About art and rebelions built on love in The Hunger Games
(also an analysis of my own pain and hope)
I was studying social communication for two reasons: 1) because I come from a developing country where press freedom doesn't exist, the government is a totalitarian state, the minimum wage isn't enough to live on, and poverty rates are high; and 2) because I grew up reading The Hunger Games and I loved it.
Therefore, I aimed for jobs in journalism, communication for social change and development, aetc. Talking about social justice, media manipulation, control and power, the effects of propaganda and what we see on television felt like familiar territory to me.
I always knew I wanted to write my thesis based on key points from The Hunger Games. It was so clear to me.
But one day, the government closed my university, and I was never able to get my degree. I was one semester away from finishing my undergraduate program. Four years of work and study vanished in a day, and I had nothing.
A devastating blow came, followed by depression.
The rest was working, trying to continue my university studies in some foreign country, feeling so demotivated that I just wanted to escape the reality that was mine. And I did. I went to Europe to work, and it was a good fifteen months of living the good life, but putting my needs aside every day, from the moment I woke up until the night when I went to bed so tired I couldn't do anything else.
And it's like if I'm just talking about me right now. GIVE US THE HUNGER GAMES, screamed the pretending little people on my head.
But all these words only make sense because I've always loved art. Never with parameters meticulous enough to consider myself an artist, but certainly at the level where I can marvel at the detail of the light in a painting I saw yesterday while walking through the market with my parents, because, after being abroad in a house that wasn't my own, I decided to return home.
And seeing that painting, I found Katniss, not only because the girl's appearance reminded me of her, but because I could understand what it would be like to admire her while observing a painting of Peeta. The context of the painting had nothing to do with the Hunger Games, but it was art, and it felt universally understood.
And then I thought about all the forms of art we can find in The Hunger Games. I didn't think about all that I knew of pain and social struggles marked by violence. I didn't think about armed rebellions.
I thought about the art-inspired rebellions that exist throughout history: the songs of The Covey and their way of resisting through music. The dance in District 13 during Finnick's wedding and Annie. Peeta's paintings and Katniss's writing in the book they make together. Mags's fishhook and the manual labor involved. I even stopped to think about that part in Catching Fire where Peeta talks with some chefs about the different kinds of bread in the districts. Food as art and not as a necessity.
And for me, everything took on a new meaning and a new perspective. Art is everywhere in this story. Maybe for some of you was pretry obvious, but for me it was not something really stocked in my mind until yesterday. When I was 24 years old after I came back to my parents' house.
And then all I could think was i's not frivolous to make art in the midst of chaos. I was constantly pushing myself to do something that it could change the world outside. I've always wanted to create something so big and full of anger enough to destroy people.
And then I stopped. I realized I don't have to write essays, chronicles, or long texts analyzing my reality over and over again, trying to understand why I don't have the same privileges as others based on my geographical, political, and cultural context. I don't have to lock myself away solely in pain and anger. Thinking how unfair all it is.
One truth about me is that all my mental paths lead me to the end of Mockingjay. I will never again feel as much hope as the ending that book gives me, because all the moments of small joy in my life have led me to that phrase since I was 12 years old.
The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.
And then Katniss comes along and says that only Peeta can give her that. And I understand everything Peeta means to her. Not a political stance on war, but a loving choice made every day. Every morning after the war and the Games, she chooses art, love, and the joy that only the smallest things can give you.
For me, it's revolutionary to see both sides of the coin now. They've always been there, but I only stopped to see what hurt. And don't ger me wrong. Fighting, criticizing, pointing out everything that's wrong, and pushing for change in society is good. But sitting down and making art—writing a story, listening to a song with your eyes closed, going out dancing with someone you love—is a way of resisting, of giving hope to those who perhaps don't feel it in their bones today. They are ways of fighting without bloodshed.
So now I wanna go and do art. Put my whole being on a piece and make it meaningful just for me and, if someone can resonate with what I created, then it's also fine.
So I give myself time in my life for anger, for crying, for feeling hate, but I don't let it consume me. And if there are days when it does consume me, somehow my body and mind know where to go to find comfort.
The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.
