This semester in college we had to choose an American author and present to the class how their ideas were post-modern. There was this kid in my English class that did his presentation on Suzanne Collins author of the Hunger Games. He said he was very intrigued by the idea and that it scared him that maybe one day we could actually be there, or in a very similar situation, and then went on to say how he thought it was post-modern because it was set in a post-apocalyptic world. At the end of the presentation I wanted to ask him, don't you think the scary part of The Hunger Games is that is taking place right now? Because that is the feeling I got as I read.
Maybe some of you will think that I am reading beyond and that I may be taking this too serious. Maybe I am, but, maybe if you allow me to explain a little bit I can share with you a bit more beyond the world of the Hunger Games and into our reality.
In THG, the people of Panem give up their own children blindingly to this totalitarianism game, not voluntarily but as punishment for revolting against the government. They send their kids to a game where they will be slaughtered, and only one kid will survive. After the games only one victor is pronounced, and they are entitled to fame and money. But it turns out that once out of the arena they are still at the mercy of the Capitol, and they are extorted afterwards and only for the sake of the rich.
Don't we do this too? We send our kids into the school system with the promise that if they get an education they will be rewarded with a better future. But it turns out that not even the kids that make it through college will have bright opportunities. More and more college students are finishing their education only to find that there are no jobs for them and that dazzling future they had been promised was a lie. It turns out most are left with a few options and living a life that wasn't what they had imagine, they live for the sake of the machine and not for their hopes and dreams.
When I was reading I imagined Collins uses us, the present people as her capitol citizens because weren't we there all with money in our hands asking to watch a movie where we knew 23 kids were going to die gruesome deaths, and we looked forward to it, and we can't wait till the second movie comes out where bodies start dropping yet again. (I'm not criticizing anyone because I was there as well and I loved the movie and the books). I just wish people could see just beyond the whole Team Peeta/Gale because it's not about that. And I'm scared that by the time we realize this it will be too late.
The fashion sense in the Capitol seems ludicrous to us, but isn't our definition of beauty strapped to what the fashion magazines offer us? What is beautiful and what is not? Do they not play on our emotions to make us want to dye our hair just about any shade of color? Because you're worth it?
Of course you are worth it! You have always been worth it and you were born beautiful and have always been! But someone once upon decided that you weren't enough so they could make money from it, and they set the definitions of beautiful set up so high that no one could ever reach it. Not even the models. Because I will tell you one thing, the faces you see in the commercials and in the magazines have been altered and disfigured so much it isn't real. I read an article where "racist hunger games fans" were not going to see the movie because "Rue was too black". In the book she is said to be dark skinned, but apparently the actor playing wasn't light enough for some people and were disgusted by this. This just blew me away, the actress playing Rue is such a beautiful girl, but people can't see past her skin color. And that is just sad.
In THG, the world has been pretty much destroyed. Aren't we there too? We are drilling for oil, making spills that leave the ocean lifeless and the levels of carbon dioxide are so alarming they are altering the weather, melting the ice caps. Fisheries are leaving the sea with so little fish that they aren't able to reproduce and pollution has damaged just about every corner us humans have set a foot in. I could go on and on about all the things that we have destroyed, and all the things that will stop existing because greed has surpassed the level ages ago, and we think we can keep going and going and nothing ever bad will happen because hey we have gotten this far and all that Global warming is just a myth! Right? Because dolphins and birds wind up dead by the dozens near the coasts of Peru for no absolute reason, and because jellyfishes have always been showing up the hundreds in polluted zones like in the San Diego Bay
I wonder where we are going, and if there's still hope for us. If we can change the way we see things, and the ideas and sentiments that truly are worth is. I don't want to live a life where making money is my first priority, although I know it's a resource I need to get by, but I don't need much, just a place to sleep in and resources for food.
As I read the book I saw myself as a capital citizen more than a brave Katniss, who lost it all to the machine system she lived in, and even like this she managed to go on. The funny thing is that no matter what we always find a way to go on. But maybe the Earth will no longer have accommodations for us.
So how do we stop it? What can we do?
I can't tell you.
The best I can do is to take a look at my life and see for whose sake am I living? Is this what I want? And how can I live in this world that has everything to offer with just taking what I need? I don't know if this makes sense at all I'm just rambling because I feel like I need to tell someone. Like I need to scream it at the top of my lungs. Change! It's time for change! It's time to start living because hope is stronger than fear, a little hope is alright but a lot of it just might ignite a revolution; a new way of life in which we are truly happy, and not just walking and stumbling along blindly, mad because we don't have enough money, sad because we can't seem to find happiness. But happiness has always been there, waiting for you to reach for it. So why don't we