Thursday, March 15, 2012
The Hunger Games Trilogy
Reality TV has seen tremendous growth in the 21st century with competitive shows and survival shows. Discuss this phenomenon with respect to The Hunger Games. How does the "entertainment value" of the games impact the tributes in the novel? How does it affect them to know they are being manipulated to make the Games more exciting for the gamblers and viewers? Does knowing they are on live TV make Katniss and Peeta behave differently? What other aspects of our popular culture do you see reflected in this story?
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I just finished reading a new series called the Infernal Devices. It is a prequel to the series the Mortal Instruments. I almost liked this series more because it included characters from the other series as well as new ones. A major difference between the two is the time period and setting. These books are set in London, England, in the late 1870's. They still revolve around tbe Shadowhunter world but the main character, Tessa Gray, is not a Shadowhunter. She is what they refer to as a "shape shifter." No one really knows her identity so the series is about her quest to figure out who she really is and who her parents were. One of her friends, Will Herondale, is the great great grandfather of Jace Herondale, who is a main character in the Mortal Instruments series. It was neat being able to compare the two characters and I found that the two had very similiar character traits. If you've read the Mortal Instruments I highly recommend you read the Infernal Devices as well.
ReplyDeleteToday especially, the media is very much caught up in the burning desire to have the attention of viewers and their attentions. No matter what must be done to acquire this attention, they will do to keep the audience within their grasps. During the Hunger Games, there are instances where the action is at the bare minimum, and viewers are less attentive. SO the media, "Capital", ingnites a fire that forces the tributes to come together. Katniss and Peeta (mainly Katniss during the games)are highly "recommeneded" to act like a love-struck couple in order to gain sponsers in order to survive. They act one way in front of the cameras, while off-scene, the way they acted isn't exactlty how they feel.
ReplyDeleteMany celebrities in the media today, do whatever it takes to be in the spotlight or look good in front of fans. But the majority of the time, relationships, interviews, sponsers, are all part of an "act" to get them where they want to be.
Entertainment is the main purpose of the Hunger Games. They were instated as a reminder to the Districts that the Capitol has the power, but year to year all the people who watch them care about is a good show. To the tributes, this dictates their behavior in the arena. To know that they are just playing pieces in a big game to fill air time is humiliating, angering, and degrading. It makes Katniss and Peeta angry at the Capitol, but at the same time it makes them act accordingly to how people want to see them, because that’s the best way to stay alive. Half of the games is pleasing the Capitol. They have to act in love because that’s how they’ve been portrayed, and if they want help from their sponsors they need to break the Capitols’ hearts.
ReplyDeleteThere is a big feeling of the shallowness of our culture today in the Capitol. These people are living in the same country as people starving to death, yet all they care about is going to parties, being hot in the latest fashions, and gorging themselves at every meal. Their biggest worry is if they look good or not, if they’re popular or not. This is the extreme of how popular culture tells us to be. The heartlessness of the Capitol is what people can turn into when they become completely absorbed into themselves.
Besides reminding the districts of the supremacy of the Capitol, entertainment is the primary purpose of the Games. It is commentary on the potential heartlessness of people to be amused by the pain and suffering of others. In a sense, the Games are a warning of the future of humanity, because the Games are only a more extreme version of today's reality television. Everyone watches reality TV to laugh at stupid/untalented people make fools of themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt is further disturbing that the Gamemakers facilitate chaos (the forest fire, etc.) to stir up interest for fear of the audience getting bored. This reveals the selfishness and self-centeredness of the Capitol, and today's popular culture in general.
Many of the Tributes, especially Katniss and Peeta, resent being a "pawn in their Games." Katniss is especially suspicious of everything and everyone once she arrives in the arena. Unfortunately for Peeta, she believes that even their romance is purely for show, and that the greater displays of affection, the better rewards she will get from her sponsors. Her refusal to accept their relationship as real, when it actually is real for Peeta, complicates her relationships with others when she returns home as a victor: it leads Peeta to feel even more manipulated and convinces that she does not love him. The Games also reduce human beings to savages as they must do anything to survive in this disgusting place where they must kill twenty-three of their peers in order to see their families again.
The tributes in the Hunger Games are recorded and get sent gifts during the whole process of the games. If I were one of them I would feel really strange being filmed as I was trying to fight for my life. Katniss seems to be able to handle the whole thing well. She appreciates when Haymitch sends her gifts and often wonders why he won't send more. Katniss doesn't mind being recorded either, she is good at over reacting and exagerating but at the same time she knows how to handle herself. Gale is the same way for the most part. I think that is because he's always hung around Katniss so he caught onto her behavior. Katniss doesn't like being manipulated, but she's used to it, as well as Peeta. When it came to exagerating and showing the love between Peeta and Katniss, they were good at it but Peeta felt as if it were real and Katniss did at first until she realized that she still loved Gale. They act differently when they aren't on camera because it's sort of awkward in a way. I think that is the same as in the "real world" because you act differently on camera or when your acting for a play then in real life. In other shows like that in real life people try to find love to stay alive. That is the same deal with Peeta and Katniss in the book. But in the end, maybe one of those people in love thought it was real and the other didn't. I feel like the Hunger Games has many similar parts to the real world.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading the second book of the trilogy and in the first book peeta and katniss are the starcrossed lovers who all throughout the games where pretending to be in love to get more donations. Now in the second book the whole way through- before and after the knew about the quarter quell- they where still the starcrossed victors who showed their effection for each other at the end of the Hunger Games by defying the capitol and put those berries in their mouths.
ReplyDeleteIn the second book when peeta is being intervewed by Ceaser, Peeta decides to take it up a notch-for entertainment purposes- and says katniss is pregnant. Awell as adding that they are officialy "married". So yeah it total changes them, but i think when it goes from fake to real it is jsut really sweet to watch them stop pretending and actually mean what they say.
When there are on the roof in the first book peeta says "i want to show them that they dont own me, that i'm not just another part in there games." I believe that him saying that really just proves that he will never be just another pawn in there little games.
It makes them feel like they're not even real people, that they are just pieces in a game as opposed to the people in the Capitol. It's like they carry the burden of trying to please the Capitol and make them happy. Katniss and Peeta behave differently on TV to protect their families and to keep things calm in the districts. I see a lot of shows on the National Geographic Channel or other places where they make people go into the wild or someplace just to see how many days the can survive.
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