Finished the Hunger Games Trilogy today. Here are some thoughts:
Moral Nihilism
The Hunger Games Series, by Suzanne Collins, is thoroughly nihilistic. What do I mean by "nihilistic"? I mean that life, death and labor in The Hunger Games trilogy are largely devoid of any deep significance or meaning. The protagonists are largely driven by the shallowest and most petty of motivations in their actions.The main character, Katniss Everdeen, proves herself to be a stone cold killer driven largely by revenge. The ending of the series resigns itself to life for life's sake, to the natural inevitability of things simply continuing. No deeper or more pronounced meaning is discovered or entertained outside the one-dimensional worldview of the main character, who seems to only be capable of understanding her life in terms of her most immediate relationships and her drive for survival and revenge.
Political Self-Censorship
At the heart of the Hunger Games Trilogy is the story of empire. Even the name of the triology itself invokes universal themes of how empires through out history have operated: how poor children are sent by rich profiteers to fight to the death against other poor children who live elsewhere, all for the sake of control. In the book, the ruling class that lives in the Capitol live decadent consumer lifestyles marked by extreme consumerism and obsession with the superficial. This lifestyle is made possible through The Capitol's strict control over the allocation, production and distribution of goods as well as complete control over the lives of workers and the conditions of their worksites and communities. All of this is to the benefit of the ruling class. This is a very powerful metaphor for how the United States uses its military and police to control communities and workers all over the world for the benefit of the global ruling class and their corporate bottom-line. But the book series, in my opinion, never goes far enough in examining how individual relationships and experiences are always embedded within empire. So the main character, rather than struggling for a better world where workers control their own communities and labor, is simply motivated to seek revenge against the autocrats who have hurt her family and friends. Murder and revenge are substituted for truth and resolution. Hate and violence for love and constructive alternatives.
This is made evidently clear in Katniss' home district of Appalachia where their entire way of life is centered around the mining of coal. Katniss's father dies as a result of a mining explosion and her entire community is constantly on the brink of mass starvation, yet she never makes the leap of connecting how the struggles of her family and community exist as a direct result of their institutional relationship to The Capitol. What is deeply ironic about her motivation to revolt against The Capitol is that she never seems to ask what kind of future would be worthy of her family and community and therefore worthy of fighting - and dying - for. Instead, Katniss seems blind to any larger questions, any larger vision, any deeper meaning to life than the sheer push for survival and revenge.
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| This very real picture from a very real internet poll performed by the very real "GoBankingRates.Com" proves that contradiction is a useful principle in understanding Imperial America |
The Revolution
Another disappointing feature of the triology is the fallback to the lessons of the Cold War. The Left in the United States underwent a very real and very deep winter of guilt for its uncritical defense and support of Stalinist Russia. This theme has already played itself out over and over again in our movies and books. Rather than providing a new, deeper, healthier vision of what a post-capitalist, post-imperial world might look like, the Hunger Games veers into pure reaction, making the replacement of one totalitarian government with another totalitarian government at the end of the revolution an inevitability. Given the shallow emotional motivations of the characters there is little surprise that no time is raised to examine questions surrounding means and ends in a time of war, how we work collectively to create a better future society, justifications for the existence and use of nuclear weapons, or how folks from different communities with different cultures, resources and vocations should relate to one another on a larger and in a more holistic manner. Even more disappointing, the theme that hope is the greatest possible weapon against empire is completely smashed under the weight of hopelessness in light of the sheer inevitability of ever accomplishing anything through revolution than the installation of a new ruling class.
The Lowest and the Deepest
One of the most interesting aspects of the trilogy is the fact that the revolution largely begins in Appalachia and the Black Belt south. It is the agricultural south that shows the first unified and organized act of dissent against The Capitol in response to the public actions of Katniss. The poorest and most oppressed districts are the first to begin fighting back. This fact simply exists in the books, with no further depth or examination. While characters in the Hunger Games trilogy readily prove that they are completely capable of standing and acting in solidarity with one another and turning against their common oppressor, there is again no real examination of what life looks like beyond a fight against The Capitol.