Playing with Fire: The Hypocrisy of the Hunger Games

The Hunger Games, the bestselling novel by Suzanne Collins, was published in 2008, kicking off three books, four movies, and two prequels, each accompanied by its own feature film. The dystopian novel takes place in the fictional nation of Panem, where a tyrannical government rules over twelve districts and the frivolous and wealthy Capitol. And yet, despite its huge levels of popularity as a series, rather than proving its success and impact, as the series grows, the significance and simultaneous rejection of its message grows in parallel. 

To maintain control, each year the Capitol hosts an event called the Hunger Games, where one boy and one girl from each district between the ages of 12-17, are selected to fight to the death in a televised event, watched for entertainment by the citizens of Panem. The original trilogy begins at the start of the 74th annual Hunger Games, and follows a growing rebellion against the government, leading to the end of the Games. Collins' most recently published novel, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020), takes place 64 years before the original series (covering the events of the 10th Hunger Games) and the second prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, announced on 6 June 2024, will cover the events of the 50th Hunger Games. 

The series is based upon just-war theory, exploring which circumstances create the moral right to wage war, and what the boundaries of acceptable behaviour are within war and its aftermath. Essentially, just-war theory helps to differentiate between what is considered a necessary or unnecessary war. In a New York Times article celebrating the 10th anniversary of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins discusses the uprising of districts, commenting, “The citizens of the districts have no basic human rights, are treated as slave labour, and are subjected to the Hunger Games annually. I believe the majority of today’s audience would define that as grounds for revolution. They have just cause but the nature of the conflict raises a lot of questions. Do the districts have the authority to wage war? What is their chance of success?”

Reading or watching The Hunger Games isn’t comparable to the citizens of the Capitol watching the Games because it's fictional rather than real. To them, it's just a show. The very same separation from reality is what leads to the continuation and justification of war. This is emphasised by the excitement around the book/feature film Sunrise on the Reaping, which follows the tragic experiences of fan-favourite, Haymitch Abernathy, but also covers a Game with twice the number of tributes, meaning there are 48 children fighting each other to the death instead of 24. This increase in tributes will serve as entertainment of the Capitol within the book, and the readers/viewers outside of it. 

The ages are intentional as well. No longer adolescents and yet not quite adults, the characters parallel the age of the novel's intended audience, placed in a twilight zone — no longer entirely under the jurisdiction of their parents, yet not quite susceptible to the jurisdiction of the government. In Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, actors the same age as their characters were cast, contrasting the 20+ year-olds who played the children in the original series. The film emphasised the horror of the situation by creating a claustrophobic environment and both realistic/relatable characters, and yet was arguably more popular than the original series, buoying the announcement of Sunrise on the Reaping. 

Theoretically, all the tributes could refuse to fight and end the Games, as Katniss and Peeta somewhat do at the end of The Hunger Games. Yet, at the time of the first book, the Games have been going on for 74 years, with great success and popularity. Perhaps this is the hypocrisy of The Hunger Games — it is not that we consume the same very thing criticised in the series for pleasure, but that we find so much pleasure in doing so, because it fuels our denial of human nature. Watching the Hunger Games, we, too, can believe that we would partake in the fight purely on the assumption that, if we didn’t, someone else would kill us first. It is selfishness over freedom that is made the ultimate hypocrisy. In fact, even when presented with this dilemma in the books, we still arrive at this conclusion.

This is seen in real life too, in the sensationalism of news and how quickly we move on from tragedy and death when it doesn’t affect us. We idolise violence and killers in the name of the greater good, broadly overlooking the blame that leaders and systems deserve, so that we can criticise individuals and immediately forget about them afterwards. In the decade and a half since the first Hunger Games book was released, over 100 million books have been sold and the film series is the 20th-highest-grossing film franchise of all time, having grossed £2.6 billion.

The message of the series is so blatantly obvious, and yet consumers continually ignore it in favour of more content, more drama, more story. The people behind the series feed into this, fueling its hypocrisy and the conscious choice to ignore it. The paradoxical nature of The Hunger Games’ popularity — particularly the lack of critical engagement with the message of the series in popular culture — is a concerning reflection of our engagement with real-world events. 

So, when Sunrise on the Reaping comes out, I encourage you to reflect on the hypocrisy and complexities of media that both challenges and perpetuates the status quo. Reflect on the events of the series and their parallels to our real lives.  

Photo by Ilaria Freccia