The World Is Watching: The Hunger Games

I’ve given you an extra night to have gone to the theater and read that last page of the first book of Suzanne Collins series before reading this post. Note: If you have not read the The Hunger Games, seen the movie and want to stay in the dark about the contents of either, take about 48 hours and come back to this post later.

I’m not here to review the book or deliver my criticisms and praises of the movie which grossed over $100 million in its opening weekend—though I admit both would be fun to write. Rather, I want to discuss lessons learned from The Hunger Games.

In the country of Panem, once a year each of the twelve districts sends two tributes (one of each gender) to the Capitol to fight to the death in The Hunger Games. When Katniss Everdeen’s sister is randomly chosen at the reaping in District 12, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) decides to leave her family and best friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) behind as she volunteers to take her sister’s place. Katniss and her fellow tribute Peeta Millark (Josh Hutcherson) travel to the Capitol, train with their mentor Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and eventually enter the Games arena where their ultimate survival battle is put on for show. The annual reality television spectacle where only one can win.

Amidst all the hype back her in reality, reporters and critics have been scraping the barrel for any new story, any new angle about the series that has everyone integrating fancy words like “apocalyptic” and “dystopia” into their everyday vocabularies.

It’s a commentary on the 99% versus the 1% (nice tie-in, but Collins wrote this book long before Occupy Wall Street). It’s a commentary on the sad realities of the viscous world of high school. Well, personally I think the novel is an important examination of entertainment.

In my junior year of high school, my English class read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman debated our society and whether our demise would come as a result of Big Brother-type oppression from George Orwell’s 1984 or by our own consumerism and dependence on technology as in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Folks. We have our answer. Because in The Hunger Games we finally reach a point in the future where we kill our children and literally amuse ourselves to death.

The Hunger Games portrays a world in which we will do anything for the thrill of entertainment. After all, The Games are essentially the Olympics of Panem. They come around cyclically and only one can win. The slight difference between our current Olympic Games and these games is that this competition is fatal.

But we, in our current era, do a lot in the name of entertainment. Professional athletes are seriously injured all the time—football players, hockey players—at the expense of entertainment. Reality TV has taken over the airwaves. And I find it slightly concerning how quick we are, as viewers, to hope for the worst in other people’s lives.

The Bachelor’s Chris Harrison describes his latest bachelor’s pick as “the girl America loves to hate.” On Survivor last week, Colton Cumbie experienced a bit of 'karma' as he was evacuated from the island due to acute appendicitis; this after his racial slurs and general intolerable meanness towards everyone. (I'm pretty sure more than a few viewers were excited by his ousting.)

Even in regular programming (you know the fictional kind) the more disastrous people’s lives are, the better. We want drama. We want thrill. We want suspense. Essentially, as 26 million books and record-breaking box office sales will tell you, we want The Hunger Games. At this point, clearly we are only ok with the imaginary form. But I can’t help but feel Suzanne Collins calls for an awareness among readers and spectators.

Now I’m not totally condemning reality television. In fact, my relationship with Survivor has become an obsession. I want to point out that we do a lot for a spectacle, but we need to be cautious. Let’s not cross the line. The medium of television often creates a false distance. We even become numb to real-life tragedies as their frequency increases on the news. Be aware. Don’t let your mind go numb.

Aside from the reality TV warning, The Hunger Games is a story about relationships. Now apparently, I am the only person known to man (or at least to my knowledge) who is on team Gale. [For those of you who need catching up, Katniss’ best friend and hunting partner at home is Gale--who definitely loves her--but her fellow competitor, Peeta, confesses his love for her during his pre-Games interview. Love triangle established.]

Let me be clear. I really like Peeta. A lot. I think he’s a fantastic and loveable character. Adorably innocent and kind. I feel for the boy who’s had a crush on Katniss since the day he saw her. He harbored that love even while she didn’t even know he existed. BUT, let us not forget that Gale clearly has had feelings for a long time as well. Gale and Katniss have been hunting together, confiding in each other, depending on one another for years. Gale even says he wants to run away with her. His mistake: not telling her. Say what you want while you can.

We’re so afraid of rejection, judgment, change, an awkward moment. No one seems to be afraid of dishonesty or losing the chance to say what you feel. Maybe we should be less afraid and more concerned with being true to ourselves.

The Games also addresses another side of relationships, a side I am all too familiar with as a single gal in New York: playing the game. Don’t text him, make him text you. Don’t say “I like you,” hold on to the power. Play hard to get. Play it cool. Well, I think that Katniss proves that playing games with people’s emotions always leaves someone hurt.

In order to survive, Katniss needed to win the affections of wealthy spectators. These “sponsors” would send her gifts, packages necessary to her survival if they felt for her and wanted her to win. So, she had to play to their fantasy of her love with Peeta. Katniss had no choice but to play with Peeta’s heart in order to live. I cannot say the same for the folks of New York.

Aside from these lessons, the screen adaptation does provide an additional teaching compared to its print counterpart. With greater emphasis on President Snow of Panem (played by Donald Sutherland), the movie reveals a telling scene in which the evil dictator figure asserts, “The only thing stronger than fear is hope.”

While in Panem this hope is meant as a tool of repression, hope is important to remember as a source of strength in our lives. As strong as fear is, as paralyzing as it can be, hope prevails every time.

While the debates about the movie continue—how true it is to the book, if it’s the new but better Twilight—there are two things that came of the cinema version that are without doubt:

1) 1) Stanley Tucci is a supremely gifted actor. He’s an absolute star.

2) 2) Everyone should consider wearing clothes as vibrant as colorful as in the Capitol. Think of how happy and carefree we would feel!

And with that:

I urge you to read the book and go see the movie that has clearly become a marker of our generation. Think about the lessons that I hope will linger for just as many years.