Lessons from The Hunger Games - Part 2

If somebody put real Hunger Games on tv or a webcast, would you watch it? Would you feed the monster and help it grow?

Suzanne Collins put, in my opinion, an allegory to our time in a book and on a screen. Ironically, it may only be lost in the mix of media messages for most people.I offer some thoughts on how the world of The Hunger Games is really parallel to our own. There are a lot of questions here to ask yourself, I am not really looking for people to give me their answers, some of these are quite personal. Just answer them to your God and yourself.


As, promised, we continue the topic of what serious and life-altering lessons we can learn from Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. One challenging thing we find is their world differs from ours only in the extreme, and in some of the details. The basic problems are the often same.

How many Haymitches do we have? We no longer have a draft, but veterans from the drafts are still with us today. We have many warriors walking wounded, trying to drown their misery in substances. What did Katniss want to do after she won? To forget. Many veterans want to forget. While we honor our veterans for their service, many of us and many of them do not believe the missions our rulers send them on are necessarily in our best interests. The only thing in the world more painful than losing people you love to violence -or really any other tragedy - is to believe that there was no pupose in the tragedy, or that the purpose was worth less than it cost.
There were even people in Panem who sent their kids to special schools to make them bloodthirsty killers, brainwashed them to "bring pride to our district." Perhaps it was to avoid the pain of losing two kids every year, for no reason. Perhaps they got caught up in the lie that it was about pride, and that the kids were there to show that they really were better than the other districts. Hide from the fact that you have no power against this injustice by actively choosing what you have no choice but to choose. Make yourself feel empowered that way, raise your kids to have no respect for human life so they will have a better chance of winning. Give your community an ego-boost about something that is really quite shameful. Don't stand up to the system that makes you economically better off than most. Take your losses in your morals, not your sense of security. In this film, it backfires and none of those kids return home.




The people of Panem in The Hunger Games need to face the pain of losing their children for no reason, especially in Districts 1 and 2. They need to face reality, and call it by its true, ugly name. Turning an oppressive system meant to put you under the oppressors shoe into a source of pride and identity, and raising your kids to "win" these atrocious "games" to "bring pride to the district" is to try to get rid of the pain caused by a problem without addressing its cause. The games were there to make sure they knew their "place," by taking their children away to fight and die for no reason. The idea was to make it clear there was nothing they could do about it, to let them know who was "really in charge". They "empowered" themselves and prided themselves on "thriving" in that system, training their kids think that it elevated their district if they killed all the other kids every year. They perceived this as empowerment and pride because they accepted the lies and ideology of the corrupt system that instituted the Hunger Games in the first place.

The Lesson: Not everything that makes you feel better is healthy or helpful or good.  There are many applications for this. Calling yourself by racial or gender slurs could resemble this, because that is also surrendering while priding yourself on how well you are fighting. I see this everywhere. Women calling themselves b****es, black people calling each other n****s, and saying it means something they must know - at least deep sown inside - that it does not. Hide from the pain and call oneself courageous for doing so. Ease the misery at the cost of perpetuating the problem.

I see this frequently in the feminist movement. To some people, any time a woman does something conforming to male gender roles, it is seen as liberating. Self-identified (though not necessarily qualifying for the label) "feminists" do not consider whether the things being imitated are negative, or even oppressive and unproductive to men as well as to women. Taking on males' shackles is not going to free us, it only adds additional or different chains.

In the same vein, an abused woman who prostitutes herself to try and turn an abusive system into cash and calls herself "empowered" is lying to herself. She is never treated with any respect, so she declares war on the idea of respect and spurns her humanity by volunteering to be an object rather than declaring was on the objectification of women and confronting the source of the problem. She is not empowered, she is too weak, or weakened, to even face reality. Not a good candidate for a "Mockingjay" for herself or anyone else. She is not elevating or empowering herself or anyone. These decisions are founded on conformity to the mindset of the perpetrators who think they exert power over others by sleeping with them, it's built on never solving the problem.

Calling yourself a b**** and acting like a stereotypical, pig-headed male by pushing your way to the top and not caring about anyone else, or being rude,or being odious and vulgar, or making hateful words into "good words" and reversing hateful imagery is very unhelpful and hypocritical. The key to destroying oppressive systems is not to imitate anything said or done by the oppressor. Do not allow people that hate you to name you, keep their hateful words out of your vocabulary - all of them. Keep their actions not worthy of being called human, and that make the world an unhappy place, out of your behaviour. Women who prostitute other human beings,women who emotionally manipulate men, women who are physically and verbally violent, are not "empowered." They do no more to elevate womanhood than the tributes of Districts 1 and 2 in The Hunger Games elevated their districts.

Godspeed.

~ M.S.

Lessons from The Hunger Games Part 1

If somebody put real Hunger Games on tv or a webcast, would you watch it? Would you feed the monster and help it grow?

Suzanne Collins put, in my opinion, an allegory to our time in a book and on a screen. Ironically, it may only be lost in the mix of media messages for most people.I offer some thoughts on how the world of The Hunger Games is really parallel to our own. There are a lot of questions here to ask yourself, I am not really looking for people to give me their answers, some of these are quite personal. Just answer them to your God and yourself.



In the beginning, the game master, who has presumably climbed the ladder to that position over years, expresses how he rationalizes what he does. "It knits us all together," So the Hunger Games knit the people on Panem together, At what cost?
Whatever psychological positives Panem experienced with the games, the negatives were by far worse. They were "knit together" by the loss of their children, They were bound together by the fear it could be them, or a sibling, or a friend next. time. "Knit together" by the nagging possibility that it could be one of their children next year, When theyhad achild, theylived with the possibility tht child could be ripped from them and sent to the Hunger Games to - more than likely - die in pain and terror on live TV. Yes, strong bonds can form through tragedy, but that is no reason to deliberately put people, or oneself through tragedy.
The Lesson: What are you part of that you shouldn't be? What do you have to justify and rationalize in order to be a part of, perhaps to keep your job, a relationship or an identity? In what areas do you need to revolt?

Ellie was much the same as the game master. She stood before a crowd of people, mostly children, two of whom were about to be basically sentenced to death, at random, when she pulled their name out of a bowl. She lied to herself, and to all who saw her, by putting on a grand show, smiling and speaking as if it was a drawing for a grand prize. She saw a little girl screaming for her sister and a tearful sacrificing of one life for another. She smiled, looked on, made up a way to save face, and continued on with her act.
The Lesson: Is there anything in your environment you are intentionally ignoring? Is there anyone whose pain you justify by not looking at it? What about your own?

"May the odds be ever in your favor," Catchphrase. A tradition, "Culture," Something familiar. A joke, but powerful because of the emotions attached. It binds people together in the worst way, It binds people together on denial, in oppression, and in a type of willful, active complacency. They know the odds are never in anyone's favor. They know this show is an atrocity, they know there are victims living in the very same town.
The Lesson: What traditions do you need to question? What cliches do you need to stop being attached to and begin to move on from?

"They just want a good show."
The Lesson: What are we complicit with, in the name of receiving a "good show?"
Anorexia, emotional abuse, ravages on our own and others self-esteem, Brainwashing, sucked into a world of material obsession, and shallow standards passed off to us as "what we really need," by advertisers. Are you waiting for pop culture to change,and complaining about it,while continuing to consume it? Are you looking in the mirror hating what you see, reading all the magazines,wishing you were rich so you could buy all the junk to"fix" your perceived flaws off the shelves? Are you sizing up people around you by those standards? If so, Panem's not as mythical as you think - you live there.
Another Lesson: Who knows what kind of undue pressure we help place on the of entertainers who are far to young to be able to process it? How many child stars need to have breakdowns, before we realize the price they pay for our amusement? I want to see the day we can get used to having the children in shows be played by animation, like a lot of animals are now. No more Miley, Cyruses or Jonathan Brandises (he committed suicide) please.

"Crystal Chandeliers" Ellie seems to shift her focus to the pampering the kids get while they are awaiting their nearly certain death. What's pampering you to death? An abusive boyfriend? A drug dealer? How about a boss who is never actually going to promote you for the sacrifices you make? A lifestyle you know is wrong but are not repenting of anyway? Maybe a job that gives you tons of money and "stuff" while keeping you from your children or your life purpose? A credit card you can't put down, and soon will not be able to payoff? Panem's deception comes in many forms in modern life. Be honest and check your own.

"I understand what you're saying, I just can't afford to think like that."
What are you complicit with? What do you need to reevaluate. Anything? How certain are you about that answer, if you thought of one? Turning from some of these things is not to be taken lightly, any more than facing down the juggernaut of Panem's ruling elite was for Katniss, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.


More to come.
Godspeed