One question I would like to ask the
class about the Hunger Games is
whether the Hunger Games has a liberal
or conservative perspective, if it has political bent at all. I am not
convinced for either side, although I do see how arguments for either one could
be made.
One could argue that the Hunger Games is progressive because
the protagonists are a subversion of gender roles. We talked about in previous
discussions how Katniss is less concerned with romance than survival while
Peeta, and in the later books Gale, make it more of a priority. However,
Katniss does have feminine qualities. She is very maternal; she parents Prim
when their own mother is unresponsive and she also looks after Rue in the games.
She does not relish in the killing as some of the female career tributes do.
Another feminine attribute is that Katniss is presented as an object during the
games. The romance with Peeta and her conventional attractiveness are marketed
to the viewers to appeal to sponsors, leaving out the substance of her
character for. One could argue that blend of masculine and feminine traits is
more progressive because flipping gender roles makes each character stick to the
script of the other gender. However, there are multiple characters who stay
comfortably within gender expectations, like Prim, Effie Trinket, or Gale.
Another
aspect to examine would be race in the books. We talked briefly about the
choice to make all of the black characters from the agricultural district, which
is more prominently featured in the movies than the books. The reason for this
choice is never addressed and the lack of addressal seems in poor taste.
Aside from
social justice issues, the book could also be a warning against the perils of
big government and how governments with too much power abuse the rights of the
people. Taxation is also an issue, the districts, especially District 12 are so
poor because they are not justly compensated for the goods they send to the
Capitol and the only representation the districts seem to have is in the hunger
games.
I must politely disagree with you on the subject of race. In my opinion, the novel does address the issue of race and identity to provide comment on modern society.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the novel gives attention to race becomes apparent in the very first pages. Katniss comments that nearly every miner from the Seam has “straight black hair, olive skin, [and]… gray eyes,” while the merchant class tends to have “light hair and blue eyes”; this divide is ingrained enough that Prim and Mrs. Everdeen “always look out of place” in the Seam(Collins 8). Thus, Collins introduces a quasi-racial element, in which people are classified by heritable appearance, early in the novel. The fact that it does not correspond to modern racial categories serves to illustrate that these categories are arbitrary.
Moreover, the theme of the arbitrariness of modern classifications of people is continued through how Katniss categorizes people from outside 12. She willingly draws divisions between herself and “foreigners,” for example by mocking Effies’s Capital accent, yet she never does so on the basis of race(Collins 7-8). For instance, she identifies Rue as “the girl from District 11” and asks many questions about her experience in District 11, placing emphasis on the importance of District identity, but never calls her “the black girl”(Collins 98, 202-03). Thus, several thousand years in the future, people still categorize others into groups, but not in the modern manner, consequently showing how modern concepts of identity like race are artificial.
I think that because Collins does not really acknowledge race in the Hunger Games Society it becomes presented as a society without racial struggles.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of race, I think Collins does not address the issue more because she made Panem a society where the issue is not as present. Collins makes those from district 11 black. I think because district 11 is agriculture it can be argued that it is a allusion to slave labor since it matches with historical racial divisions of labor. However, Collins does not ever acknowledge that people truly perceive those along racial lines as facing certain judgements or being at a disadvantage because of their race. One can assume that there were still maybe differences in skin color among those who lived in Panem, but there is not any aspects of racism or different racial cultures mentioned in the Hunger Games so one can assume they do not play a large role in society.
Part of the reason why Collins might not outwardly create racial aspects to Panem may be in the fact that her novel is a social commentary. Since she has to create an entire alternate reality coming up with complexities surrounding race without making them the focal point of the novel could be challenging to do as the author.