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"We could become like that, but we don't have to"
Those were my 12-year old daughter's first words. We were in the car, driving home after seeing The Hunger Games, and she'd been pretty quiet. When we left the movie she said that she was tired. After all, we had to get there more than an hour early to get a good seat at the theater, and we'd gone pretty much straight after I finished work. This was really the first thing she'd said on the short drive home.
Still, when she spoke, she didn't look tired. She looked pensive.
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
She was quiet again, and then tried to get her furrowed brow into words. She'd read the books, all three of them, and she'd read The Hunger Games at least 4 times over the last year or two, but it was different, she seemed to feel, to see the story unfold on the screen.
"People like power," she ventured.
"Why?"
"I guess," she struggled, "Because they're afraid."
She went on to explain that the people in the dystopian nation of the story had surrendered their freedom and even their happiness in order to do what they believed they needed to do in order to stave off war and destruction.
"So how do we do it?" I asked. "I mean, the world can be scary. How do we avoid becoming like the world in that movie?"
"By being aware that it can happen."
That was her answer. I was super-proud. That's a neat moment to experience, watching your kid grasp the awesome responsibility of participating in the Human Race. We can only stop something awful like the world of The Hunger Games by acknowledging to ourselves that the story itself is scary precisely because it feels so damn possible.
Or Damn possible.
Because it really would be Hell.
And yeah, I know, it's only a story, and there are countless cautionary tales (1984, Failsafe, On the Beach, Lord of the Flies, Dr. Strangelove, Alas Babylon, and so forth) but this is the first time I'd really had this kind of discussion with my daughter.
So, as a child psychiatrist, I'd like to offer a few talking points for the millions of parents who will see this movie and find themselves cringing at the emotional power of the story, a story that makes me shiver more than any conventional horror film ever has. I hope this helps to put the movie, its purpose, and the way kids see it, in a kind of developmental perspective. Also, use your best judgement with your kids. Most 12-year-olds and up will be fine with the movie. The gore isn't much, and the violence is never gratuitous. Still, there will be older kids and not a few adults who are a bit freaked out by the subject. With kids under 12, be very cautious. There is of course huge variation among kids of the same or similar ages, but still...this is heavy stuff. You know your kid best.
Here are things you can talk about:
In the movie we saw, the whole audience cheered when a particularly vicious tribute, one of the children forced to fight to the death, was herself killed. I'm going to guess that audiences all over the country will do the same thing. After all, that's the conceit of the movie. You are, like the costumed freaks who inhabit the Capital City of the imagined dystopian land, part of the enraptured audience.
Start with that.
1. Why do people, real people in the real audience of today's world, cheer at the death of a child?
Because we've been drawn into the story, and we've become a bit like the fake audience on the screen. We don't need to feel guilty about cheering. It's a story, and stories are meant to help us to understand ourselves. We want the protagonist to win, and that's normal. Help your child (and yourself) to not feel guilty about cheering, but also take time to wonder what happened in the movie such that people were willing to cheer when a little one is murdered. What made you feel like that? It's a parental tightrope, but an important and rewarding one to walk. Help your kids question why they felt something without feeling guilty about the feeling itself.
2. Why doesn't the government in the movie just kill the tributes? Why have the Games in the first place?
Well, the President, played by an understatedly creepy Donald Sutherland, answers that question, so you can refer to his answer, and I don't want to spoil it for those who have yet to read the book or watch the movie. But I can say that a great discussion to have with your kid is asking why hope itself, in small and externally controlled aliquots, can provide power and obedience even more than constant terror. That is, after all, a potentially prescient construct in the story. Certainly our leaders have a tendency to create hope out of fear, and thus get us to behave in ways we might otherwise eschew. (I tried to write about this tactic early this year in this blog.)
3. Remember, there's romance here. In the real audience in the theater, folks laughed when Gale was forced to see Katniss embrace Peeta. Why is that funny?
This issue isn't as morally heavy, or at least not heavy in the same way, as some of the other themes in the movie. But it is important to remind our kids that even in the most horrific societies, even among those who are controlled by the most oppressive regimes, there is romance, desire and love. In fact, these fundamentally human traits are often our best defense against misery if we take the time to try and understand the feelings. There isn't a person on the planet who hasn't seen someone that he or she romantically desires embrace somebody else. We all have to face the lost dreams that follow that moment. People laugh because it's a familiar feeling that seems so silly until you're more personally stuck in the middle. You laugh because you feel empathy.
4. Why do the leaders in the movie keep changing the rules of the Games?
I feel this is one of the most important aspects of the story, made more poignant now with the explosion of reality TV. The answer is unmasked in the movie, and I think it's a good idea that we similarly unmask it for our kids in the world they have today. Remind your kids. The battle created in The Hunger Games IS A SHOW. So is American Idol. And Survivor. And the political debates, for that matter. They are highly produced and tightly controlled. I know Suzanne Collins has stressed this theme, but as my daughter hinted, we need to be actively aware of this fact, or we can get lost in the "reality" and forget what matters, what is truly real.
5. Finally, ask your kid this: How will you work to keep the world safe? I know that's silly and clichéd, but it is also key to the future of the planet. Our children are the future of our planet, and we've done a nice job of screwing up a lot of it for them.
Can we help them to not make our mistakes, to emulate what we may have done well, and to make the world a better place? I'd say yes, but, again, we have to actively embrace that task.
Try to play nice with others, work hard to compromise, always be civil, and remember never to mistake a violent solution for a reasoned and civilized reaction. Sounds preachy, I know, but watch the movie. It's hard not to consider these issues. And, as a thoughtful reader below has noted, remember perhaps most of all that these guidelines can only serve to prevent the world of the Capital in the first place. Once we're already there? Well, then, we owe it to ourselves to fix things, and that process is not likely to be pretty.
It's a good film, a good book, and a great entry into talking to your kids about the world they're going to inherit and their role in keeping that world special. There are lots more we could talk about, but this is I think a good place to start. Let me know what other questions come to mind.
The paperback version of Schlozman's first novel, "The Zombie Autopsies" was released this week.
