I did not hate the Hunger Games. Let’s start with that. A strong, independent female protagonist? Thank God. This is not going to be me bashing the books, rather it is an explanation of what I keep trying, but failing, to say when the pop culture phenomenon of a children’s book comes up in conversation.
The books were a baby step into the conversation of oppression; and for that, I am thankful. What follows are my thoughts on how The Hunger Games got “so close, but no cigar.”
What disappoints me is that Katniss, the heroine, overcomes oppression with oppression; she hates that The Capital uses violence as a tool to oppress the districts, and yet, the only tool she considers to overcome The Capital is violence. Katniss attempts to eliminate violence with violence, and thus the cycle of oppression continues. As has happened time and time again in our own world, eventually the revolutionary (Katniss, The Districts) will become the oppressor in this story. Collins, the author, does not challenge the reader to access other options for overcoming oppression; in fact, she only encourages our world’s assumption that the only way to resolve conflict is through violence. To break a system of oppression, there must by systemic change. How could Katniss possibly eliminate violence WITH violence? Could Collins not have created a transformative revolution? Where are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Desmound Tutu, or the many other non-violent revolutionaries of our time's voice in this story?
Martin Luther King Jr taught that "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." But what does that mean? How can Katniss love The Capital? How can she create a new society without killing those that oppose her? That’s idealistic and naive right? Well, that’s the trick, she has to imagine a world that doesn’t function like hers does, a world where she allows for transformation, where she imagines that people who once disagreed could cohabitate. This imaginative process isn’t easy, it takes time and effort-- killing the other is certainly quicker and easier. But with the kill, the tables turn and the oppressed (Katniss, The Districts) are no different than the oppressor (The Capital), through their action they say “I am superior, my life is more valuable than yours, you cannot exist in my new world.” And with the seed of that weed planted, oppression lives.
Until we are forced to step outside of our worldview, the truths that are so deeply engrained in us (violence is the only way to solve international conflict), we are stuck in this circle. I can’t help but believe that there is a third way. A fourth way. A fifth way. And until someone is creative enough to write a book, that catches fire, and challenges us to consider another way, we are stuck believing what we are taught.
And that is what really got me about the Hunger Games. Such books have been written, and movies made, and speeches given, but not to the audience the Collins holds captive. Collins has a loyal band of us raised in our world’s Capital feeding off her ever word, and she could have made that very statement, she could have said "No guys, we don't have to think like The Capital, we can create a new world." And she didn't. We are not asked to think creatively. We are not asked to be more than The Capital. We are not challenged to think that this world could exist in a way that doesn’t promote violence, that doesn’t tear families apart, that doesn’t force those that defend us into a life of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The Hunger Games are another opiate for the masses; another story that only solidifies what we already know, another reason to back The Capital that we all live in, another reason not to question conflicts around the world, because violence is the only way right?
And, the diagram I drew last week to understand what I was upset about:
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