Hunger Games

"The Hunger Games" by Rikku017 on deviantArt

I think that this was a great book, even though it wouldn't have been something I would've picked up myself because I don't like books that revolve around last-man-standing themes, so I'm glad I had to read it! I thought it was disgusting that the government put its people in such horrible circumstances because I believe that the government should take care of the people (which would probably reduce the chances of them revolting in the first place). In light of what we've been discussing in class, it was amazing to me how Collins weaved in so many "problems" of today's society and other authors' ideas into the book, particularly with the idea of "big brother" and reality TV.

Both 1984 and The Hunger Games had ideas revolving around the government needing to control and reinforce its control over the people. In 1984, the people were being controlled by Big Brother via telescreens. The Capitol showed its control over the Districts by having these games, which proved that the Capitol could force them to do even the vilest of evils, thus reinforcing that power.

I think that the idea of reality TV is pretty prevalent in this book, as we had talked about in class. The people would view the games, regardless of how gruesome it was, and even insisted on more creative ways of death just to keep them interested! It reminds me of the "jolting" that Lasn talked about in Culture Jam--the people got used to a certain number of jolts, and would easily tire of it. To keep ratings up, the companies had to add more jolts. Thinking about that, the gamemakers had to make more jolts by adding drama and controlling how they could or could not die (like not allowing people to freeze to death because that's a "boring" way to die). In real life, we watch reality TV--the more scuzzy the TV, the more interesting and more happy viewers there seem to be.

Throughout the book, I was more interested in the love (or lack of) between Peeta and Katniss than anything else. I thought it was pretty shitty that Katniss had to pretend that she loved Peeta just to increase her chance of survival. When Peeta ultimately learned of this, he was heartbroken (since I guess he didn't realize it was a ploy?), and I definitely feel bad for that! I'm sure that killed him a little on the inside...But I'm interested in reading the rest of the books in the series to see if anything happens between Peeta, Katniss, and Gale.

The Hunger Games reminds me of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. If you haven't seen it, the basic idea is the Scott Pilgrim has to defeat Ramona Flowers' 7 evil exes before he can actually date her.

JUST FOR FUN! I just watched this episode of Futurama the other day, and found it hilariously applicable to what we've talked about in previous classes about the mentality of today's consumers. This is just a clip, but hopefully you get the feel of what it's aiming at!