The Hunger Games stars Caesar Flickerman as Bill O’Reilly, Seneca Crane as Mitt Romney, Katniss Everdeen as Rachel Maddow, Effie Trinket as Laura Ingraham, Peeta Mallark as David Gregory, Haymitch Abernathy as Joe Biden, Claudius Templesmith as the Koch Brothers, Cinna as Barak Obama, and featuring President Snow as Rush Limbaugh.
I went into the movie today with no expectations. I hadn’t read the book and did not know much about it. I came out of a really stunning movie and began to reflect on how accurately it portrays our current election cycle. Above, I attempted to map out the characters in the movie with our real live political characters. It is amazing how easy it is to imagine how each character in the movie has a real life counterpart on the political stage. I left out two obvious characters in respect for a grieving family and leave you to figure that out.
It is an oversimplification to simply say that Hunger Games is a run-of-the-mill struggle between good and evil. More than that, it portrays the end of the slippery slope down which our current political system seems to be sliding. But the parallels are stunning, President Snow (Limbaugh) says, “I hate underdogs”, Caesar Flickerman (O’Reilly) hosts the talk show as a simple morality play with an obvious leaning toward the party liine. Seneca Crane(Romney) continually flip-flops between serving good and evil. Cinna (Obama) manipulates the forces of good to create a positive result while Haymitch (Biden) works behind the scenes to manipulate good and evil toward a positive conclusion. Katniss (Maddow) wields her weapons surgically and shows the greatest understanding of any character about the rules of the game.
As a baby boomer who has seen many movies that portray our culture so accurately through metaphor, in my opinion, this one tops them all. Is it intended or is it coincidence? Or am I totally misguided. If I am anywhere near the mark on this, Hunger Games could subconsciously motive young voters to jump back in to the political fray and swing this election.