National Anthem
Full disclosure — this episode does not make me feel tasty. When we watched in class I felt physically sick afterwards. At first I thought it was the idea of what was taking place in the episode, that a man was being forced to do this horrible awful thing. Maybe it was the visual.
When I was actually able to reflect on the episode and pinpoint when I felt the most affected by it, however, it was in the ‘one year later’ portion. I really didn’t want to have to revisit the episode to write this blog post but here goes.
In the last two minutes there’s the newscast in which the event is described as ‘the first great artwork of the 21st century’. It had a global audience of 1.3 billion people. It’s sickening to think that so many people watched that unfold.
How far are we form this dystopian reality? Not far at all. The episode was difficult to watch, I believe in part, because of the realization that it is not completely out of the realm of possibility. The reactions of the people watching the Prime Minister being forced to do something awful, almost as though they were enjoying it, was almost predictable.
When the Hunger Games came out it was impossible to imagine a scenario where people would watch children slaughter each other as a form of entertainment. Who would want to?
Coming this July. The show isn’t expressly about murder in the same way that the Hunger Games is, the objective is merely to survive nine months. However, the survivor gets quite a lot of prize money, and if multiple survive, the money will be divided between them. Contestants will, therefore, want their competition dead. This is made more concerning by the fact that murder is allowed. Contestants are allowed to kill each other. ‘Anything goes’, according to producers. I can’t quite wrap my head around that idea.
This show is also majorly scary in that people have actually signed up to participate in it. They have had to sign waivers and pay ridiculous amounts of money, they did not wind up on the show by accident. They weren’t chosen and made to do it, like in Suzanne Collins’ novel. I’m not really sure if that makes it better or worse.
I anticipate — though I really hope I’m wrong — that the show will have a large audience. Like any other reality television program, viewers will take to social media to discuss their favourites, the events that occur each episode, etc, and that is going to normalize it.
So how do we prevent this? If it’s already taking place, how do we stop it from becoming a normalized part of our culture?
Don’t watch it, for one thing. I’m starting to wonder if the way to kill something like this is to not give it any attention. There’s a fine line, though, between ignoring the show for the purpose of stunting its popularity, and turning a blind eye to it. And even though I refuse to watch it, that is only one viewer lost, and that makes little difference.
Thankfully there is a lot of discussion online about how sick the show is, but for all these blog posts and rants in the comments, I haven’t found anyone starting any initiatives to halt the show’s production. I found no letter writing campaigns. I did find a Spanish petition with 21/100 signatures, but that’s about it.
Why aren’t we trying to stop something like this? Is there even something that can be done?
