The Politics of the Hunger Games

“Hope is the only thing stronger than fear” President Snow.

Ignoring that the hunger games is political would be like ignoring that Kanye West is a Nazi. The politics are very in your face, and with each release of a new book, Suzanne Collins is showing us her true colors in real time, reacting to the political climate that surrounds us.

Suzanne Collins is an enigmatic figure, having written mostly children’s books and not venturing outside of the Hunger Games series in a long time, she’s someone who’s not very active online (we know she hates social media) which is why every word counts in the world of Panem. She’s an elusive figure, only coming out of her shell every five years to give us new insight into the world she has created as a mirror of our own.

This article was written by myself (Luciana), and

Liv ₊˚౨ৎ˚₊

, a writer whose work I deeply admire for she writes about politics in the literary landscape. I approached Liv with the idea of writing a piece about the Hunger Games a short while ago, knowing something needed to be said following Trump’s re-election, and before the new book comes out. Of course, we will write about the new book once it’s been read and analyzed by yours truly, but before then, let’s reminisce about the complex four books that make up this tragic story, a reflection of our modern society.

The books are a lot more insular than the movies. The books only follow Katniss’ point of view, which the movies expand upon by giving us glimpses of Panem and other districts. So for this article, we will discuss the first four books, and the five movies to be thorough. We won’t discuss the references to ancient Rome, Shakespeare, and other works and parts of history, in this article we will focus on the political aspects of the Hunger Games and how they reflect our modern society. Liv is from Canada, I’m from France, so naturally, we’ll have different viewpoints to give you, that are still obviously Western so don’t mind our Western point of view on the political landscape.

During the first movie, we have an audience between President Snow and the head game maker, Cenneca Crane, which chilled me to the bone, and Snow explains why there is a victor. The reason is simple, hope is the only thing stronger than fear. You can control people with fear, but at some point, they’ll get fed up, organize, and rebel, as they did before they ‘annihilated’ District 13. With the hope of being one of the lucky few, the chosen one to survive into a life of riches and opulence, the masses don’t organize to fight, they fight each other for scraps and for the chance of winning a life worth living.

“Yes, victors are our strongest. They’re the ones who survived the arena and slipped the noose of poverty that strangles the rest of us. They, or should I say we, are the very embodiment of hope where there is no hope” - Catching Fire.

This reminds me a lot of our current political climate in the West. We’re fighting for scraps of a better future promised by authoritarian figures masked as populist leaders who promise us that the poor guy will finally get his due when in fact, he’ll get a buckload of nothing. Politics are run on hope, without hope there is no reason to vote for a candidate, they toy with that hope of a better future, selling it to the highest bidder behind closed doors and repackaging it to us as if it’s in our best interest. It is not. Our best interests are not being taken into account in current political parties. But still, they sell us this hope, this dream, this illusion, that we will be taken care of, that they will improve our livelihood, and yet, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. Remember that.

DISTRICT 11 AS AN ALLEGORY FOR PLANTATIONS

It’s no secret through the films that district eleven is mostly made up of black people, black people who work in fields. This is a direct metaphor for the slavery work black Americans endured. In the books you’re not so certain as the population of District 11, and some are mad that Rue, the black girl is killed (Rue had to die anyway for Katniss to win) but in the film, there is a scene of rebellion in the district at Rue’s death showing clearly that most of the population of that district is in fact black, and not just its two tributes sentenced to death.

SYMBOLS OF RESISTANCE

In addition to Katniss Everdeen's role as a symbol of resistance in The Hunger Games, the characters and districts resist the Hunger Games and the Capitol in many other ways. One of the key moments in the first book is when Katniss uses flowers and surrounding foliage to memorialize Rue when she dies in the games. This action was a catalyst for the protests and uprisings in District 11 in the film. In doing this, Katniss defies the capitol when commemorating her death.

To the Capitol, people in the districts are disposable and seen as entertainment when they fight in the games. Katniss reminds everyone – even the people in the Capitol – that they are human, and that they are being brutally murdered by not just the other players, but by the Capitol itself. Even caring for Rue and helping her, not just as an ally, but as a friend, defies everything the Capitol is trying to enforce in these games; trying to get the districts to see each other as competition and obtain one victor. This is further explored when Peeta shows off his skill in front of the Gamemaker, painting Rue with the flowers around her, in the second book and film.

This reflects what Reaper did in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Reaper aligned the fallen tributes and covered them with Panem's flag, memorializing them and defying the Capitol. He reclaims their agency, not allowing the Capitol to revel in their deaths and causing their outrage by covering them with the flag. In parallel to Katniss and Rue, Reaper takes care of Dill, again going against what the Capitol wants in turning everyone against each other. Even in his death, he refuses to make it a spectacle for the Capitol to take pleasure in and exploit. He doesn’t fight it, he accepts his death as a final message.

The famous three-finger salute was not always used as resistance against the Capitol. In the first book, Katniss tells us:

“It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.”

District 12 uses this salute when Katniss is being taken at the Reaping. However, the next time it is used, it is born as a salute of resistance. After she finishes memorializing Rue, she uses the three-finger salute. The next time we see it is during the Victory Tour in District 11 when an old man whistles Rue’s four-note song and salutes Katniss and Peeta, prompting the whole crowd to do it as well. When Katniss and Peeta are taken offstage, the Peacekeepers execute the old man in front of everyone. Now, whenever the salute is used, they are met with aggression from the Peacekeepers.

I don’t think the original meaning of the three-finger salute is lost; I believe the connotation of thanks, admiration, or good-bye is still reflected within the salute when it is used towards Katniss and the resistance.

Mockingjays are failed experiments from the Capitol. The Capitol created jabberjays to spy on rebellious Districts and record conversations, however, they caught on and fed the birds false information. Once realizing the error, the Capitol let jabberjays free and they ended up breeding and creating mockingjays. It’s a continued reminder of the Capitol’s failure and loss of control over the rebels. Having this used as Katniss’s symbol is a slap in the face for Snow, who then outlaws any reference to the mockingjay. This also connects back to Rue; she and Katniss use the four-note tune which the mockingjay repeats back to signal their safety. Katniss may be the main symbol of resistance against the Capitol, but all roads lead back to Rue as the main catalyst.

CONNECTIONS TO OUR WORLD

I’m sure many know the original reason why The Hunger Games was created, but in case you don’t: Suzanne Collins came up with the idea of The Hunger Games while channel surfing on her TV. She saw that news on the invasion of Iraq was being shown on one, and on another, a reality TV show was playing. She said the two “began to blur in this very unsettling way” and thus the idea for the book was formed. The Hunger Games, while published in 2008, still mirrors frightening parallels to our own world today.

Today, we are watching a genocide be live-streamed to us on our phones. Much like Collins channel surfing on her TV, we are scrolling through videos on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, etc. filled with the destruction in Palestine caused by Israel and the IDF. On the same apps, we also see videos of influencers and celebrities, sometimes in the same scroll. The more we see these videos the more they blur together, and people end up becoming desensitized to it. The influencer and the Palestinian become one, and people scroll by without a care, treating it the same. This resembles the way people in the Capitol have become callous towards the tributes; their lives start to be less than and their fights to the death emerge as a game they can watch for fun.

The bombing of District 8’s hospital in Mockingjay is a direct parallel to the hospital bombings of Palestine by Israel. Gale asks when they reach the hospital if keeping all the wounded in the same place is the best thing to do, meaning that he already thought that the Capitol wasn’t above attacking wounded men, women, and children. We thought our world would be different, that there would be a truce at Christmas in the Ukrainian war like there has historically been during World War 1 and 2, we thought hospitals were safe havens for everyone, and we’re being proven wrong. The evil of the Hunger Games doesn’t seem so farfetched now does it?

In the book, District 11 gives Katniss a loaf of bread to show their gratitude. They did not have an uprising like they did in the film. In the books, the first known uprising since the Dark Days was in District 8, when they began fighting Peacekeepers during Katniss and Peeta’s engagement being televised. It happens in Catching Fire; it seems to be successful at first, however, the Capitol brings in reinforcements and suppresses the protests within 48 hours. The supposed instigators of the protests were arrested and publicly executed, and District 8 was in lockdown for a week. The Capitol bombed multiple rebel strongholds and one of the factories, where the rebellion stemmed from District 8 citizens whispering plans under the noise of machinery making it hard to hear.

In the films, the first known uprising since the Dark Days was the one in District 11. Both of these protests were violently suppressed by the Capitol and the Peacekeepers, resulting in many deaths of the District citizens. Many other protests and uprisings took place across other Districts. This reflects a myriad of protests going on around the world contemporarily and historically. The police are institutionally oppressive actors, they do not protect the people, especially marginalized groups.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were created to control Indigenous peoples, and that is still true today. The missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, Two Spirit, transgender, and gender-diverse (MMIWG2S) crisis is still going on, and not only do the RCMP not take it seriously, but they are complicit in it. Indigenous peoples across Canada protest multiple pipelines and construction going on in their lands and the RCMP almost always retaliate with aggression and violence.

Protests in other countries are also met with police and government aggression and suppression. Historically, I can think of the protests against South African Apartheid, protests against the US involvement in the Vietnam War, the Arab Spring, the Great March of Return, the Civil Rights movement, etc. Years ago, BLM protests emerged across the US and other countries. Numerous protests were peaceful but made violent because of the police coming in arresting people, using tear gas, rubber bullets, tasers, etc. The “riots” were always televised, trying to give the protests a negative connotation and paint them in a bad light.

More recently, encampments for Palestine have erupted all over the globe and most have been met with police violence. Today, protests are going on all over the US against the current presidency, and also standing up for LGBTQ+ rights being met with police presence and assault. In the same way as the Peacekeepers, police are violent and trigger-happy. Police still kneel on people’s necks as a way to detain them, they use excessive violence when arresting, they racially profile, they shoot at people first before using any other method of restraint, etc. I could go on and on.

Now the real question is how do we cope with living in this world? This world that doesn’t allow for differences, that doesn’t protect minorities and fights war they have no business fighting. One of my friends told me that every year, around L’aïd Israel bombs Palestine and that this has been happening for decades, without us knowing about it because war in Palestine wasn’t trendy. With the new Ramadan coming soon, we can expect the war to pick up again and to feel useless again in the face of the inhumane. Do you want one piece of advice on how to cope?

Stay alive. Stay alive to fight another day. Whether it’d be by showing up to protests, resharing bookstores that donate to organizations on Instagram, or boycotting left and right, stay alive because we need you. Haymitch was right then and he will be right in his own book: you want one piece of advice? Stay alive.