The Hunger Games

[zenmaster]

The hidden message in the movie: those who challenge the boundaries that are put into place as a (slave) society will pay a price. Those who don't challenge it, will live well, seem free, eat and dress well and be seem prosperous and happy.

It's the "hidden" message in many stories (in whatever guise, truth vs ignorance, allegory of cave, red pill/blue pill, tree of life/knowledge). Not exactly hidden or a warning as the writers are well aware of it.

From Wikipedia:
"Collins says that the inspiration to write The Hunger Games came from channel surfing on television. On one channel she observed people competing on a reality show and on another she saw footage of the invasion of Iraq. The two "began to blur in this very unsettling way" and the idea for the book was formed.[6] The Greek myth of Theseus served as the basis for the story, with Collins describing Katniss as a futuristic Theseus, and that Roman gladiatorial games formed the framework. The sense of loss that Collins developed through her father's service in the Vietnam War also affected the story, whose heroine lost her father at age eleven, five years before the story begins.[7] Collins stated that the deaths of the young characters and other "dark passages" were the hardest parts of the book to write, but she had accepted she would be writing such scenes.[8] She considered the moments where Katniss reflects on happier moments in her past to be the more enjoyable passages to write.[8]"

"Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were identified with an archaic religious and social order."