The Gladiator Phenomenon

The Hunger Games for my wife and me was hard to watch. The film falls victim to what I have come to call "The Gladiator Phenomenon." Once while watching the movie Gladiator, which was made as far as I know to show the horror of gladiators, my brother said something like, ‘I can’t believe that people wanted to watch this.’ Meaning he could not believe that Romans would crowd the colosseum to watch as people would fight to the death. At the same moment that he said this, he realized that that is kind of what we were doing, watching death for pleasure. He said this aloud and it made me think, how can we watch Gladiator and stay Marcus Aurelius, who ended gladiators because of its heinous nature, and not become Commondus, who enjoyed watching men kill each other.  

In the Hunger Games we are supposed to hate the capital for taking these kids and having them fight to the death, but when I watched the movie it made me feel like I was the capital. When this movie came out, I did not want to see it but knew many people who lined up to see the midnight showing. I'm not sure why you would want to see children bash, beat, stab, and kill other children. Perhaps another example that must be mentioned is The Lord of the Flies. I read the book in high school and everyone is familiar with the clear message of murder and the turning of proper people to wild savages. Truly nothing is more traumatizing than reading about kids murdering each other and watching The Hunger Games only brought this horror to life. Perhaps I am just in denial, but I honestly believe that few to none of the kid would fight to the death. In fact I would say most people would rather die than become murders. Many people have claimed that The Dark Night, is just that, very dark. But even in this movie, when adults, both citizen and criminal alike, are asked to either kill each other or be killed, both ships choose to have clean hands then to live as murderers. I think this is not wishful thinking, but a realistic example of true human nature.

As far as our reading is concerned, I could not see myself making the same point that they did. Perhaps this is more of a commentary of what we talked about in class but I really wanted to say this and I never got a chance to in class. We said that there are so many remakes this summer. Perhaps but while most people ran off to see Star Trek, I was allowing Joseph Kosinski, a new director, to bring his story to life with Oblivion. Also, a book I was introduced to Architecture for the Poor talks about how none of us are totally original. We build off what others have done in the past. And that is not only okay, but it is good. One cannot show up to a plot of land and say ‘I will completely reinvent the building.’ Chances are if you are laying a foundation, and supporting your roof with walls, you are building off the knowledge of others who came before you. Another source for this idea is my first film professor Rick Moody; he told me perhaps the most useful information I have ever hear concerning film creation. He told us that what people want to see is “original, yet familiar.” Maybe it is a remake, but it has never been down this way before. We already love the hero and we have never seen him in this predicament before, and that is worth seeing.

The last thing I want to talk about connects what we talked about in class with The Hunger Games. We said in class that we only have a perceived choice. That when it really comes down to it we cannot influence what Hollywood makes. I have to agree with the young man at the beginning of The Hunger Games. This young man asks Katniss the question, what would happen if we all stopped watching? What he means is if there is no demand will there be a supply? Though capitalism has some problems, it does create some very cool phenomena. Supply and demand is real.  We do have a choice and I continue to make choices that I am proud of. I know that if we all choose not to buy a certain product, then the people who make it will have to stop making it, they will have no income. If we refuse to watch and pay for garbage, like Scary Movie and its sequels  then eventually they will have no means to make more movies, and no audience to support them. And on the contrary if we watch films that change hearts and minds, we will open the way for more glorious films.