The Hunger Games: Sick Fascination

I saw Catching Fire last night. I just recently watched The Hunger Games on Netflix for the first time. I have not read the books and so my judgment can only come solely from the movies. Maybe that's a good thing maybe that's not. I don't know.

All I know is that I did not like the movies. Either of them.

People tell me that it's a great representation of sticking it to the man, of finding hope in a hopeless situation and similar things. But last night as I sat in the movie theater, many times curled up hiding behind my husbands shoulder, I had to wonder why I was even there. Why was this entertaining? Then I realized that to me, it wasn't.

I wanted to walk out. I wanted to go sit in the hallway to hide from the torture and carnage that was happening on screen. But I stayed. Why I don't know but I did.

Let me clarify that when I walk out of movies it is normally out of self preservation. I cannot handle some things especially with movies, so to save myself from the anxiety and the nightmares I leave. I do not see this as a judgment on the movie because there are plenty of good movies that I refuse to watch or have walked out of simply because I could not handle them.

Maybe that's why I didn't like The Hunger Games. All the same, I have to wonder, why do we find this entertaining? At what point is it too much? How can someones mentality even get to the point where they want to imagine such a situation?

 At what point does it stop to be fantasy and becomes reality?

Yes these are imaginary characters. Yes it was an imaginary situation. But I would argue that our imaginations drive our realities. We may not hit this extreme, but are we not headed that way?

My husband says I don't understand war. Maybe I don't. Maybe I am a pacifist at heart, because I don't understand the mentality that someone has to hurt someone so completely as that. This is not just killing someone, but mentally and emotionally torturing them. With that, I can't understand the audiences mentality in taking enjoyment in it.

You can argue intrigue and values of the rebellion. I still wonder how we can be entertained by such torture of a young girl and her friends. As I watched this "intrigue" play out to its end, I felt more and more darkness. There are things in life that inspire light and there are things in life that inspire darkness. The Hunger Games inspired only darkness to me. I felt no hope. I felt no light. I felt no love. I only felt pain, fear and anxiety. Maybe that was its purpose. But I believe, as we are all taught in science, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Studying darkness can bring us insight and knowledge, many times we can become lost in it. I do not like always feeling darkness. I prefer to seek light. Maybe that makes me shallow, but it makes me happy. I've had enough real darkness in my own life. I don't need to wallow in fake darkness. 

I do not by any means wish to pass judgment on any one. These are just the thoughts and feelings I have had and if you read this and feel I am wrong all I can say is that I'm sorry and that I just don't understand. Just let me ask this:

How long until our imaginations become a reality?