A Hunger Games Rant No one Asked For
With the latest book release and hype for the upcoming movie I’ve seen a lot of …. toxic interesting behaviors and trends popping up both with new and old members of the fandom and since this is the only real platform I have (even though this is very much out of my normal content and probably won’t get a lot of traction) I feel it was the most appropriate place to vent my frustrations into the void.
Essentially I’ve noticed that the central point of the series has gone over a lot of reader/consumers heads. And maybe it’s not that they don’t get it but more so that they’re choosing to ignore it in favor of sensationalizing the more brutal aspects of the series. I think we can all agree that Sunrise on the Reaping was probably the most brutal, in-your-face of any of the books in the series (and I implore you to ask yourself why Collins felt it necessary to write it as such). We learn a lot more about several victors and their treatment post games as well as the game makers and some of the henious inventions they cooked up in the era of Snow. I know it’s natural to want to know about these things especially the different arenas but does no one else think the slew of “if I we’re a game maker these are the arenas and mutts I’d make” posts are weird? Think about it, what you’re really saying is “these are the settings I’d create to force children to kill each other in for others entertainment and these are the murdering animals I’d send at them to make it even more fun to watch 😃”. I know some people would say it’s all just fun and games and I’m taking it way too seriously but it is serious. This is EXACTLY how things like this were able to occur in this universe because people dehumanized one another and focused only on their entertainment and revenge instead of how it would affect others! I never interact with posts like that but I am surprised by how many people do and at how often they show up on my timeline across platforms. It’s actually concerning.
Not to mention the posts I’ve seen of people dreaming up other possible quarter quell scenarios. Especially when you consider that post Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes we know the reasoning of “the founders of the games said every 25 years….” Is utter bull shit. The quarter quells probably were never envisioned until around the time of the first one! And it is very much implied that the these special changes were not pre ordained 75 years ago and sealed away in boxes until needed. That scene of the room of quarter quells slips is literally an invention for the movie and is not in the books! It’s much more likely that Snow and the game makers pulled whatever they needed out of their ass at the time. Point being the first quell (making the districts vote) was to break up the last remaining rebel sects and turn their animosity from the capital to each other. You can’t fight a war on two fronts! And the 75th games was literally to KILL KATNISS because she was a threat to their way of life!!! Coming up with other ideas to somehow make 24 kids killing one another every year WORSE is actually INSANE! LISTEN TO YOURSELF! YOU are the people the books warn about! You are the people the rebels overthrew!
Lastly, as much as I love the movies (and I really do!) they are to blame for a lot of issues as well. The whole Gale vs. Peeta situation is a creation of the movies. Not to mention BOTH characters were stripped of so much of their nuance (ESPECIALLY Peeta) that when people get into the reductive back and forth discourse of either or I know they’re basing most of their opinions on the movies rather than the books. And yes the Ali Hazelwood situation is dumb as hell. Girl told what was seemingly (to me) a joke and people bullied her off the internet which again just proves the point of the series went OVER THEIR HEADS.
The constraints of a movie adaptation of Ballad also created a scary amount of Snow apologist due to the lack of his inner monologue. No, Lucy Gray did not break his heart and turn him into the dictator we see down the line dude was always like that. Lucy Gray was the victim NOT SNOW!
All that being said, I would encourage people to think really hard about the way you engage with media. Ask yourself if the actions you are taking make sense within the story you are creating in. The Hunger Games is not Twilight. The Hunger Games is not ACOTAR. And I’m not trying reduce those works or others like it. They are entertaining and serve their own purposes in society as well as deserve their own discourse. My point is just that while all three of these series seemingly appeal to some of the same audiences, the contents are very different and should be handled as such!
Just because it’s fiction does not mean the way we talk about it doesn’t have real world consequences. Yes Katniss and Peeta and the HUNDREDS of children who died in the games are not real people but they represent a very real IDEA of what happens when society allows itself to become desensitized. Fiction is very much a reflection of reality (there’s an entire genre based on it! Speculative Fiction exists for a reason). And The Hunger Games is not the only fandom that has these issues it’s just the one I’m most familiar with.
It’s time we stop saying simply “media literacy is dead” and start taking action as a community to revive it. I doubt this super long post is going to help that in anyway but maybe someone with a larger platform than me who feels the same will see it and share this idea. We gotta start somewhere 🤷🏾♀️
