"CATCHING FIRE": A DYSTOPIAN IMPROVEMENT

The only reason I ever picked up the HUNGER GAMES book series was because a student of mine who died suddenly had it checked out of the library at the time of his death. And more specifically, this student didn't enjoy reading. As I was leaving his parents' house some time after his funeral, they pointed out the small stack of library books on a shelf. The HUNGER GAMES was the only book I didn't recognize, so I took note of it. And read it. And loved it. I finished the series in a couple of weeks, CATCHING FIRE (a hair-raising compliment) and MOCKINGJAY (a conceptually confused ending). 

The HUNGER GAMES movie was tantalizing, but CATCHING FIRE was frighteningly engaging and delivered nail-biting scene after nail-biting scene. I actually loved the movie CATCHING FIRE more than I enjoyed the book (which is unlike me). While I walked away from the theater last Saturday evening with my wife, I was puzzled why that was so. So after a week of brooding, it finally hit me between the eyes.

My entire life has been bracketed by dystopian aspiration. That is to say, I and much of the company among which I have found myself have had imaginary fantasies about the end of the world in our lifetime. "Imaginary" because the world has not ended in the way or at the times we had predicted. "Fantasies" because we literally looked forward to it with a kind of absurdist excitement. If it wasn't nuclear war on the one hand, it was a discriminatory rapture on the other. Better yet, let's combine the two!

Probably more damaging than the "imaginary" or the "fantasies" was the way we framed & projected history. Every extraordinary incident in media was a foreshadow of the apocalypse to come. War with Iraq? It's the beginning of the end. Taxes increased? It's the beginning of the end. Janet Jackson shows her boob at the Superbowl half-time show? Oh, it's just the beginning of the end. While the end has never come, every celebrity excess or governmental imposition or gangsta rap record is simply the shrill warning sign of the imminent destruction to come. And you can do nothing about it.

The HUNGER GAMES finds Katniss simply warding off the premeditated designs of the 74-year-old apocalyptic loop of the Capitol in order to survive. In the HUNGER GAMES is all the inferiority, shrinking, abasement, and helpless obedience characteristic of oppressed people. In the HUNGER GAMES, Katniss submits to the design of the games and fully expects to die for it. Make no mistake: she found herself and Peta alive by accident. But in CATCHING FIRE Katniss fights back. That last shot of Katniss' face in CATCHING FIRE says it all: enough of your rules. I'm rewriting them.

That's why I loved CATCHING FIRE. Katniss gives us the option to change the rules. After all, the rules for the Hunger Games was invented. So they can be reinvented. Or uninvented. 

If you think Suzanne Collins' book series is simply another sign of the times, you might want to take a look at Wikipedia's rather long but incomplete book list of dystopian literature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature

The entire 20th century was one dystopian century!

WAR, HUNGER GAMES & REALITY TV ANXIETY

In November 2004 my brother along with thousands of other Marines, soldiers, and military personnel breached the city of Fallujah, Iraq. He called us on average of once a month, but we were able to follow the exploits of his battalion by the news. In addition to being unable to shower for several weeks and having to sleep in a sitting position for the same amount of time, he recounted to us with cheerful resolution that he was probably not going to return in one piece or at all.


Upon returning stateside in the Spring, he was able to fill us in on little vignettes of terror that dominated his battlefield concerns like the total lack of evidence of enemy casualties in pitched battles where they watched the enemy go down. Or insurgents trained in the agile art of Parkour (an art-form which, incidentally, ended up being the 2004 Internet sensation), scaling fifteen-foot+ walls with ease. Or belligerents, hyped up on heroin and sustaining multiple, gangrenous wounds (including sniper shots to the head) laughing maniacally while being taken into custody.  

Many accounts like these have been told, illustrating the abnormal bent the mind must take to survive out-of-the-ordinary situations. One cannot argue that a "bending'' of normal societal protocol must occur deep within the soul of the warrior if he is to fulfill his or she her part in the overarching objective. It has been ascertained that Viking wars lasted no more than fifteen minutes once opposing sides made contact. Biblical battles, I am certain, were some of the shortest wars, precisely because the "Black Flag" (No prisoners. Total destruction) was given precedence.


Solzhenitsyn says that "A person who is not inwardly prepared for the use of violence against him[self] is always weaker than the person committing the violence" (Gulag Archipelago). Surely, a legitimately aggressive and deceptive state of mind is fitting for combat personnel that might not be unacceptable for the rest of us.

In On Killing (The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society), Lt. Col. Dave Grossman says that only 2% of American military personnel actually enjoy killing and that many of those could be ranked amongst the psychologically imbalanced. Sun Tzu says "To capture the enemy's army is better than to destroy it", and elsewhere, "The reason troops slay the enemy is because they are enraged." (Art of War). The reality is that humans have a natural revulsion towards taking the life of a fellow human being, enemy or not.


Thousands of soldiers, marines, airmen, and others have done their share of taking lives, but that happens largely within the constraints of and according to the strictures of the objective. The objective is paramount and dictates the extent of harm done. That is very different than taking life for personally motivated reasons or for personal gain, though, indeed, war is personal for each participant.

In combat all actions and resources serve the attainment of the objective. Even normal bodily functions like eating, sleeping, and hygiene. Though the objective can be closed upon in increments and by missions, it cannot be secured unless certain criteria are met, insuring the verifiable completion of the objective. All effort is funneled, all resources contribute towards, and all machines are attuned to victory. 


With military combat the terror comes at the beginning. The discomfort, the writing of wills, the prayers, the shakes, the hyperventilating is all preparatory to the incremental steeling of blood and stubbornness of resolve with the culmination of joy, agitation, exhaustion and relief at the accomplishment of the objective.

Reality TV anxiety is very different than combat anxiety. In Reality TV each contestant begins the game having theoretically secured the objective. He now needs to play the game in order not to lose it. In The Bachelor all 30 women are already married to Brad: they just need to be the only one to survive the game. In Deal or No Deal Howie has already given each opponent one million dollars: each just needs to hazard correct guesses in order not to lose it. In Hell's Kitchen, Chef Ramsey has already given 250K and the job title to each person: each just needs to not lose them by making stupid choices. 


In Reality TV optimism, enthusiasm, and excitement come at the beginning, significantly diminishing with each elimination round, and finally culminating with disappointment for most and relief for one: relief that it is over and the nascent realization that you didn't really have to do everything you did in the first place.

I think Suzzane Collins has it right in her Hunger Games trilogy. Katniss, the heroine, must not only ruthlessly kill to survive in the arena, but she must play to the omnipresent cameras which are aimed at encapsulating her inglorious breakdown. That structure funnels Katniss into an exponentially increased, internal pressure by the inordinate suppression of normal human responses. That pressure is expected to morph with each new hour with each new camera angle with each rigged trial until she eventually cracks to the delight of all who are watching. 


No wonder seemingly normal citizens go postal on each other: we are just waiting and itching to watch each other explode over the minutest of things. Well, with that attitude we just might get our wish. Just hope that you aren't in the vicinity when it happens.