commented how “The Hunger Games” was “written in frustration of the Bush era,” and blogger Amanda Belcher feared that although “this book is about horrific events, it’s really not that far-fetched from things that are going on today.”
Levithan really, really wanted to make sure audiences know who the real villain of the story is. “These books were written in the heart of the Bush era. The commentary there is it is written in this last regime. These feelings of disenfranchisement haven’t gone away,” he said.
Don’t recall Bush demanding each state should offer up their children to fight to the death on reality television. Was it around the time he let Ted Kennedy write education “reform,” or when he was expanding the Medicare entitlement?
Actor Donald Sutherland (who plays dictator President Snow), praised the Occupy Wall Street movement, asserting that it’s “absolutely time” for a revolution.
[The Hunger Games] is an allegory of this imperial power, this oligarchy of the multi-rich, this 0.1 percent,” droned, and the actor has shilled for Occupy Wall Street before. Sutherland, of course, is a member of that imperial 1 percent. His net worth is estimated at $40 million. (In fairness, that’s only $39.7 million in Canadian dollars, and Sutherland is from Toronto …)
In the same interview Sutherland said, “[The Hunger Games] so clearly and carefully echoes [today]. I think the people with Occupy Wall Street and Occupy L.A., out of those people will come a leader. It has to. It’s time, it’s absolutely time.” To date, the Occupiers haven’t produced much beyond theme parks for vermin, so Mr. Sutherland seems too optimistic.
In the same vein, Drew McWeeny a senior-reviewer at hitfix.com stated Americans are “living through” the content of “The Hunger Games.”
“Obviously there’s not going to be a revolution in the streets of Panem, but I think there are major changes coming and situations to be addressed. Her [Suzanne Collins] book will continue to resonate over the next few years. It will be fascinating to see how real life and her work parallel over the next couple of years,” McWeeny said.
Here’s looking forward to such incisive commentary in about 10 years when Levithan will remind us that the “The Food Stamp Games” was “written in frustration of the Obama era.”