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.
Bee, that reminds me of the 53%. Remember that? And it was all “I work two minimum-wage jobs and manage to make rent by not wasting money on anything and so I’m better than you lazy people” and the occupy movement was all like “Dude, we’re saying you shouldn’t have to do all that.”
LBT: Really? Damn. I’m going to have to buy those, next time I have money.
Bee: Right. Health care should not be a reward for “virtue”– especially when people who are not virtuous get it all the time through luck of birth or occupation. People should be able to have basic health care AND have nice things sometimes. That’s not too much to expect.
RE: Ozy
Yeah. $5 for a TPB’s worth of Foglio porn? IS GOOD DEAL JA.
RE: Bee
I… actually am that scrimper saver “never buy things for myself” person, and my husband had to fight me over buying a pack of Oreos. On sale.
And you know what? I don’t think people should have to do that. Like, it’s okay for me, I’m pretty happy with my low budget (when I’m not needing treatment for health problems, I mean) but other people shouldn’t have to have a nigh-BSOD over… y’know. A sandwich cookie.
(Of course, eating disorders mean that things like Oreos and granola bars suddenly become the Axis of Evil, but y’know.)
Well, for tonight I’m hanging out with the parentals, which means we’ll start some old movie and only the dog and I will be awake when it ends. Tomorrow I’m hanging out with friends and playing with their doggies. We’re going to try and catch The Hunger Games in a matinee if we can.
My weekend is going to involve four weddings, a waxing, a car servicing and listening to the oral arguments on ACA.
I just took a little trip out to Goodwill myself. I didn’t buy any books, but there was an old sewing machine there for ten dollars. So yeah, it’s mine now. 🙂
Great way to debate, call me names and purposely misrepresenting my opinions. I never called anyone dumb for not believing the way I do. I never said, “Fuck You” to any of you. What is with you people that you’re so intollerant of different political beliefs? Maybe this web site should be only for those who lean left?
Ruby, if you were really sick, on top of being poor and someone who knows nothing about you or poverty comes in and ssays something that comes across as”quit being poor and eating cheese burgers” I think you tell them off too.
Also, what is LBT to do? All those wonderful programs you think will save him can’t help him because he’s not the target demographic. You are coming across as cold enough to shrug and let him die simply because he’s poor.
You don’t know what poverty, real poverty is like. And you don’t realize how often your line of thinking has been used to punish, shame and humilliate the poor. So let it drop.
Because their political beliefs involve calling for the deaths of me and mine and involve considering us worthless and subhuman. We keep telling you this, this is not a game, these issues affect us and our lives.
No, you only suggested we die. That’s so much worse than a bit of fucking profanity.
Daww, wook at the cute widdle tone troll! Zie’s soooooo concerned with our tone!
I never said fuck you to you Ruby. I thought it, but I did not say it. I did however state flatly you have no idea what you are blathering about. And you do not.
So once again, you have no clue and you are saying incredibly stupid things while make zero effort to pay attention to anything we say to you. Why should we be polite?
blockquote fail ^^’ The first line is Ruby’s, the rest is mine.
wah wah stop being so mean! Oh please spare me your tone trolling crap.
I am intolerant of beliefs that harm people. You’d rather let people die for some “greater good”.
Bullshit.
Plus a lot of feminists are not right leans because gasp! Right wingers are the ones trying to make abortion and birth control harder to access. They are the people that want to restrict women’s rights so no shit no feminist here likes them. Not to mention the typical anti lgtb crap from conservatives.
RE: Ruby
You never did answer my question about what I’m supposed to do. Seriously, I actually AM trying to engage with you, but you don’t directly respond to what I’m saying.
RE: Jumbofish
Whenever you say “the greater good,” I immediately remember the townspeople from Hot Fuzz who kill anyone who make their community look bad and constantly lurk around in black and intone, “THE GREATER GOOD.”
“STOP IT!”
I’d love to hear Dr. Blowhard’s and Mr. Christian’s take on “Saint Joan”.
RELEVANT COMIC IS RELEVANT http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1o661gJH01qa4ff3o1_500.jpg
One of us has stated, indirectly, that multiple other members of hte debate should have died; that zie hasn’t the courage of zir convictions to say so is immaterial… and now zie complains that OTHER PEOPLE are being intolerant? Idiots.
Conservatives get so fucking whiney when they’re challenged.
Have you read this blog at all? I can’t think of any regular here who isn’t left leaning, regardless of their ideology.
Ruby is displaying a flaw in logic that’s very typical among people of her political bent, where they don’t understand the difference between “you aren’t allowed to say what you just said” and “I think what you just said is stupid, and here’s why”.
People of any political leanings can comment here, they’re just not guaranteed to receive positive responses.
@CassandraSays: And given the horrific indifference (aka: intolerance) to people’s lives that Ruby has shown, it’s darned hilarious (by which I mean HYPOCRITICAL) that they should demand “tolerance” for their views.
“You have to tolerate me being INTOLERANT!!*
Nope, I don’t.
Ruby:
The stuff you’ve been saying is far worse than any profanity. Your are essentially telling individual people here that they and their families deserve to die because they are too poor to afford decent health care. You have no actual suggestions about how the situation can be managed, or shown a shred of compassion for those who have suffered and died under your “wonderful” health care system. The best you can do is point out how expensive it all is and how people can’t expect a free ride. That’s a terrible thing to say to people who lost friends and family because your health system, the one you advocate, failed them. It must be nice to be so privileged you don’t have to worry about such minor details.
Of course, you have the right to say what you like but the rest of us get right of reply, so don’t be surprised when we use it. Especially when you trample people’s feelings the way you have.
What I’m doing tomorrow: staying in bed and watching awesome movies with my husband while he feeds me strawberries and cream. Chemotherapy on Tues and I’m still feeling horrible so it’ll be a quiet day with movie, strawberry and cream involvement. And cats; a Mikeneko and a very sweet black cat called Taka. And possibly the neighbour’s cat as well. He visits a lot (I think he may have a thing for Mikeneko, or it might be that I leave food out for him and let him sleep here on rainy nights)
We might, just might go out for some good coffee if I feel able to drive. My husband is also talking about getting me a PS3 to keep me engaged during my last five weeks of chemo (yay!!! Almost done).
Ozy:
The Name of the Rose is one of my favorite books. Convoluted Medieval theology, grizly murders, an ancient abby and a bunch of interesting characters with fascinating personal histories! What more could you ask for?