Fascinating and accurate interpretation of the Hunger Games by Joel Poindexter. There are many other themes in the books and movie, but he captures the American Empire War Machine aspect in this article. The poor die when the rich decide to go to war. Our current economic disaster pushes even more poor young people into the military. I wonder whether this is part of the plan. I look forward to the uprising.
Hunger Games as a Metaphor for the Warfare State
Posted By Joel Poindexter
Much has been written about The Hunger Games and many of the underlying libertarian themes in that story. Jeffrey Tucker recently described the similarity between the fictional games and voting. Brent Railey noted just the other day the realities of the black market springing up to provide what the state can’t, or won’t, and the futility in relying on political figures for salvation. A co-worker of mine suggested that another lesson is that when fighting one evil, it’s important not to become just as evil yourself; a lesson from later in the series. In this essay I’d like to draw attention to the allegory of the games and the modern warfare state.
Briefly, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the trilogy, here’s the background. North America has descended into a full-blown totalitarian state, with the people forced to live in virtual internment camps. The citizens of each region, or district, work as slaves to the Capitol, providing such goods as coal, seafood, or electronics.
In order to maintain control over the people and remind them of their impotence, a group of teens is selected each year to fight in a gladiatorial arena. The event, called the Hunger Games, is televised for the entertainment of those in the Capitol, and the punishment of those in the various districts. A rebellion ensues and, well, you ought to just read the series.
So right off the bat it’s pretty clear: An impoverished underclass, already forced to pay tribute to the government, has its youth pressed into violent service by the wealthy and politically powerful, for the entertainment and enrichment of this ruling elite. This pretty well describes the nation-state in virtually all times and all places, but it goes far beyond this.
The next similarity one finds is the way in which children are selected for the games: a draft. Each child’s name is placed in a bowl, and a representative from the Capitol draws the “winner.” There is a slight twist, one that makes the process even more similar to the actual draft. Each child may be entered additional times in exchange for greater food rations for their family.
The obvious effect is that poorer families are at greater odds of having their children selected for the games. In similar fashion, special rules applied during the draft allowed wealthy draftees to receive deferments, effectively allowing them to avoid military service. In modern times the ranks of the military are almost exclusively made up of the middle class and poor, who are promised better-paying jobs and opportunities otherwise not available at home.
While the people of most districts generally dread the “reaping,” in others, participation in the games is a coveted experience. In these districts, children, known as “Careers,” volunteer to go after training their whole lives. In very much the same way, military service is a generational endeavor. There are many soldiers now serving who can trace their family’s participation in wars going back many generations. It’s not uncommon for recruits to explain that their reason for joining was, at least in part, because their fathers and grandfathers served; “it’s just what we do.”
It continues.
The games are of course a spectacle. The players are paraded in front of adoring crowds; politicians make grand speeches, the Capitol showers praise on the children, who are costumed and trained before being sent to their deaths. Those who die have their portraits broadcast at the end of each day, in memoriam, not at all unlike the nightly news here when troops are killed in overseas combat.
One point that stands out, as Tucker notes, is that none of the participants would have any real reason to fight one another outside the arena. They are forced to do so, to adopt a base mentality and become uncivilized animals in order to survive. This is also true in virtually all wars. The people of at least one side, if not both, are pressed into service and sent to kill other people they’ve never met, and have no real quarrel with.
As with all contemporary conflicts, the games are televised, and huge profits are realized for those who organize them. Cameras are set up everywhere, ensuring that no detail goes unnoticed. Highlights are routinely played, not just of current games, but of those past.
The children are taught to revere the players, who are immortalized as heroes. Those who survive are paraded through the districts on a victory tour and conditioned to act as if all is fine. The reality is that each is condemned to a lifetime of nightmares and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some resort to self-medication with drugs or alcohol to cope with their demons.
There is one major deviation, to be sure. “Winners” are treated to special accommodations and never want for any material thing, unlike many of the troops who return from war with broken minds, bodies, and souls. A staggering number of returning veterans are often unable to function in normal society. Having been used up by their government, unfit to continue fighting, they’re no longer valuable and may be left and forgotten.
It’s no surprise that so many parallels exist, given that the series’ author, Suzanne Collins, was inspired when watching news reports about the wars. The two are so strikingly similar I can only hope that the millions of people, mostly teenagers, will make the same connection. To not see The Hunger Games as anything but a warning of the evils of war would be tragic. It would turn a work damning the spectacle of violence into nothing more than just that: a spectacle of violence.
DaveL says:
Haven’t seen the movie. Just finished the book, not the trilogy just HG. Missed all these interpretations. Thought it was a combination of Running Man meets Food Network meets Shakespeare. But I suppose if your agenda/ideology is skewed to a certain point, then you can read all kinds of things into a story.
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15th April 2012 at 1:11 pm
Stucky says:
DaveL
“To not see The Hunger Games as anything but a warning of the evils of war would be tragic …”
—- from the article
Dave, I too have read more than a few negative reviews about the movie. There’s even one on thedailypaul that is none too kind.
But, here’s the thing. Movie reviewers are paid by the word, so they write a lot of bullshit just to fill up space. I especially HATE the fucking micro-minutae-nitpicking “analysis”. Dammnit, fuckoff! It’s just a movie!!! It’s entertainment … not a political White Paper.
Yeah, sure, movie directors try to shove their political view down our throats. Sometimes it’s a tasty morsel — like Hunger Games. Sometimes it tastes like shit — like a Roger Moore hit piece.
Whether or not you get an ulcer over a movie is your choice.
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15th April 2012 at 1:50 pm
Colma Rising says:
Great movie….
Haven’t cracked the books yet but from things like PLOT and STORYLINE. Don’t you think that denying the Orwellian undertones is kinda ignorant?
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15th April 2012 at 1:54 pm
Kill Bill says:
Bizarro World
The new abnormal
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15th April 2012 at 2:13 pm
ragman says:
There will be no uprising. Very few of us give a shit or understand what is going on.
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15th April 2012 at 5:38 pm
Bruce says:
Ragman,
I think your right. And there are people who give a shit but even they don’t really know what is going on. Nobody knows whats going on even if they claim too or they are an expert. Even the guys who own the planet don’t know jack if you consider the entire scope of world wide mischief and nefarious activity. There is so much crap happening every day who can keep up? I’m sure there is so much happening behind closed doors all over the world with various elements of PTB planing and scheming to fuck everyone and their PTB rivals we could never get a handle on it all. Then you have Governments doing all kinds of crazy shit right in the open, no telling how much is going on behind the curtain. Even if various PTB clans own the governments there are always people in government who do their own rogue secret things that no one finds out about until its to late and maybe not even then. What we are seeing is the biggest most complex planet wide mass clusterfuck in the history of the world and very possibly in the history of the entire Galaxy. We are beyond the point of no return. Any move that anyone one or any group makes now no matter what their intent just fucks up something else and makes the shit pile bigger. How long this crap can go on and morf in to even more crap I have know idea, but we are doomed and there is no longer a possibility of becoming undoomed. On the bright side I don’t know shit so I may have it all wrong.
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15th April 2012 at 7:35 pm
AKAnon says:
Good movie, but bleak look towards the future. As a resident of AK, I viewed the future of the regions/districts/colonies/territories with a jaundiced eye-I could see that future very easily. “I owe my soul to the company store”. I guess I better read the books-I gather there is hope in the trilogy.
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15th April 2012 at 11:09 pm
DaveL says:
Ok, I can’t read into this book like the cognoscente here. Who did the Muttations represent? Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Andrew Mozillo? Freddy Krueger?
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15th April 2012 at 11:40 pm
Novista says:
Hunger Games for Noncognoscenti
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games
Collins says that the inspiration to write The Hunger Games came from channel surfing on television. On one channel she observed people competing on a reality show and on another she saw footage of the invasion of Iraq. The two “began to blur in this very unsettling way” and the idea for the book was formed. The Greek myth of Theseus served as the basis for the story, with Collins describing Katniss as a futuristic Theseus, and that Roman gladiatorial games formed the framework. The sense of loss that Collins developed through her father’s service in the Vietnam War also affected the story, whose heroine lost her father at age 11, five years before the story begins.[7] Collins stated that the deaths of the young characters and other “dark passages” were the hardest parts of the book to write, but she had accepted passages such as these were necessary to the story. She considered the moments where Katniss reflects on happier moments in her past to be the more enjoyable.
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15th April 2012 at 7:04 am
DaveL says:
Ok, got it. It’s a non-fiction fiction.
“The two “began to blur in this very unsettling way” and the idea for the book was formed.”
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15th April 2012 at 12:12 pm
platoplubius says:
just watched Hunger Games yesterday and thought the storyline was interesting. Very interesting dichotomy between the Capitol dwellers and District dwellers…I thought it was also interesting on how you could get your name added to the lottery extra times on top of the usual one entry per year by asking for more food. I suppose the rationale is, if you require more food and assistance than you are more likely needed to be the contestant of the Hunger Games…or the Arnold classic Running Man for that matter. Population control, food supply control, thought control, and military control…what a great Utopia! To quote RE…”It’s coming to a theater near you!”…just a matter of time…gradually public perception will be formed and pushed into this direction through current t.v. shows and Hollywood movies.
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15th April 2012 at 1:15 pm
United Socialist States of America - USSA - Page 25 - Christian Forums says:
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15th April 2012 at 4:49 pm