Opinion | The irony of ‘The Hunger Games’

“The Hunger Games” is a dystopian novel that delves into the dangers of a capitalist society. But ironically enough, when the popular book was adapted into a motion picture, the story fell into the same issues that the book warns about. Unsplash

I remember reading “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins for the first time in middle school. I loved the characters, the world and the overall story. Even though I don’t think I really understood the message back then, I was still a huge fan of the series. So I was really excited when the movies came out. 

I really enjoyed watching the movies. It was great for me to see everyone start getting invested in this story I liked so much. After the movies came out I was finally able to talk about “The Hunger Games” with my friends who hadn't read the books, and it was great.

Emilia Cuevas Diaz, opinions editor

For a while it was really fun to enjoy the books and movies, but eventually the novelty wore out and everyone moved on to other movies and books. And so did I. 

It wasn’t until the beginning of my freshman year of college that I got a chance to revisit “The Hunger Games” books for my English 103 class. This time around I was able to understand the story in a whole new way. I was finally able to understand some of the underlying messages of the dystopian novel. 

Suddenly this story that I thought of as a fun action with an inspiring heroine had a far deeper message. I started seeing all the ways in which this book criticized capitalism and warned about the dangers of a society that values entertainment and luxury more than it values life.

And it’s after I started looking at the book through this new lens that I started wondering why the movies that were so widely loved didn’t have the same impact as the books did. Why is it that when I thought of “The Hunger Games” films I didn’t think of the anti-capitalist message of the story?

Then it dawned on me. The more I looked at the way the movie was framed to the public, specifically the way the film was advertised, the more eerily similar it was to the way the Capitol portrayed the Hunger Games in the books. 

You can see this in tiny details, like the “Hanging Tree” song, a rebel anthem that talks about death being preferable to oppression. The song itself is very grim and macabre, but once it was adapted to the movies, some of its foreboding and unsettling nature got lost. Even more so when a pop remix version of the song was released. 

Another huge aspect of this was that in the movies there was a far bigger focus on the love triangle between Katniss, Gale and Peeta than the books did. For the most part in the books Katniss was focused on surviving her environment, but in the movies she had a lot more scenes where she was faced with her romantic situation. This took the focus off the message of the film and redirected it towards the drama of the love story, which is exactly what the Capitol did in the books during Katniss’s first games.

The biggest similarity between the way the Capitol framed the hunger games and the way the movie is perceived comes from the way both were advertised and presented to the public. 

A lot of the publicity for the movie was around the love triangle, for instance the use of promotional photos depicting Katniss in the middle with Gale and Peeta on either side, or articles discussing team Gale or team Peeta.

Additionally, a huge part of the advertisement for the film put the fashion at the center, going as far as launching the Capitol Couture website as part of the marketing campaign for “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.” Next to this, a big part of the promotion for that movie was the “capitol portraits,” which featured the cast in their most elegant dresses and suits.

The result of all of this is that when most people think of “The Hunger Games” franchise, they think of the fashion or the love triangle, and the deeper anti-capitalist message of the original story gets lost somewhere in the middle. Because of this, “The Hunger Games” is usually written off as just fun movies for teenagers, rather than regarded as thought provoking dystopian literature.

But this is exactly why we should think more deeply about this particular story. The fact that our society fell into the same traps as the society the book is warning us about just comes to show how imperative understanding the message of the story is.