The theme of politics in the hunger games

Evidence that both ends of the political spectrum have embraced the story of a dystopian future where reality TV pits children against each other in a competition to the death, in fact, is all over the Internet.

Occupy-Wall-Street liberals are loving the way the film portrays an extraordinary gap between the rich and poor as simply an innate evil. The poor are shown as the industrious ones.

About global warming, about our mistreatment of the environment, but also questions like: How do you feel about the fact that some people take their next meal for granted when so many other people are starving in the world? In the case of global warming, polls have indicated that roughly 85 percent of Democrats view it as a major, manmade problem while only 15 percent of Republicans agree. Joe Romm at ThinkProgress. The hunger games is a fight to the death of the 24 tributes where the last person standing is the winner.

Grendel and his mom are both monsters who live in a foul cave outside of human civilization. Grendel discovered the humans and did not like them because they were un civilized and cruel. Victims Within To Kill a Mockingbird At some point in life many people have been to a point where it seems the whole world is against them, that all odds are out to get them and take them down.

They then become victimized in those situations when they feel nothing seems to be right. Being a victim results to vulnerability towards the conflicts in people 's life. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the characters in the book are true victims of their own problems. Tom Robinson has been accused of raping a white girl, causing him to be a victim against the society and those of the court trying to keep him behind bars for something he did not do.

Essays Essays FlashCards. Browse Essays. Sign in. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Show More. Read More. Words: - Pages: 5.

Words: - Pages: 6. Animal Farm Influence On Society Overthrowing your opposition can be a crucial method when it comes to maintaining power as you are then without a doubt, the undisputed leader.

Words: - Pages: 9. Child Slavery In Uganda They beat my mother and brother with clubs and axes until they died. It was this spirit of liberalism which created the United States. Yep, in the movies. In the USA, to looks like the relentless rich and their blind sheep are the only survivors. Love the article! I often felt that the message went hand in hand with the political but maybe I was approaching the trilogy all wrong. No one really wins when there is war in the first place.

For me, what makes a great literature or art is that ability to open any dialogue about any issue. The divine vs. After reading the entire Hunger Games trilogy, I see Katniss character faced with this question of divine vs. Throughout the series, Katniss needs both to survive- as we all basically do. There are even desparate points where Katniss questions needing either of them.

In the end, when her life-threatening struggles are over and she is left with just how to cope with horrible memories and the rest of her life, she is able to finally accept that divine love Peeta and even dare to hope by bringing her own children into the world. Politics, war, power, greed — result in human suffering and loss of innocent life. Humanity depends on a combination of basic survival skills and unconditional love for each other.

Its the progressive end game is what it is. Peace keepers, social elitism, class controls, food regulation, regulation on every form of existence, powerful central goverment. And lots and lots of distractions with pop culture. Movie was ok. Pretty predictable. Only slightly a parody of our world, though. My children are in their twenties. Sometimes I envy that. Maybe I care too much? The heroes of the Hunger Games were the marketing department. The director did a great job as usual considering the material and talent.

The addition of Woody in the movie only added to the inability of the leads to control a scene. Politically speaking if either party connects with the film via self interest of a wagging finger, it only goes to show nothing truly ignorant happens until after the sale. I taught the book to high school students and we discussed it pretty closely.

Nobody, myself included, thought it had much to do with current politics. The book, far more than the movie, focuses very closely on the ways power can be abused. For the power elite, the danger is that Katniss will undermine an effective divide and conquer strategy. Honestly, health insurance, religion, taxation, ethnic minorities, economic redistribution — these hot button topics from real life American debate — seem pretty far removed from the storyline.

I think taxation and income inequality are pretty central themes to the books. I understood the central problem behind this movie, and all the dystopian young adult novels in existence. It is bread and circuses…hot teen girls having sex in a chaste way, of course and facing danger that they never really have to confront directly. And like most movies about Evil Empires the Star Wars films included , there is no explanation as to why so many people support the Dark Side or Darkseid, the empire or its supreme leader, because that might muddy the simplistic melodrama of it all.

Oh please to define the story as nothing more than sexualized encouragement and to go as far as saying danger they never have to confront directly are you serious, they have no choice but to confront nothing but danger! Anyone who was paying any attention could see that Katniss regularly exhibits both conservative and liberal tendencies she has an affinity for hunting, she abhors the torture perpetrated by the Capitol, she is self-sufficient and responsible, but she still sacrifices for Prim, Rue, and Peeta , perhaps it is not as simple as you all are arguing.

As I see it, there are two major motivators in The Hunger Games. The first is clearly an exploration of gender, and what that means. Katniss assumes the fatherly role by providing and protecting for her family. She is juxtaposed with an emotional, and mostly weak, character in Peeta. In almost every way Peeta falls into the damsel-in-distress character seen in every fantasy movie ever. Katniss literally has to help him walk, all while doing everything else and making sure both of them survive.

This is a take on the female condition and how every detail and every move is judged and criticized. Think of a woman picking her clothes, doing her nails, her make-up, her shoes, etc. Only in this case Katniss plays them like a fiddle, not the other way around. But on the other hand she is completely committed to her family and will do anything for them. Desperation has forced her to become a survivor, but in the midst of awful hunger and poverty she still clings to the things that make us human.

This is in staunch contrast to the people of the Capitol who represent the exact opposite, a pampered and leisurely society that has no conception of desperation. The Capitol is not described in any detail about its procedures or political alignment, because it is irrelevant to the story. Katniss is the story, the Capitol is just what motivates her, hence why the book is written and told from her perspective. The book and the movie explore the human condition in these two very different worlds.

In the end, this is not some cheap political diatribe. The Capitol is not a description of the privileged 1st world and the districts are the developing world. It is not an overbearing, yet somehow socialist, dictatorship trying to symbolize the evils of liberalism. So seriously, give it a rest. Very interesting. This movie appears to unwittingly express that same theme: no idea who the real enemy is. Maybe all of USA faction wars will soon inherit a little bit of hell when the entire globe weighs in.

The author kept politics out of her books? Early in the 1st book there is the discussion of the electrified fence surrounding each District. The electrified fence was supposedly there to keep the people from harm from the outside. However the people in the book looked at the fence as a joke meaning they could starve to death in safety.

In the US we have a powerful military to defend our country but we have trouble getting health care and other help to the people who need it. One of the last lines in the movie A Few Good Men is spoken by one of the Marines that were on trial.

He says that they forgot who they were supposed to protect, meaning that they were supposed to protect the weak. I think another possible interesting reading of the political implications of the work would be to run it through Foucault, and look at how power is exercised in this world through the panoptic effects of the media.

It seemed to me that the critique of the media was maybe the most contemporary and pointed. If my kids were watching these movies, there would be an outcry about it not doing them any favors.

Totally objective and unbiased…not. On another note: Personal failure in fame and fortune is not that bad when you consider the dictatorship that some people are living under the foot of-unless you are the foot? Silent, fearful, and afraid to stand up for yourself and your family is no way to live. It is the response. This movie transcends age as far as young adult VS adult of all the movies that inspire well nothing but product placement and worse that the state of things is as it should be completely ignores the story!

I have not read the book, but enjoyed the first move a lot more than I expected when it popped up free on Netflix streaming. Maybe the books and the movies are just entertainment and not intended to have a political message for one side or the other. I much preferred Battle Royale actually.

Deliciously satirical and combining that classic Japanese teen emotion with graphic but cartoonish violence. The film seemed like quite a profound statement on being a teenager to me. Reading all these comments. One thing comes into mind: One of the signs of good literature is that it allows a variety of equally valid interpretations.

I never read the books, but I did watch the movies. But I did watch the movies again searching for political undertones. What a load of rubbish. The Hunger Games is the only teenage novel written in the Twenty-first century that is politically minded!

I think you should be more open minded and read more, I can list plenty of teenage works that engage with political concepts. Get off your high horse! I aboslutely adore the Hunger Games and appreciate the films and novels as great art. I have watched the Hunger Games series a dozen times and never really have seen the environmental aspect of it.

The world is becoming corrupt in the image that each country is perfect in their own way. Money and control will never disappear, the need of it will only grow. Being a college student myself, I can see the need to be successful to be able to live well and provide the best future for your children.

These issue in the world that the Hunger Games represents are very well incorporated into a way that adolescents can imagine this in our World right now. It makes it understandable.

Social media is a growing thing that we are never going to be able to avoid. I have seen places like China and Saudi Arabia that will ban YouTube and certain media from their people to avoid them from learning about other cultures and potentially causing a rebellion for change. The World is crazy and complex but Hunger Games gives us a creepy realization of what could happen to us in the future. While they are an awesome dystopia, there is so much more to them. I had not thought of Katniss in quite the light you discuss her as but I do agree she is both a feminist ideal- both sexes are in the games with equal opportunities which was something I thought was well done but also under the patriarchal rule of the Capital.

Very nice. Although it can be read as a critique of both left and right, overall Katniss is a feminist heroine who is fighting political oppression and media exploitation. Wow, this article was fabulous. I think your information is very highly correct. Loved the article! Much of the publicity is about Team Gale or Team Peeta. Interesting look into our society…. Exactly because media sees people as product so in a silly effort to stop critical thinking and make direct action sound silly and bring it back to more easily exploitable aspects!

Part of what I love about the series is how it subverts the typical hero journey. Katniss is for a large part of the series a passive and unknowing participant in the rebellion. In the first book, Katniss is only concerned with saving herself and her family. In the second book, Katniss wants only to save Peeta in the Quarter Quell—she unknowingly becomes the symbol of rebellion.

She had no idea about the rebellion working beyond the scenes Haymitch—her mentor, and other victors already know about the plan. And in third book, Katniss is a manipulated figure head of the rebellion. She largely only agrees because she is trying to save Peeta. Collins emphasizes this passivity by having Katniss knocked out or unconscious during key moments.

Katniss is not an extraordinary hero though she is extraordinary , she is an accidental rebellion leader—driven there by circumstance and necessity. Katpiss is the swansong of a dying industry dominated by women. The great thing about the Hunger Games is that it shows how ambiguous war can be. It shows how war is not about good and evil, black and white. Katniss is not infallible. She is not pure. She is willing to kill in order to save the people she loves.

She drops a nest of tracker-jackers on the Career Camp. She kills the people she needs to kill to get what she wants. She is not the hero. She is a person. In many ways, Coin is far worst than Snow, especially in the third novel. Anyone who has seen the first portion of Mockingjay can see the Communist undertones of District Coin herself is reminiscent of Hitler in the times of Nazi Germany.

I would argue that Coin herself is allegorical of any Communist leader. They are trading a dictator for another dictator and we are left wondering which alternative is better. Katniss answers this. Nicely put. In the film of Mockingjay Part 1, you can almost feel sorry for President Coin in the knowledge that Katniss shoots her, yet seeing her admire Katniss strength and abilities and knowing her loss of her very own husband and daughter… But theses WERE film adaptions, not written in the stories, so it added depth to her character.

So when a fear of losing power takes over Coin and she inhumanly, manipulativly, and shadily tries to rid Katniss for good, you understand why Katniss shoots her. Snow reminds me of King Saud of Saudi Arabia, who kills everyone who expresses dissenting opinion. Coin reminds me of Joseph Stalin, leader of communist soviet union, who killed everyone who expressed dissenting opinion.

Great in-depth review. Thank you. I find some some real-life Hunger Games echoes returning from the recent report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission regarding aboriginal children sent to residential schools in Canada. Shattering, manipulative experiences showing some of the most cruel aspects of our western society.

When I saw the movie and read the book, the first thing that came to my mind was political corruption. Yes, the book contains themes that have been overused in book media, such as a conflicting love triangle, but it takes a backseat to the corruption of political systems.

Collins chose to express the upset of this country by providing a warning to a near future if we continue on this destructive path. Very insightful paper! Wow, thank you for writing this article. Katniss Everdeen is not just saving her folks but she must free a whole nation from tyrannical oppression and poverty.

This story is NOT about Katniss freeing a nation from oppression and poverty. And in the end, she paid an emotional price for her efforts.