The odds are never in our favour

Rating: 8/10 (22 November 2013)

Roll up, roll up! For more bread and circuses. Catching Fire fuses the reality- type show of Big Brother, the horror of Lord of the Flies, the sinister surveillance of Orwell's 1984, and the glamour of Strictly Come Dancing, all in one. The cruelty of fighting to the death continues with more games; the victors of the first games, Katniss and Peeta, are warned by their mentor Haymitch: 'From now on, your job is to be a distraction so that people forget what the real problems are.' The Games and its victors- cum-celebrities are used as 'entertainment' to distract from the real problems of impoverished and starving people in the Districts outside the Capitol of Panem. Just as Roman emperors placated the masses with 'bread (panem) and circuses' or gladiators.
We might kid ourselves that this is just a film, set in a horrific future world, that doesn't reflect our lives today. But, at some point, I'm sure that we've all chosen to watch some light-hearted entertainment on TV like I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here where we're encouraged to laugh at other people's uncomfortable experiences.
I already see signs of us living in a world of inequality, not far off The Hunger Games trilogy, and the ways in which we distract ourselves from the real problems, like the citizens of the Capitol do. We go shopping for clothes or stuff that we don't really need and ignore a homeless person on the street. We buy more food than we need and throw away £60 worth every month, whilst more and more people rely on food banks to feed their families each week.
For more, read the full review here http://rth.ms/18r26hR