...to Cry at The Hunger Games

I didn't want to go.  All week I've been telling my kids and my friends they'd have to go without me.  Based on the half of the book that I was able to gut my way through,  I knew this movie, if faithful to the book, would send me into an emotional tailspin.  My sons encouraged me to finish the book, assuring me the experience of the whole book would redeem the emotional toll spent.  My friends made arrangements to meet at the theater so they could join the rest of America in sending the opening weekend's tickets sales soaring off the charts.  The Italian Mama declined each request to join them.

But when my youngest's plans to go with friends fell through, I volunteered to go with him so he wouldn't have to sit alone.  Besides, I wanted to know what my kids would be watching so I could do whatever damage control might be necessary.

Turns out, they were the ones who needed to control the damage.  From the opening scenes my stomach knotted and my throat tightened so that I had to remind myself to breathe.  By mid-film I was weeping.   With tears streaming down my face, I turned to check on my eleven year old, who assured me he was fine and patted me on the shoulder in a vain effort to comfort me.  That only made me cry more.  Why was he OK with this?

For those of you who missed opening weekend, think The Truman Show, Apocalypse Now, Survivor, Twilight, and American Idol all wrapped together with a pinch of Romeo and Juliet.  Like any other artistic endeavor, it's being derivative did not detract from the quality of the movie: it was devastating and riveting.  And therein lies the problem. Parents blithely dropped off their tweens; teens gleefully texted each other as they lined up with their friends; and grown-ups happily waited with anticipation while munching on popcorn and Big Gulps for a teenage snuff film minus the sex but just as obscene. 

After the movie, everyone streamed out of the theater chatting with as much nonchalance as they had while eagerly waiting on line to get tickets. Parents picked up their tweens, and teenage girls twittered about whether they liked Gale or Peeta better.  I choked back the tears until I got in the car and cried even harder when I saw that no one else seemed phased in the least by what they had just seen.   Perhaps they're not old enough to know that they hadn't just watched The Hunger Games; they had participated in them in no less grotesque manner than the fictional residents of the Capitol.  And for that, the Italian Mama wept all the way home.