In his analysis of Sophocles’ Antigone, Hegel (1977) discusses a conflict between two valid claims of conscience. The first of these is Antigone’s obligation to provide for her brother an appropriate burial and the second one is the law, King Creon’s edict, denying to enemies of the state the right to be buried. The two claims define what Hegel sees as essentially justifiable ethical claims. The tragic ending of the story, the death of Antigone and the son of Creon, exemplifies that neither of these two claims could work separately from each other, there is a need for synthesis between these two demands. The initial story of The Hunger Games resembles Antigone since there is a tragic figure who decides to rebel against the state since she finds the laws of the state interfering with her private concerns. In both cases the ending is sad, Katinas has no choice but to kill the new governor.
This sad ending of The Hunger Games also has something to say about utopian demands in our own time. Recent cinema has very rarely shown any optimistic possibility aside from the perpetuation of the capitalist mode of production. What we see in The Hunger Games is a very contradictory ending compared to what initially attracted us to the movie. The story of the movie drew the attention of so many individuals because it
not heard about reality television and constant government surveillance during the neoliberal period? Or who is not aware of the huge divide between the rich and poor in terms of access to resources? Given this, part of what made people so interested in The Hunger Games corresponds to our time. However, despite this at the end the movie denies us any image of a better form of governance and it perpetuates the idea that no revolution can bring an end to injustice in the world; it argues that human nature is inherently evil and revolutionary actions can only replace one tyranny with another.
On the other hand, The Hunger Games makes very little attempt to investigate the nature of alienation that we observe in the story. For example, we are not sure how the imperialistic economy of Panem functions. The emphasis is on plot development instead of any deep engagement with the sociopolitical issues that shaped the alienation of the subjects in the story. As Artur Blaim and Ludmiła Gruszewska-Blaim point out, dystopia
“adopts different principles of text construction: it foregrounds narrativity at the expense of descriptiveness, and favours plot rather than setting” (Blaim and Gruszewska-Blaim 10). Given this, The Hunger Games narrative is to a great extent plot driven and it centres on action instead of elaboration and description. Little information is provided to understand the reason behind the socioeconomic injustice between the Capitol and the districts. As Daniel Norford (forthcoming) explains in his analysis of the movie:
The film opens with a black screen over which direct quotations from the “Treaty of the Treason” fade in and out. The audience learns through these quotations that there are twelve districts which are subservient to a central state called The Capitol; that these districts are annually forced to participate in a public “reaping”
to select two candidates, called “tributes,” who are then forced to fight to the death in a televised contest which serves as the novel’s title; that the annual contest is a punishment visited upon the districts for a squashed uprising. Further back-story is provided by a fade-in to Ceaser Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), the emcee of the games, who is interviewing the current “Game Maker,” Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley). In addition to the expository function of the text, however, the interview between Flickerman and Crane also serves to demonstrate the symbolic significance of the games: neither character says anything about how the games function as a reminder of the Capitol’s hegemonic control over the districts, but instead focus on its “healing” function in the wake of the failed revolution (7).
Through the use of these introductory methods the film briefly hints that the games are a repressive method of social control and a unifying medium to create shared collectivity.
We realize that some of the districts only provide one profession, such as the coalminers of District 12, but the movie does not explain the reason behind the creation of this system. We know that the Capitol controls the country but we know very little about its president and his function, only that he is a tyrannical king who makes all of the essential decisions. The exact nature of the state and the mechanisms of its governance seem very stereotypical and cliché: military forces impose the rules and the ritual of the games represses the population. In this way, the film tends to downplay ideological discussions and explanations. Given this, the film throws the viewer into the universe of a catastrophic world without explaining everything. This process of putting the viewer into
the narrative is actualized through an expository introduction that informs us about the events that happened before the action, serving as the equivalent of the introductory parts of classical utopias and demonstrating the contrast between the represented universe of the narrative and the world in which the audience lives (Klonowska, forthcoming). As the movie develops we become aware of the conflict between the individual (his community included) and the opposing dystopian regime. We also become aware of attempts by the individual to disturb the status quo. Finally, through the heroic action of an individual, the fascistic nature of the dystopian setting is broken.
Although there are some elements of cliché involved in the series, there are some positive merits in the plot structure of The Hunger Games, such as how it shows nuance in its representation of the privileged and deprived, presenting realistic images of oppressed citizens at every level of the hierarchical system as well as their different degrees of privilege and varying measures of responsibility for the system. Given this, the story did not endeavor to make a binary category of Othering between good and bad. Cinna, in spite of his advantaged position as a Capitol fashion designer, does a form of pennance when he utilizes his craft to create the mockingjay imagery in Katniss' Catching Fire clothes, which is a defiant act of dissident sympathy with less privileged groups. By deciding to turn into a saint for the cause of the regions Cinna's self-sacrifice is both sympathetic to Katniss and also gives the viewers a chance to relate to the nobility.
Consequently, The Hunger Games is more effective than some of the “more radical”
films that clearly deride privileged groups. The problem with more radical films is that their binary structure leaves the audience less capable of comparing the universe of the
story with their surrounding world. If the universe in the movie is so one-sided then the reader will be less interested in reflecting upon other hypothetical social possibilities and will consider what he sees on the screen as being very far from reality. This is not what happens in The Hunger Games. As the movie progresses the viewer is able to observe the conflict between the central character and the community, thus having more possibility of extrapolation so that he or she can compares the actual society in which he or she lives with what is on the screen, which is a very positive aspect of The Hunger Games.
Chapter 4: For Utopia: The (limits of the) Abstract Utopian Function in Late