Something to think about The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games, a trilogy (or series, if you follow the movies) that takes you to a post apocalyptic-war-false sense of peace world. But if you look further and get really into the story you can find some similarities and get the feeling that the author is criticizing modern society. I don’t pretend to make this a dissertation about how blind we are getting about the real situation out there in the world, or how messed up is the political systems in our country. But what I can do is to present and idea of what I think is happening and open some minds to the idea that we are living in a world that is changing and turning probably in something that we will regret in the future.
When reading the books I was so excited, well because most of the things you are reading you can find it interesting (if you are doing or got a degree in Social Science) and that probably in school (Social Studies) and college courses they talked about most of the main topics presented in the book: exploitation of the masses for the wealth of a few. The power of the media or media control as Noam Chomsky explains it in the book of the same name (if you haven’t read that book and you loved the Hunger Games, probably you would like it). Oppression.
Probably you have heard or read somewhere about the poverty in different places or how companies, usually the bigger ones ends up going to another country, a third world one, to find cheap labor and pay less or no taxes at all. Exploiting the working class from such country, giving them close to nothing and bringing all the profit to their homeland. The same thing happen with the Capitol and the twelve districts. Each of the districts focus in one thing, like mining, lumber, fishing, technology, etc. Like President Snow says in the book the Capitol is the heart and the district is the body. The capital needs all the districts to work hard to be able to supply something to the Capitol. In exchange they get “protection” and “help them” with food and other cares. Things that are not true, just because most of the districts live in misery and poverty, surviving with what they can. Same thing happen in the real world.
Since the new millennium began, there has been a lot of “reality” TV shows. Competitions. From trying to find the “love of your live”, to the best dancer or singer. We the people and I include myself, get trapped in some of these shows and forget sometimes about the reality and give us a sense of “meaning” so we can tune it every week. As in the Hunger Games, they are fighting to be the ultimate survivor. “Kill” the others to be the last one standing and get the recording contract and the money, or be the next top model in X magazine, or just find the “love” after 21 episodes seasons. Alliances and betray. Love triangles and even some sad stories to get into our hearts. And this is something that this books and movies reflect. How much we love these things that make us loose our minds? And the best question is; what are we not seeing? Because sometimes these are distraction to a bigger problem, something to make us look away for a moment so we don’t notice the big picture. The same thing happen in at Panem’s Capitol. They are so immerse in the games that they don’t notice the struggle from the districts. And if they know, they treat them like animals or objects, not like people.
And then we see the power over the people. Through fear, oppression, control. If you don’t do the things my way, there is no way then. Probably we don’t see that a lot here in the States, but other countries like North Korea, China and some Latin American countries. You cannot access the internet freely nor have free speech. Only a small part of society is granted with luxury and the rest… oh well… we all know.
We need to start working towards a better future. Stop being deceived and look at the bigger picture. If we don’t want to end in a Panem or any order dystopian future, we must do something now.
Carlos Rodriguez
12/5/2014
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