The controversial and unrelentingly brutal Japanese film Battle Royale (2000), directed by Kinji Fukasaku (based on the eponymous novel by Koushun Takami), is set in a Japan of the future, which is in the throes of a severe economic crisis. As part of the state’s economic revitalization program, the army kidnaps a class of Japanese secondary school students and takes them to an abandoned island, which serves as the setting for a monstrous “Battle Royale.”
The students, who had set off thinking they were going on a class trip, are forced to participate in a game on which their survival depends. Fitted with dog collars, which are both listening devices and timed explosives, they are given “survival kits,” some of which contain useful objects such as a knife or a revolver, while others include little more than a saucepan lid. Whoever eliminates all the other players wins the game, which is being monitored on army computer screens. One couple, a boyfriend and girlfriend, disqualify themselves from the game by committing suicide. Some kill to defend themselves or their partners, and others discover that they enjoy killing games. The teacher, murderer, and, obviously, creator of the game, leaves the students a simple ideological message: Life is a game!
In non-totalitarian systems everything is transparent and tailored to the individual. Accordingly, the individual only has him- or herself to blame for their personal failures. Disqualification from the game is, of course, temporary. The fact that there are millions of disqualified people in the world doesn’t make our hearts bleed, and in any case, why would it? We haven’t been eliminated from the game, they have. We’re in there, boxing along, surfing and navigating, our computers sending out little bleeps to announce new messages. Our telephones and PINs are fully functional, money machines spit out fresh bills at the touch of a button, our answering machines are switched on, agencies send us ads for cool holidays, we get invitations to do this or that, department stories send us stuff about upcoming sales, hotels offer cheap off-season deals, our diaries and day planners have our dental hygienist appointments, hair appointments, and yoga lessons, our mobile phones buzz impatiently, our fingers caress the little buttons. No way, we’re not disqualified, the race is still on, the game still in play. .
January 2011
ASSAULT ON THE MINIBAR
I’ll put my cards on the table: over the years my statistical sample has become a substantial one. I can reliably claim that in the matter to follow, the quantity of experience really does determine the quality of the assessment. Every new experience just reconfirms the rule — and I had a new experience recently. .
At the reception desk I filled in all the necessary details and got the key. Before I headed off to my room the receptionist asked:
“Would you like to open a hotel account?”
“What’s that?”
“It means that you don’t have to pay for everything you have or use in the hotel immediately, you just give your account number.”
I declined. What do I want with a hotel account? I’m only here for three days. Breakfast is included, and most of the time I’ll be out and about.
The room was large, luxurious, and had that fresh new smell. The furniture was certainly brand-new, the bathroom enormous, and the heavy windows opened gracefully with the touch of a button.
I hadn’t even gotten around to unpacking my things when I heard a knock at the door.
“Can I help you?” I asked the young porter.
“Sorry, but I have to lock the minibar.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t open a hotel account,” he said, before heading for the minibar, locking it, and leaving.
All of a sudden I felt the blade of the invisible sword of injustice pressing on the back of my neck. I don’t even use minibars. Alcohol doesn’t agree with me; I don’t like greasy stale crisps; I hate any kind of peanuts; candy bars of uncertain origin aren’t my thing; random bottled liquids inevitably give me heartburn; and carbonated non-alcoholic drinks are just plain bad for your health. The bottom line is that a minibar doesn’t have anything I’d ever want. So why did I feel so humiliated? Just because the bellboy locked the minibar? Did he put a padlock on the shower, the bathroom tap, the TV remote, the toilet seat? He didn’t. Rationalizing it, comforting myself with thoughts of the palatial bed or a hot shower, nothing helped. I was inconsolable. It was just the hopeless sense of deprivation.
They say that a German company called Siegas first manufactured the minibar. But apparently we’ve got the visionary mind of hotel executive Robert Arnold to thank for its ubiquity. As Wikipedia reliably informs us, Arnold was on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong in 1974 when he spotted miniature bottles of alcohol for the first time. Arnold ordered a supply of the bottles and his employer, the local Hilton, took a gamble on the honesty of its guests. Honesty minibars are what they called them. A few months later, word spread in the hotel world that the minibars in the Hong Kong Hilton had increased turnover on alcoholic drinks by about 500 percent, and from then on minibars were part of the furniture in every hotel in the world. All thanks to Robert Arnold and an epiphany inspired by a quick glance at a tiny bottle. It might seem by the by, but similar miniature bottles were sold in the watering holes of my former homeland. Their devotees lovingly called them “kiddies.”
And this is actually the point: love. Minibars are all about love. Let’s think about it: What is, in actual fact, a minibar? A minibar is designed as a dollhouse for grown men. Men love their “kiddies.” A hip flask, the teenage dream of today’s seventy-year-old, was known as a “buddy.” Kiddie, buddy, minibar — they’re all diminutives for a guilty something. Guilt in the diminutive is not guilt; it’s the simulation of guilt. And therein lies the unique psychotherapeutic effect of the minibar.
For many a lonely businessman, the minibar is a symbolic substitute for home. Getting back to your room, opening the little fridge door, popping open a bottle of beer, flopping down into an armchair and putting one’s feet up on the table — it’s a ritual deeply ingrained in the imaginary, even of those who don’t come home, open the fridge, and take a beer.
The minibar is also designed as a first-aid kit. Even if you’ve never used it, the thought of your home first-aid kit makes you feel safe and protected. That’s why some minibars also have condoms. “Buddies” to protect you from “kiddies.”
The minibar is also a kind of temple, a place where we come face-to-face with the metaphysical. In a hotel room you wake from a nightmare. Surrounded by the indifferent darkness, there’s no one to hug and comfort you. The minibar gives off a dull (transcendent) light, bottles and bags stand contritely upright, as if in a chapel. The minibar radiates serenity. In the terrifying darkness of the hotel room this lit-up display acts like apaurin. Everything is OK, I’m back in reality — the nightmare is over.