Just in case you're not familiar with the Hunger Games series, it is Suzanne Collins' story about a dystopian society in which a authoritarian power (the Capitol, led by President Snow) rules 12 other districts with an iron fist. Part of the authority the Capitol exercises over the districts is to require them to provide two "tributes" between the ages of 12 and 18 each year for the Hunger Games, in which the tributes will fight to the death until only one remains. The Capitol views the Games as fitting punishment to remind the districts of the failed rebellion in some distant past. If you are a fan of popular culture, you no doubt heard about the original trilogy, in which Katniss Everdeen ends up as the rallying symbol for a new rebellion - successful this time.
Several years after the original books, Collins has released two prequels - The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping. Ballad follows the development of Coriolanus Snow from an impoverished but ambitious student from one of the Capitol's top families before the war to the paranoid, evil person who becomes President Snow of the trilogy.
Ballad was a good book, but it's not the one I want to talk about. I preferred Sunrise on the Reaping, which was the story of Haymitch Abernathy and his experiences as a tribute in the Games. Haymitch ends up as the "victor," which means he is expected to be a mentor to Katniss and Peeta Mellark in the original trilogy. I put "victor" in quotation marks, because although Haymitch was the last tribute to survive in the arena, President Snow saw to it that the victory actually is a defeat and punishment for Haymitch. Spoiler alert! The people Haymitch cares about - his family and his girlfriend - are all murdered to coincide with Haymitch's homecoming, leaving him with nothing but an empty house in the Victor's Village.
But it's not really Haymitch's experience in the Games I want to talk about, either (although it is an exciting page-turner - I finished the book in three days, and that's with plenty of farm chores taking up reading time). What I want to explore is one of the themes Collins wove into the story, and that is the power the media have to shape our understanding of events.
From the beginning of the story, we see that the media team isn't really interested in showing what actually happened, but instead a version of the events that will please/appease President Snow and keep the Capitol blissfully ignorant of the true impact of the Games. As you can imagine, people in the districts are not thrilled to send some of their children each year to nearly certain death for the entertainment of people in the Capitol. At the ceremony in District 12 where the tributes are selected, there was some resistance - one of the boys chosen tried to run away and was shot dead, and then Haymitch is drafted as a replacement when he's trying to pull his girlfriend away. But none of that makes it into the coverage the Capitol sees; in fact, the head of the media team stages a few reaction shots of family members hearing their child's name called so he can edit together a package that will show people in the Capitol how well the "punishment" of the Games is working.
In the lead-up to the Games, Haymitch and several of the other tributes from other districts create an alliance, and they carefully shape the message and image they present to give themselves whatever advantage they can once they are in the arena. During the actual Games, there are several times when Haymitch does something to help one of the other members of the alliance. He protects and cares for some of the younger and weaker tributes. He mends fences with a tribute from his own district that he hadn't liked at all when they were still at home. He is also part of a plot by some of the adult mentors to disable the arena and maybe bring an end to the Games, and he blows a hole in the arena's water reservoir and finds the backup power generator at the outer edge of the arena. In other words, we get to see he is resourceful, compassionate, and even heroic. However, when he's watching the recap of the Games after the whole thing is over, all the good things he's done are edited out. He's presented as a selfish jackass who abandoned the alliance. And of course there's absolutely nothing about his sabotage efforts.
The story that the Capitol - and all the districts - see about the Games is that everything went smoothly, and that the victor, who is a real jerk, cheated his way to the win. That becomes the "truth" on record for the Games, even though it was not at all what actually happened. There were witnesses to the actual truth - the population of District 12 saw the murder of the boy who tried to escape, and the other tributes in the arena saw what Haymitch did. But the other tributes are all dead, and the population of District 12 has no way to let the other districts know what happened. So the Capitol's version rules.
It's interesting that in the original trilogy, it's a few cracks in the media coverage that finally enable the rebellion to gain traction. For example, there are a few protest moments that leak through in live coverage before the cameras can be switched to something else. Those few moments were enough to let people in other districts know they aren't the only ones experiencing mistreatment by the Capitol, which gives them the encouragement they needed to act.
What made me think about this, I guess, was an article I saw the day after I finished reading the book (sorry, I don't have a citation for it - it was something that came across my phone). The article was about the right-wing media and how they shape their message to gain favor with President Trump and to present their version of events. The article was focused on podcasters who aren't overtly political and who may label their content as comedy, but still present the same framing for events as official right-wing media like Fox News. The point of the article was that people who consume this "non-political/comedy" content may not realize they are getting an edited version of what's going on.
All this ties together with another article I read about Collins and her message with the Hunger Games books (again, I don't have a citation. Stuff comes across my phone that I don't realize is going to be useful, and I don't know how to find it again later....). The point of that article was that the media and the marketing departments for the movies sort of trivialize the story she's trying to tell by reducing audience reaction to some superficial element. For example, for the movies of the original trilogy, there was the whole silly "team Peeta/team Gale" thing in which viewers aligned themselves according to which love interest they thought Katniss should choose, represented by a couple of hunky actors. So what? That doesn't matter as much as the fact that this is a story about children being forced to kill each other for entertainment. I haven't seen marketing material for the new Sunrise movie (other than that it is coming out quickly), but I'm pretty sure it's safe to say it's not going to say anything about Collins' critique of the media and the way the Capitol used media messages to control people.
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