Peeta Mellark/Copyright Lionsgate via Rotten Tomatoes |
Last
month, Mockingjay: Part 2 concluded
the film version of The Hunger Games series, a dystopian story
in which
children are forced to fight to the
death in a televised Survivor-like arena.
President Snow uses
the Games as a way to control the population and stamp out the rebellion in the impoverished and oppressed Districts.
the Games as a way to control the population and stamp out the rebellion in the impoverished and oppressed Districts.
The Hunger Games books and films explore several significant themes but this final installment gets at one
particularly relevant right now: how fear shapes the way we see the world and
each other.
In the
film, this plays out most affectingly in Peeta, a Games survivor who is suffering
from the effects of torture. Snow used images combined with potent
fear-inducing drugs to reshape Peeta’s memories, particularly of fellow Games
survivor Katniss in order to make him fear and hate her.
After his
rescue, Peeta struggles to discern which memories are real and which ones are
not—and it’s hard. As one character explains in an earlier film, “fear is the
most difficult to overcome” because “we are hardwired to remember it best.”
I watched Mockingjay only a week after the terrorist attacks in Paris, and I
couldn’t help but think how Peeta’s struggle reflects our own in a culture
where we are constantly bombarded by images laced with fear.
In Psychology Today,
Deborah Serani points out that the prevalence of fear-based news coverage is
connected to our false belief that crime rates are rising
(they are actually falling, according to FBI statistics) and leads us to see
the world as a hostile place and overestimate our odds of becoming a victim.
This not
only affects the way we see each other—i.e. dehumanizing each other as potential
threats—but it also changes the way we act.
In “Overreaction to Fearsome Risks,” Harvard scholars Cass Sunstein and Richard Zeckhauser explore how we overact
in terms of public policy to low probability risks which are vividly and widely
publicized, like terrorism. When terrible outcomes are vivid and easy to
visualize (think 24-hour cable news), we become insensitive to the reality of
low statistical risks—even when the risks are dramatically lower than those
associated with ordinary activities.
The Washington Post reports we have a
one in 20 million chance of dying from a terrorist attack; we’re twice as
likely to be killed by lightning. Yet immediately
after the Paris terrorist attacks there were public demands to block Syrian
refugees from entering the U.S.—even though statistically, if I’m doing my math right, the chance of a refugee committing an act of terror is less than one
percent.
Our perception of reality has
been hijacked. We can’t tell what’s real. But, like Peeta, we can find our way
back.
To distinguish between the
real memories and the ones that were manipulated, Peeta begins asking his
friends which memories are “real or not real.” I deeply resonate with this because,
as Christians in a growing culture of fear, we need each other to remind us
what’s real—and even more so, remind each other who we are.
Yes, we
live in a broken world where evil exists. But we are followers of Jesus,
children of the Most High God. We were given not a spirit of fear but of power,
love and sound mind. As his people, we are a beacon for the lost, broken and
marginalized. We are a compassionate, risk-taking people with our eyes fixed on
Jesus and not the waves around us.
We walk on water, move mountains, stop to care for the beaten traveler, seek the lost sheep, overcome evil with good, take up our crosses and lay down our lives. We swim in a love that casts out fear. We love with that love—and that changes everything.
We walk on water, move mountains, stop to care for the beaten traveler, seek the lost sheep, overcome evil with good, take up our crosses and lay down our lives. We swim in a love that casts out fear. We love with that love—and that changes everything.
Real or
not real? Brothers and sisters, that’s real.
This is a slightly longer version of a column that first appeared on MWR.
This is a slightly longer version of a column that first appeared on MWR.