Apparently there’s a movie in theaters now by the name of The Hunger Games – it’s sort of obscure, so you may not have heard of it. Despite the title, it does not have anything to do with food. No, apparently it has something to do with young people fighting to the death on TV, or something.
Over on the Fox News website, Dr. Keith Ablow – described as “a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team” – is shocked to discover that this film contains:
1) Attractive young people
2) Violence
This deadly combination alarms Dr. Ablow, who warns:
The Hunger Games … adds to the toxic psychological forces it identifies, rather than reducing them. …
It is an entertainment product of complete fiction and great potency, given its intense level of fantasy and violence. As such, it only conveys young people closer to “expressing” in a virtual format their powerful and primitive instincts (potentially kindling their desire to truly express such instincts) while conveying them further from their daily realities and a little further still from their real selves.
And apparently the film fails utterly in inculcating hostility towards the Kardashian family.
Almost no one will emerge from a theater swearing off shows like the Keeping Up With the Kardashians, or Jersey Shore because they are produced by adults happy enough to make a buck off of stupefying teenagers.
As I am sure you are all aware, inculcating hostility towards the Kardashians is the aim of all great art, as Aristotle explained so many centuries ago:
A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, and also, as having magnitude, complete in … with incidents arousing pity and terror, with which to accomplish its purgation of these emotions. Those Kardashian girls are such stuck up bitches — “ooh i got a big ass, everybody look at me!” And don’t even get me started on Snooki.
Hey, can I get a goddamn gyro here?
That quote is, of course, from Aristotle’s famous treatise “Ho-etics.”
In addition to not inculcating hatred towards the Kardashians, Dr. Ablow warns us, The Hunger Games will make its viewers
more likely to come out of theaters having shed some measure of the healthy psychological defenses (which are, luckily, partly reinforced by socialization) that keep them at a distance from their violent impulses. …
Other than entertaining millions and millions of teenagers and making millions and millions of dollars, the net result of The Hunger Games is likely to be:
1) Females will be further distanced from their traditional feminine characteristics that … suggested they were not being real “girls” if they were extremely physically violent.
2) Young teens and many pre-teens will be awakened to the fact that they are capable of extreme violence, given the right set of circumstances.
3) A few psychologically vulnerable teens—who would have come to no good anyhow—may be inspired to replicate the film’s violence.
So I’m guessing that’s a big “thumbs down” from Dr. Ablow.
Given that the mainstream media is but a tool in the hand of our gynocentric matriarchal overlordsladies, I’m not quite sure how this article slipped through. But we’re lucky it did.
Over on What Men Are Saying About Women, where I found big chunks of Ablow’s essay quoted without any explanation of where they were from, our good friend Christian J. explains that:
This movie is straight out of the slut-feminists’ arsenal of the “You Go Grrrllll” mantras. They have promoted violent women and will continue to do so (think Valerie Solanas). Slut-feminists justify this action under their delusional and blatantly false claim that women should be able to protect themselves as they are constantly attacked and physically abused on a daily basis, everywhere they go..
Where they get that from is ofcourse by generating their own falsified and doctored statistics which they have done for too long to remember.
If anyone suggests you go see The Hunger Games, they are probably a slut feminist. You should run far away from them in case they decide to punch you.
Go watch old episodes of The A-Team instead, a show which is totally not violent in any way.
Is it bad that my reaction is to hand them a tissue and double down?
I do find all their whining very entertaining . . . . XD
I am snarly because some asshole on Huff Post was demanding we replace corporate taxes with a VAT tax to make their profits go up.
Fucker.
I swear, I want to strip any company that leaves the US because of taxes of all of their patents, ban their products from being imported in and loan their former employees the money to restart the business.
How can anyone think this is a good system?
Creative Writing Student –
They think so because they have reduced all of society to a game and all that matters is that their team wins.
@Kendra
My bad :$
How the fuck do people not recognize how fucking dehumanising it is that people have to make these considerations to save their children?! And especially in a country that was THE economic power just a few years ago (and still in the top 5 I think). Don’t people stop to think why countries that are not their economic equal still manage to provide better coverage for their entire population. But of course there’s no class system in the Land of the Free /sarcasm
oops, fucked up my quotes
@Kendra
My bad :$
How the fuck do people not recognize how fucking dehumanising it is that people have to make these considerations to save their children?! And especially in a country that was THE economic power just a few years ago (and still in the top 5 I think). Don’t people stop to think why countries that are not their economic equal still manage to provide better coverage for their entire population. But of course there’s no class system in the Land of the Free /sarcasm
@Falconer
I thank my lucky stars everyday that my parents decided to come to Canada instead of the States. When I hear the kind of sacrifices and horror stories people go through re: healthcare and college education, it’s just plain fuckin depressing
Noooooooope.
Politics isn’t a game or a sport, where we can root for different sides but at the end of the day we can all put it behind us and get along. It’s not like a fandom, where maybe I like Star Wars and you think it’s silly, but we can respect each other likes and dislikes. Politics MATTERS. It affects the quality of our lives, sometimes drastically. If you vocally support policies that make my life measureably worse (and I’ve been very lucky so far, but if I developed serious medical problems I’d be as fucked as anyone else) then yeah, we’re not going to be buddies.
Dear God, yes. As a bonus, you’d never have to actually do this because studies show that companies don’t actually leave because of taxes (regulations and such, yes).
Did Fox travel through time to find someone who could say all that with a straight face? When did Lizzy’s Mr Collins get a PhD in psychology?
RE: Ruby
I’ll be more tolerant of your views when you actually give a goddamn decent argument. I have libertarian friends who argue their cases effectively with me. You AREN’T.
I’ve GOT Medicaid, ya genius. IT AIN’T COVERING MY EATING DISORDER. And you know what? The cost of hospitalizing me and putting me on a feeding tube costs WAY fucking more than my nutritionist visits. It is CHEAPER to treat me now!
World in which Ruby lives:
World in poor people in the USA lives:
“Why won’t people stop being mean, I just said I want them to take care of themselves or die? Sheesh.”
It is you people who are living in another world. You act as if children are dying every day in America because our healthcare is only for the rich. We have Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program. And you are kidding yourself if you think the government taking over the healthcare system won’t mean the rationing of healthcare. Either way, healthcare costs money. Doctors, drug manufacturers, and hospital personnel expect to get paid.
As a healthcare worker in ye olde socialist Canada, I have to say Ruby your ideas of how things work up here are bat-shit insane.
Ruby: but I agree, people who live in charlie-the-unicorn-world live in a different world than you. A world in which all the bad experience that people told you for the two last pages and much more happens.
Have you read it? Do you think people are lying, or maybe that they’re exceptions? Do you think it’s acceptable to live your life crushed by debt because you broke your leg? To have to chose between rent, or food, or school and curing an illness?
RE: Ruby
You really aren’t paying attention, are you? I just told you I’m on Medicaid, and I’m STILL hawking up $300 a month for eating disorder treatment, and that emergency intervention is WAY more expensive than this prevention! You aren’t actually acknowledging anything I say, only saying the obvious, that healthcare is expensive.
Of course it is. But either I get treatment now, at this amount, or I end up in the hospital eventually and cost society a whole lot more. Seriously, Ruby, I ask you a third time: what am I supposed to do? You say you have this figured out, and I’m waiting for an answer. If I lose my savings and I’m still sick, what am I supposed to do?
Really I have to wonder that this discussion is still going on. I think that if Ruby were confronted by a realife person that she knew, who was going through the outlined scenarios, Ruby would make a choice other than poor people should be left to the consequences. The problem is that there are no real faces on a blog.
@Ruby
Cancer mortality rates and inequality in the US
http://bcaction.org/2011/12/12/the-death-toll-of-inequality-why-treat-people-without-changing-what-makes-them-sick/
A study finding correlation between SES and sub par healthcare in 16 countries (including the US)
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe0802773
Even in countries with socialized healthcare like Canada, SES has a direct influence on health and healthcare. Apart from the lifestyle choices that low income forces on you, out here, if you don’t have additional insurance with your workplace, meds can be ridiculously expensive. When my dad was unemployed, we had to make some hard decisions about meds. My mom had to fudge her pressure tabs because we couldn’t afford to maintain the regime. I forewent taking antibiotics when I was ill because that shit was EXPENSIVE. And my dad makes a six figure income when he works, just imagine how much worse it is for the general population. I’m not sure if there are systems in place to help people that fall below the poverty line, but it can be really difficult when you don’t quite make the cut. If you still can’t see the harm that the current healthcare causes, and can’t understand that there are a large number of people that fall in “above the poverty line but can’t afford the costs of healthcare”, then there’s just no helping you.
RE: pillowinhell
Seeing the recent thousand-comment dogfight with Tom Martin, I am shocked you would wonder!
Obamacare is like the cure being worse than the disease.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/business/05scene.html
American health care has many problems. Health insurance is linked too tightly to employment, and too many people cannot afford insurance. Insurance companies put too much energy into avoiding payments. Personal medical records are kept on paper rather than in accessible electronic fashion. Emergency rooms are not always well suited to serve as last-resort health care for the poor. Most fundamentally, the lack of good measures of health care quality makes it hard to identify and eliminate waste.
These problems should be addressed, but it would be hasty to conclude that the United States should move closer to European health care institutions. The American health care system, high expenditures and all, is driving innovation for the entire world.
Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University and co-writer ofa blog at http://www.marginalrevolution.com. He can be reached at [email protected].
Is dude listening to himself?
“It’s a mess, it’s bleeding money, and a vast number of people are completely excluded. It is a shining beacon on the hill and we must not be too hasty to change it.”
Fluttershy is actually compassionate, not like this twit.
Ruby, you do realize that your argument is not only false (You already have been told outright by a medical researcher that the US is not really the primary driver anymore), but that even if it weren’t itself inaccurate, that doesn’t actually mean “The USA has the best healthcare for its citizens”, only “Other countries benefit from the USA’s terrible system”.
LBT. No see, we were there to mock Tommy. In Rubys case, its plain that there is an opposing belief system which dictates changes in priorities and values. In this case, I fail to see the point in arguing the issue furtther, as Ruby has not given any indication of being open to considering a different point of view. I think in life Ruby would make exceptions when confronted by realities while still maintaining Rubys belief system.
Ergo, I might as well pound sand to move a mountain for all the effect arguing the case would have.
Guys, don’t pile too hard on Ruby. Zir reptile brain takes a while to reprogram, so zie’s still on the second page of comments.
Healthcare is ALREADY rationed, it’s just rationed by who has the most cash rather than who has the most need. Also, the estimates of the number of people in the US who die (not just face injury, serious injury, or permanent damage) from lack of health insurance is estimated to be around 45,000 a year. Lower end estimates are still around the 18,000 per year mark. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-09-18/health/deaths.health.insurance_1_health-insurance-david-himmelstein-debate-over-health-care?_s=PM:HEALTH And that was before the recession. Advances in medicine mean little when you have no access to them. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/insurance-24-year-dies-toothache/story?id=14438171#.T3Xq9dVjeCk The fact is that people do die in the US because of lack of health insurance every single year.
Also, the US has high infant mortality rates. Cuba, which is an incredibly poor country but has a socialized medical system, has rates that are about the same. Are you hearing me? A baby born in the US has the about same chances of surviving to see their first birthday as a baby born in Cuba (for black people and native americans, Cuba actually does better). Cuba also has similar life expectancy to the US (black and native american people actually get a bump in Cuba over the US). So, when you say that we are so poor and can’t afford it, the fact that one of the wealthiest countries on the earth doesn’t provide survival for its citizens better than a poor one with a socialized health care system.