What
is the one thing Katniss claims the "Games must not do" during her
time in the arena? Verge on dullness. The people in the Capitol build their
lives around different forms of entertainment: parties, makeovers, and—obviously—the
annual Hunger Games.
The
author of the blog seen here discusses an aspect of the Hunger Games series that I haven’t really looked at in depth: the
idea of extreme consumerism. It’s easy to mock the ostentatious and
materialistic lifestyles of the people in Panem’s Capitol. But when you really
look at the way they live, it isn’t much different from the way we live.
How
many of us watch reality shows on TV? Isn’t that exactly what the Games are, a
reality show? Reality shows are a major source of entertainment for people;
many people watch these shows in order to have a brief escape from their own
reality.
Through
Katniss’s prep team, we learn that the people in the Capitol really are
oblivious to many of the problems that are found in the rest of the country.
Collins basically warns the readers about the dangers of becoming so focused on
things like entertainment that they become ignorant of the real problems in the
world.
As
much as we fans of the Hunger Games
books and movies would like to say we aren’t like the people of the Capitol, we
can’t. A majority of the people in the fandom fit in the “1%” of people who
collectively have more wealth than the other 99%. We live in a society that
pushes us to consume. We want to buy the newest things and watch the newest
shows. Our lives revolve around entertainment—just like the lives of the
Capitol citizens.
Even
our love for the series seems hypocritical in a way. We see the premiers of the
movies, and then we go back to see it again. We become obsessed with the cast,
just as the Capitol people become obsessed with the victors of the Games.
So
I think this is the challenge for all of us: we need to find a way to satisfy
our desires for entertainment without becoming so overwhelmed with them that we
lose the reality around us.
If
our “Games” verge on dullness, we shouldn’t view it as a tragedy; we should
take it as an opportunity to realign our focus on the reality that we face.
“Real or not real?” This is another Mockingjay quote that really got me thinking as I reread the books.
I’m a fan of Peeta, so most of my favorite quotes from the series are things
that he says. After being hijacked by the Capitol, he is forced to question
everything in his life: his past, his relationships. He can’t tell reality from
fiction. But this quote, again, seems to suggest something deeper.
“Real or not real?” The Hunger
Games series is fiction, but the themes it expresses are not. War happens.
Hunger happens. Suzanne Collins created Panem and the people who live there,
but she didn’t create war or hunger. She didn’t create human nature. She just
emphasized those ideas. Just like hunger, these are problems that can be
solved. Forced labor and slavery aren’t necessary things. In Mockingjay, we discover that Finnick was
sold for his body.
“Real or not real?” In the United States, forced labor and
slavery aren’t as widespread as hunger, but things like human trafficking
happen. It’s very real. In other countries, slavery still exists. In some
African countries, children are forced to join armies and kill. War. “Real or
not real?” War isn’t fiction. War is real. It happens everywhere. Human nature
leads to disagreements. People fight. But little play fights we have as
children don’t prepare us for the real thing.
One of the verses in Taylor Swift’s song, “Eyes Open,” from
the Hunger Games movie soundtrack
says this: “The tricky thing/ Is yesterday we were just children/ Playing
soldiers, Just pretending/ Dreaming dreams with happy endings/ In backyards,
winning battles with our wooden swords/ But now we've stepped into a cruel
world/ Where everybody stands and keeps score/ Keep your eyes open.” The world
is cruel, and it’s full of people seeking vengeance.
These are ideas that are larger than the books themselves.
The movie soundtracks are full of songs that aren’t actually in the movies. They
express the themes in the books and movies. The songs apply to real life just
as much as they apply to the movies. “Keep your eyes open.” We have to be aware
of the enemy.
In Catching Fire,
Haymitch reminds Katniss to “remember who the real enemy is” in the arena. The
real enemies aren’t the other tributes. The enemy is the Capitol. Those people
who force the tributes to fight, who keep the citizens poor and weak, they are
the enemies. The Capitol seeks revenge for the rebellion by the districts.
We learn to take “an eye for an eye.” In Hunger Games, the Capitol forces the
districts to surrender two tributes to the Games as punishment for their
rebellion. Obviously this concept doesn’t really work, because the districts
end up with the upper hand and defeat the Capitol. But they come out victorious
only after many lives are lost. That’s how real wars are. Lives are lost; many
of those who die are innocent.
Suzanne Collins doesn’t sugarcoat the war in her novels.
People are affected psychologically as well as physically, just as they are in
the real world. She brings awareness to these issues in the hopes that the
people who read her novels will do something about them.
Gaining an awareness of issues is the first step to doing
something to change them. I think fiction is a great way to bring light to
heavy subjects like war or forced labor. I know I would much rather learn about
world problems in a novel than in a history book. “Real or not real?” The
subjects in fictional works like Hunger
Games are very real. If Katniss can help solve the problems in her world, we
can solve the problems in our world.
I reread the Hunger
Games series a few weeks ago during Thanksgiving break. And just like
anyone who reads a book or watches a movie more than once, I noticed some new
things. Mostly, I noticed quotes, like this one: “But there are much worse
games to play.” This is the very last line of Mockingjay, the last thought given to the reader. When I read it, I
realized something. This isn’t just Katniss speaking, it’s Suzanne Collins.
She’s bringing up a larger argument: the things people face
in the world are worse than the things that the people of Panem face. Sure,
they starve in Panem; they watch their children kill each other. Those things
are terrible. But they are fiction. In our world, people starve; people are
forced into inhumane conditions. The final line of the series is meant to
provoke thoughts. It’s meant to provoke action. Collins wrote the series as a
forewarning, much like George Orwell did in Nineteen
Eighty-Four. Orwell wrote his novel in the period following the Second
World War; his work encapsulated the fears of totalitarianism and the ideas of
socialism that were ever-present in his world. Collins wrote her series in the
twenty-first century.
Who today hasn’t heard anything about world hunger? Who
doesn’t know someone who has fought or is fighting in a war? Collins brings
those themes to the attention of the reader. She essentially warns of the
dangers of a corrupt and unrepresentative government. The people will suffer.
People do suffer. In the United States, the suffering may not be to the extent
that the people in Panem face, but people in other countries—real
countries—suffer even more.
One of the biggest forms of suffering in the world is hunger.
It’s in the third world countries in Africa; it’s in first world countries like
the United States. It’s also one of the most solvable problems in the world. It
isn’t that there’s a lack of food or anything, it’s just that resources like
food aren’t distributed evenly. The unequal distribution means a small portion
of the population has excessive amounts of food—and therefore a lot of
waste—while the majority of people rarely get enough to survive. The Capitol in
Panem represents the excessive nature of a small proportion of people. This is
juxtaposed with the people in the districts like 11 and 12 who often go to bed
hungry. The only reason Katniss is relatively well fed is because she breaks
the law and poaches her food.
Hunger is obviously one of the biggest themes in the series,
and I think one of the reasons Suzanne Collins wrote the series was to bring
these issues to light so people would take action to help solve these problems.
Lionsgate Entertainment, the company that distributed the Hunger Games movies, teamed up with the World Food Programme and
created a PSA with some of the cast to bring the issue of hunger to light. Fans
of the series have signed petitions to change agriculture laws. “There are much
worse games to play,” but with help, these games can be won.
