The Hunger Games: For What Do They Hunger? Why Do They Play the Game?

The 2008 novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins became a 2012 movie hit. Both novel and film are set in the world of Panem where Districts that were once at war with the Capitol city were forced into submission. As a reminder of the war, we are told, the Districts are forced to participate in a yearly lottery called a Reaping which selects a young boy and girl from each District to participate in the Hunger Games, a battle of survival in which only one of the 24 will emerge alive. This basic plot line is in both book an film; however, if I’d only watched the movie, I’d be left with questions begging for answers.

First of all, I’d want to know what’s their hunger? For what do the people in the movie hunger? And secondly, why do the Districts send their young to fight to the death each year? What coerces them?

Because I read the book, I know that most of the Districts, except for the privileged Districts 1 and 2, are supposed to be starving but several characters don’t even seem to be hungry. Peeta Mellark is understandably heftier and healthier looking than other characters in both the book and the movie because his family owns a bakery. However, both Katniss Everdeen and Gale Hawthorne look just as hefty and healthy, a look that doesn’t fit people who are supposed to be deprived of food by the Capitol.

As confusing as this was to see, it was more disturbing to have some important characters missing. For instance, except for a photograph briefly shown on a mantel, we know nothing about Katniss’ father who taught her the skills she had to survive in District 12 as well as in the games and from whom she learned the song she later sings during the games. We never meet Madge Oversee, the mayor’s daughter, who gave Katniss the mockingjay pin that was clearly important to her even in the movie; however, in the movie we never know why nor is it clear why Cinna, Katniss’ “stylist,” had to sneakily get it to her. The book tells us that each contestant was allowed a token so why the secret? We also never know Peeta’s father and therefore do not know of the connection between the Mellark family and the Everdeens. There is only a brief hint in the movie of how Peeta defied his mother and fed Katniss when she was hungry, earning a beating for his defiance.

While these missing or changed characters contributed to small changes in the plot, the omissions from book to movie are bigger plot failures. One of the film’s failures is to never mention District 13 and its fate. Only in the book do we clearly know about the war between the Capitol and 13 Districts.  Only in the book do we learn how District 13 was destroyed for leading the rebellion and the other 12 Districts’ punishment is to compete in the Hunger Games every year. 

In the movie only 12 Districts are featured as they compete in the games. We fail to see the distinctions among the Districts in the movie while the novel explains how each Districts specializes in manufacturing or producing one product. Although those who read the book could understand the symbols that each District wore in the parade of competitors and why the Districts closer to the capitol were better trained, those who only saw the movie could not understand the symbolism of the fire on Peeta’s and Katniss’s costumes as representatives from the coal produing District 12; or the overalls worn by Rue and Thresh from the farming District 11; or the superior strength of Cato and Clove of District 2 which specializes in masonry;  or the superior equipment of Glimmer and Marvel from District 1 which produces the luxury items the Capitol desired.

One of the movie’s biggest failures was to never reveal the prize for the “winner” of the games. There were many opportunities to bring it up when Hamish Abernathy, the former District 12 winner, appears or when the games are explained at the Reaping and when contestants appear on a talk show. Only in the book do we understand why Districts bother to send their young people to compete and the self-interest in why each District roots for its representatives.

It is difficult to include all the details in a book when making a movie, but some of the changes and omissions from The Hunger Games the novel to The Hunger Games the movie change the point of it all. The novel is about the hunger we see in the starving bodies of the outer Districts compared with the healthier bodies of the inner Districts. It is about how those Districts struggle to survive day to day and why they are desperately willing to risk the lives of their youth to feed an entire District well for a year and reward the winner with food and luxury items for life.

The movie is more about the games. This is probably why we don’t see some of the scenes that explain the characters. Instead they rush the story to get to the “action” and the spectacle of young people trying to kill each other for reasons that the movie never explain. It pains me to see promoters act the role of the oppressors -- President Snow and the Capitol -- by asking young people to choose between Team Peeta and Team Gale. 

The movie gave us awesome actors and some fantastic visuals but it left me hungering for more.

                 

It’s not about the hoodie

In my household, at least once a week – sometimes more often – Trayvon Martin comes up in conversation. At some point in the conversation, someone is bound to voice the idea that he was killed because he was a black male teenager wearing a hoodie. That’s when I’m driven to mutter, “It’s not about the hoodie.”

I wasn’t compelled to participate in demonstrations where people wore hoodies because – well – it wasn’t about the hoodie. When I taught at an alternative school, hoodies were not allowed over the head. Strangers then, knowing our building had security cameras, couldn’t pull up their hoods for disguise before entering our school to do harm to our students. They would have been stopped at the door. They’d have to be strangers to be unrecognized by the security cameras because we knew our students even when they wore hoodies. Hoodies worn up when it isn’t raining or cold sometimes is a disguise to cover wrongdoing.

Sometimes the hoodie is a shield against the pain of the world. Often, when students were bothered by something, they would pull their hoods over their heads and scrunch down behind their self-imposed wall to shut out the world. As a teacher, I saw it as a sure sign of depression – or even Depression. The hoodie was a signal that the student needed counseling as soon as s/he was able to leave his/her shelter. Sometimes the student needed help just to get out from under there. Male students, especially, shelter this way because they didn’t want people to see the sorrow well from their eyes.

The hoodie was one of the reasons George Zimmerman targeted Trayvon Martin for suspicion but the hoodie is not the reason he was killed. When we reduce Trayvon’s death to the hoodie or use the hoodie as a symbol against racism, we miss what’s important.

Although Trayvon Martin’s race and attire may have been factors, even if he had been wearing no hoodie and had not been African American, Zimmerman would have looked on him with suspicion because he was a young man whom Zimmerman didn’t know who was inside a gated community that had sheltered behind its own “hoodie” and set its residents up as vigilantes to do what they felt the police had not. Zimmerman was part of a community in a state that approved this attitude and guaranteed no consequences should they act on their fears.

That’s why Zimmerman ignored the police directive to not follow Trayvon Martin. The police had not stopped previous thefts in that neighborhood and they could not keep Zimmerman from getting their job done. Not only was the Florida law on his side, his might was his right.

Many people argue Trayvon Martin’s innocence: “He was just going home with a bag of Skittles in his pocket.” Or “He had a right to be where he was.” What if Trayvon Martin had been a thief scoping out his next target? Then would it then have been okay for Zimmerman to shoot him? Was whatever he might have stolen more valuable than his young life? I say that Trayvon’s innocence or guilt doesn’t matter. Nothing justifies Zimmerman’s response.

Zimmerman said that Trayvon Martin attacked him first and that he, Zimmerman, feared for his life. Apparently, the jury believed him. (More later – in another blog -- on the all white jury.) Zimmerman’s well-being was threatened when he made himself a gun-carrying vigilante. He put himself in danger when he left his car in pursuit of his own personal sense of justice. The police who advised Zimmerman clearly understood this potential but the untrained Zimmerman certainly did not. This education gap is just another danger of vigilantism.

Siege mentality, fear of the stranger, high value on material possessions, low value on human life, and laws that not only feed those fears and values but also make weapons easily available to add fuel to the emotions: this was the volatile catalyst leading to a bad ending for two young men.

And all some people want to talk about is the hoodie.

Rocking with the Saints at the Holy Roller

“What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”

from “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats

Every Wednesday night and Sunday morning, Aunt Yvonne entered the holy roller church and became a saint. She sang, shouted, clapped, and danced her praises to God in ecstatic abandonment. Her efforts, combined with other saints who had gathered for the service, moved the earth. The floor jumped with divine revelry, assuring that even those small bodies wanting to sit still, unnoticed amid the unfamiliar passion, also swayed to the rhythm of the tambourines. The shouts and singing and powerful pounding piano held enough strength to testify to the awesome and infinite presence of a terrible God. At times it seemed as if the roof would blow and lift all within directly to paradise. No one tired as the service meandered to its unclocked conclusion. I thought the saints would march until judgment day.

MamaGran’s Methodist church wasn’t nearly as enticing or entertaining.

The woman wearing sensible shoes and Aunty Vonne’s Sunday dress danced in the seat next to me, punctuating the sermon and the songs with calls on Jesus for help with an unvoiced affliction. Her tambourine kept the primeval rhythm against her hand or shot its bells in the air with a well placed, “Help me, Jesus!” Because I’d adjusted to the heady ambiance and the familiar stranger next to me, I no longer jumped out of rhythm. Until, without warning, the tambourine flew by my face and my hand, of its own volition, grabbed it from the air.

I hadn’t quite registered my acquisition before the strange Aunty Vonne next to me leaped from her seat to sprint up the aisle. “Yes!” she shouted to unseen spirits in the low rafters. Her face glowed with pure joy and I dared not disbelieve in that moment that she had indeed been touched by holy fire – but I still would not concede its location.

With eyes closed, she tap-danced a quick dash to the steps of the altar, kowtowed towards the cross, hugged her arms about her body, and began a slow turn towards the congregation. The saints reached a crescendo as my aunt’s joy slowed to a moaning song, hummed to a tune I’d never heard from my aunt. When she turned her face in my direction, the light illuming her face burned into my memory. It was not joy but I couldn’t call it sorrow; it was too peaceful. The sisters took up her rhythm from the pews, the mothers from their corner. Children sat surprisingly silent, men were struck dumb. The music was suspended as the women moaned their wordless sorrowing song. The cry seemed to rise up through the cracks in the floorboards, growing from the dirt just below. How did they know? Where had they learned their unrehearsed tune? It was clearly older than anyone present, than anyone I knew.

As suddenly as she’d started, my aunt threw up her hands, raised her face once more to the rafters and shouted a final, “Help me, Jesus!” Then she walked painfully down the aisle to the seat beside me, limping on arthritic feet. The preacher started a prayer and the choir responded with a song but my aunt did not reach for the tambourine I held. Her body swayed to the rhythm of the new song and her hands clapped and her feet danced where she sat. Her mouth smiled but she let me keep the tambourine. It wasn’t long before my hands found a rhythm I invented for myself. I could hold Aunty Vonne’s tambourine and even play some music but I could not hold her faith nor sing her song.

Follow or Ease on Down the Road?

I got a post of this picture on Facebook with the caption, "I wonder where the red brick road goes?" This made me remember that when I first saw The Wizard of Oz in color, this exact question entered my mind. I also wondered about the grey "lines" separating the yellow from the red.

As Dorothy started on her journey down the yellow brick road surrounded by the Munchkins, I kept my eyes on the red one until it was obscured by a fountain. Like the yellow one, it widened as she spiraled outward but then the red road was obscured by the fountain. Did it spiral into nothingness or did it lead to whatever was at the other end of Oz, the opposite of the Emerald City?

In the end, of course, Dorothy had no reason to go away from Munchkinland at all except to find a way home. She thought she needed the Wizard's power. As she began to follow the yellow brick road, she was also also on the first step toward losing her yearning for adventure. She chose the road that was pointed out for her and followed it religiously, despite obstacles and diversions because she wanted to leave the adventure and return home.

When I got a bit older, I read Frost's "Road Not Taken" for the first time and imagined the red road as the one "least traveled by." Most people, I suppose, are drawn to power and the Emerald City was the center of power in Oz. What might Dorothy have found if she'd chosen differently? More adventure or less? Would the Wicked Witch of the West have followed her anyway in search of those ruby slippers? I find an odd balance of unknowns here. Just as the Glenda did not know the power of the ruby slippers, Dorothy did not know the power of the Wizard.

We find out that the Wizard's power is dubious and limited. On the other hand, we never learn the power of the slippers except that it was just a device that made it possible for Dorothy to go home. Was the Wicked Witch looking for her own home, her own safe place? What happened to the slippers after Dorothy returned to Kansas? She wasn't wearing them when she woke up there.

I hadn't consciously remembered the two roads when I saw The Wiz a few years later but I must have been aware or noted sub-consciously that there was only one road for easing on down -- the expected yellow one. But that road much more realistic, like a real road that I might find myself traveling.


Follow the yellow brick road, follow, follow, follow, follow
Follow the yellow brick road.
Follow the yellow brick, follow the yellow brick
Follow the yellow brick road
You're off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
We hear that he's a wiz of a wiz if ever a wiz there was
If ever or ever a wiz there was
The Wizard of Oz is one because
Because because because because because
Because of the wonderful things he does.
You're off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

Yeah. Now I get it. Judy Garland was following very persistent directions, doing what she was told just because because because she carried hope that a faceless Wizard would give her answers and get her home. She leaves the colorful joy of the munchkins to follow follow follow, repeating catchy lyrics with music that makes you want to tap your feet.

Ease on down, ease on down the road
Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road
Don't you carry nothing that might be a load
Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road
Pick your left foot up when your right foot's down
Come on legs keep movin' don't you lose no ground
You just keep on keepin' on the road that you choose
Don't you give up walkin' 'cause you gave up shoes.
Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road.

Diana Ross was taking it easy, carrying nothing that would burden her. In fact, the burden seems to be behind her in the broken bricks she's leaving behind. She is enjoined to keep going, keep moving, take it easy, but there's no sense of purpose, no hope that anything waits at the other end. She chooses the road at the same time something (like a puppet master?) compels her to keep easing on down with a beat you can dance to and lyrics that don't encourage contemplation.

 

Man Bites Dog

 

A woman who grew up in the deep south of Georgia admits that years ago she used a racial slur. Duh!

In journalism, some stories are considered news and some stories are not news. As an example, the journalism instructor often gave “Dog Bites Man” as an example of a headline that is not news. The instructor would go on to say reversing that headline has a better chance of making the news: “Man Bites Dog.”

I’ve been disappointed with journalism for several years now. First, you have to understand that I grew up a news junkie. When I was a college commuter, travelling across the city of Chicago from my South Side apartment to my North Side college campus. For those of you who live in a smaller town, that took about an hour. I’d have purchased the Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Defender some time between the Jeffrey bus line and before getting on at the beginning of the Jackson Park L line – a stop, I understand, no longer exists. But that’s another story for another day.

By the time I got off, near the end of the line, I had read the news sections, including editorials, of those two newspapers. I'd also have read Roger Ebert and Gene Siskal, another story for another day. 

As I got off, there was a newsstand where I purchased the New York Times. Because I had quite a bit of time between classes, I’d take a break from studying and visiting to read the campus newspaper, and if someone had left one on the train or somewhere around campus, I’m likely to have read the Chicago Tribune. I don’t remember why but I had some problems with the politics of the Trib and refused to buy it.

On the way home in the evening, I’d stop at the L station newsstand to purchase the Chicago Daily News, an evening paper that was published by the same people who published the morning’s Sun-Times. I’ll save the story of the demise of the Daily News for another day, too.

I continued this practice of reading at least two newspapers a day, and often more. I learned the value of getting more than one point of view. I read several stories about demonstrations or rallies that had a variety of attendees -- a difference of a thousand or more from one newspaper to another. I always figured the truth lies in between. Even then, I didn’t care so much for broadcast journalism because it moved too fast and I couldn’t check if what I’d heard was what they’d actually said.  Yet, I watched TV news and listened to late night radio which included newsbreaks. As I said, a news junkie.

Even after I left Chicago, first to live in Japan and then to live in Massachusetts for two years each, I continued to read at least two newspapers a day. In Japan, I read the English language Japan Times and might add the New York Times or the London Times to my reading.  Also, I started buying weekly news magazines there, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Reports, especially to keep up on American politics and other goings on “back home.” While in grad school in Massachusetts I read the New York Times again in addition to the campus newspaper and the Boston Globe. And I continued my news magazine reading.

When I moved to Minnesota, local newspapers often disappointed. I had to look around large front-page color photos of hogs and other animals at the State Fair to get to news that mattered to me. But I could still find some national and even international news on the front page, where they belong. At one time I had the New York Times delivered along with the local Minneapolis Star Tribune. And I’d read the St. Paul Pioneer Press when I worked in St. Paul. 

Then the New York Times decided to stop printing New York news in editions that went outside of New York. Since I could get their national and international news as reprints, I stopped that delivery. A few years after that the Star Trib was bought out by a news conglomerate who decided that local newspapers would stick with local news and got rid of their correspondents. National news moved off the front page and consisted of wire stories or reprints from other news sources. International news required a serious hunt unless you wanted to settle for one paragraph news round ups in a box on page 3 or 4 or 5 or beyond. Editorials were all about local issues.

I stopped my subscription to the Strib and now either read it for free at work or buy a copy when front page headlines are about important national events – Barack Obama’s presidential win, Hurricane Katrina – although the focus was still on the local connection to these stories: how Minnesota voted, Minnesotans caught in the hurricane, Minnesota’s response to the election and the hurricane. Or they were wire stories which I can read for free online.

I also don’t listen to TV news because it’s more entertainment than news these days:  the mother saddened by the death of her child followed by the antics of somebody’s pet or the fate of the local or high school sports teams. And I can’t stand the teasers: “What popular baby product poses a threat to your child and has been recalled? Stay tuned.” And when I stayed tuned the recall news had to wait for after the antics and local sports.

I listen to TV news for the weather in the morning before I go to work and tune off when I figure out what to wear that day. I do listen to NPR news in the morning. But I’d been sleeping on the couch and missed the story about the southern woman who used a racial slur years ago.

Like most celebrity gossip, I heard it from my sister first: “What do you think of the latest attack on Paula Dean?” We’re both amazed that people are calling her a racist because we like Paula Dean, especially the pre-diabetic Paula Dean. We would like her less if she claimed to have never used a racial slur in her life. We’d figure then she was lying and question her racist leanings.

My sister, who is diabetic, tells me that people who blame Paula Dean’s diabetes on the way she cooked have gotten it medically wrong. Even I know that she never advocated an abundance of the “bad foods” that everybody claims. A pound of butter in a dish meant to serve ten or more is not that much butter except for people who think all butter is sinful. Not all the dishes she cooked were fried and she often spoke of her desserts as dishes for special occasions. My sister goes off her diabetic diet for special occasions and balances it with what she eats before and after that special occasion. Besides, she tells me, that’s not what causes diabetes.

Now Paula Dean has been fired from Food Network and is losing sponsors because she, a woman who comes from Georgia, admitted to and apologized for using a racial slur years ago. I want to hear about the people – black or white -- who grew up in the Deep South and say they never used a racial slur. Now, that’s news!