Nearly a year ago, there was a new movie addition to the trilogy of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. On November 17, 2023 The Ballad Of Songbirds and Snakes came out as the backstory of President Snow who was portrayed as the villain in the original Hunger Games series.
Due to another movie coming out for the Hunger Games fandom, it brought back a lot of attention to the whole concept and ideas that were displayed in the movies and books. Most of these concepts that fans were paying attention to once again, made them realize that those concepts that were displayed in a dystopian movie, are occurring in real life.
The most important concept that Collins wrote into the plot of The Hunger Games was the social hierarchy, the poor and the rich, the Capitol and the Districts. And in more than one sense, that same hierarchy applies almost everywhere else in the real world, especially America.
For example, there has always been a huge division between the rich and poor in the Hunger Games, and as much as people would like to deny it, there is that same division in our own societies. Rich people do not live the same lives that middle-class and lower-class families do, there will always be a division in not only our money status but also our mentality, and personalities.
In the series, there is this concept of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. According to the website Statista, in just the last two years, homelessness has increased by 12.1% in the United States of America. In addition to that, the gap between the top 10% of residents in America and the bottom 10% of Americans, is 9.5 times bigger than it was merely 25 years ago.
To make matters worse, the 2024 Met Gala drew a lot of attention towards these problems. It was said in multiple videos and articles online how the dresses, theme, and overall vibe of the 2024 Met Gala was much like the Capitol from Hunger Games during the reapings. For those unaware, reapings were when people were chosen to fight for their lives as a sort of entertainment.
The Met Gala this year was held on May 6 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. A singular ticket for this event costs $75,000 which in comparison is higher than the annual pay of the average American household. To add on, the money made from the Met Gala all goes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Institution, an institution for costumes and accessories for men, women, and children. Which in a way is a good use for the money made from the event, but looking at the state of the country, economy, and so much more, it doesn’t really seem like the best use of the 26 million dollars made from the Met Gala.
I asked an English teacher here at Pitman High, who wishes to stay anonymous: What is your opinion on the Met Gala making 26 million dollars?
Her response was, “I think that is a very high amount of money, and I really was not expecting such high numbers from an event that happens only yearly”.
Then I asked her: Apparently the money made from the Met Gala is used for an institution for costumes and accessories, how do you feel about that?
“Well in my honest opinion, I kind of find that disturbing, it really doesn’t make much sense to me how anyone would be okay spending so much money on unnecessary things like costumes and accessories, when there are much better opportunities to spend this money on.”
I also interviewed a sophomore, who also wishes to stay unnamed, was also asked the same questions: What is your opinion on the Met Gala making 26 million dollars?
“I think that’s a great thing. I mean 26 million dollars is a lot of money and making that money off of one event that happens yearly is great for business.”
She was then asked: Apparently the money made from the Met Gala is used for an institution for costumes and accessories, how do you feel about that?
“I feel like that is a very appropriate use of the money made. Because technically, money made from a fashion show should go back to that fashion industry. It’s like a cycle. The company who supported the event uses their money for the catering, venue, etc. then uses the money made from the event to support their institutions and projects.”
There seems to be a clear division between the two different opinions on this topic, some think of it to be appropriate, while others think of it as disturbing. In my personal opinion I do wish that the money made from the event was better spent someplace else, it also makes sense why the money is used for their own institution.
But other than the money issue which is similar to the USA, and The Hunger Games, there is also a power and type of control that Panem has over its districts, and in a sense the US government also has that control. Even though America has always had its great title as “The Land of The Free” there isn’t much to it.
Not to disregard any of the constitutional rights, but day by day, things have been getting worse on the free part of being American. The biggest example is Roe vs Wade, how abortion has now become illegal in 21 states overall. 13 of those states have a ban on abortion completely. And in four states you cannot have one after the first six weeks of term, in another 2 states where you can’t get an abortion after 12 weeks, and in the last 2 states where it is illegal after 15-18 weeks of pregnancy.
And for those who would like to disagree, go right ahead, but to take abortion away from another human being does not sound so “Land Of The Free” to me. Rather it sounds like limits and control put on certain people, similar to how Panem had limits and controls of their own put on its country and people.
Although this one case may show how America isn’t all that free, there are other parts of the government where people are given their actual freedom. One of them being the right to protest. As far as protests go, the possible presence of police is to keep the protest under control.
One of the biggest resemblances between America and The Hunger Games is media manipulation. As context, in the book series, the government uses media to make the games where people kill one another to make it look like it’s just for fun. The government uses the media to hype up the games, to downplay the intensity of it, and make it look like it’s okay.
In that nature, the media is used to manipulate and confuse the minds of thousands into thinking the same things. Making dangerous and criminal acts look like acts of fun and an activity to pass time with. When in reality there is a lot of harm that comes with those trends and other glorified things on social media platforms.
And most of the time, it is very hard not to give into those trends, to not go ahead and join in on the videos or maybe even convince a couple of your own friends to do it with you. But that’s why those trends exist, to persuade you, to make you feel like you have to be in on it in order to feel contempt about yourself. Almost as if you need to fit in and go along with what’s popular, dismissing your own thoughts and opinions.
Which is what those trends are for, it might not seem so harmless at first but when you zoom out and look at the whole picture, you can see how and those trends can get big. Let’s take something as simple as back to school shopping for an example. Just when it was school time, everyone was getting videos on social media, TikTok most specifically. The videos were all about what to wear, where to shop, what backpacks to get, what water bottles to use, even something as simple as what pencils, pens, markers, and notebooks to get.
Which details exactly what media manipulation is. Clearly there just seems to be so many homogeneous issues between this dystopian country and our own. It really makes you think about what we are doing, if we are heading down that same path or not. If we see these problems as actual problems or not yet.