Escape from Control

   

As we look at our world, we can see various social problems and sociological theories in play all around us. Such theories help us to better understand our society, people’s behavior, and  social issues we currently face. One of the main sociological theories, social stratification, defined as a classification of people into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions,

occurs in every society. An inevitable part in the society, social stratification leads to a society in which people are grouped into a set of hierarchical social categories. In every society, we see the classes of poor, middle, and rich. We can also see other class criteria such as religion, ethnic heritage, and other distinguishing traits.  Because such a hierarchical structure exists, its inherent inequality can lead to unfair treatment of some members of society. Egyptian politician Mohammed Morsi once said, “The world is not uni-cultural. We must live together rather than seeking to dominate each other. The people in the world cannot accept domination anymore.” As people gain power, they wield greater control and authority, leading to an imbalance in power and then to rebellion by those who have less power and seek to gain it for themselves.

            Another sociological theory that we encounter is the influence of media, methods of spreading opinions and ideas across the world, which help us to understand every part of the society. Through print and visual media such as newspapers, magazines, posters, and books, and television, ideas are passed and spread through society. The effects of the media lead to pervasive and visible forms of culture within societies. Today we depict those sociological theories and issues in movies as a way to portray a message to people regarding the social problems we face. With such theories, one of the movies, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, directed by Francis Lawrence, not only provides us entertainment with its fictional story, but also expresses important sociological concepts that give people an opportunity to think about the connection to real life’s sociology.  

            The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, directed by Francis Lawrence, is the sequel to the film,  The Hunger Games. The movie, a fiction adventure film, released in 2013, portrays a dystopian society, Panem, in which the victory of the 74th Hunger Games serves as the starting point of the Districts’ rebellion against the government.  The oppressed and impoverished Districts rise up against the power of the government of Panem, the Capitol. Protagonist Katniss Everdeen and her partner Peeta Mellark, tributes from the coal-mining District 12, win the 74th Hunger Games in the previous movie, The Hunger Games. Their victory leads them to instigate the rebellion. Katniss and Peeta are forced to begin their victory tour to convince everyone that their actions in the previous game were motivated by love, and not a subversive attempt to undermine the Capitol. Snow announces the 75th Hunger Games, in the contestants must be the Districts’ previous victors. To eliminate Katniss, Snow arranges the Hunger Games so that Katniss and Peeta must participate in the game again. Haymitch, their District mentor, proposes an idea to other tributes of keeping Katniss alive, without informing Katniss. Having to face another nightmare, Katniss becomes angry and hopeless, but she has no choice. Katniss and Peeta continue the charade of being in love to earn the support of the Capitol’s citizens. During an interview of the tributes, Katniss wears a dress that represents a mockingjay, a symbol of rebellion. Even when the tributes hold hands to represent the agreement of joining together, the game still continues. During the game, facing different dangers, the tributes form alliances. Secretly, most of the tributes intend to protect Katniss, without her or the Capitol’s notice, as she is, although unbeknownst to herself, a symbol for the growing rebellion. After the game, her District is demolished, and a new District is built as a headquarters of the new rebellion.

            Social class, one of the sociological theories of stratification, can be found in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which depicts the fierce inequality of different classes in a fictional way. The movie grants its audience a better understanding of the connection between the fictional portrayal of unequal wealth distribution and the stark realities of such inequalities in our own world. In the movie, the society of Panem is composed of 12 poor Districts, each of which labor to produce, and the Capitol, where all the wealthy people benefit from the labor of the 12 Districts.  In various scenes, the differences between poor and upper class are marked. Katniss and Peeta witness a huge disparity between their lives in the Capitol and the lives of the poor back home. People in the Districts, trying to obtain the basic necessities of food and clothing, have no opportunity to change their circumstances; the citizens have limited social mobility as they are forbidden to leave Districts. Yet, when Katniss and Peeta enter the Capitol, they witness the vulgar and ostentatious luxury of the Capitol’s well-dressed citizens. An excessive amount of food displayed before them, and the rich drink a special potion to cause them vomit so that they can continue to gorge themselves; the Districts have no food and struggle, while the rich are enjoying themselves. The Capitol citizens play with their food and discard barely worn clothing, which gives an example of the rich’s indolent attitudes and behavior, compared to the more desperate and resourceful actions of the poor. The movie clearly demonstrates the differences between the two social classes by relating the fictional systems of the poor and rich to real life situation, where the stratification lines of poor, middle, and upper classes grows more clearly marked, as the rich get richer and poor get poorer. According to the Elizabeth Warren’s article “America Without a Middle Class,” today’s society “has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security” (182). The rich and the rest of the classes have become long separated, explaining the inequality of social classes. In today’s society, the behaviors of the rich, the clothes they wear, and the food they eat, are strikingly different from those of the poor.  

            As we look into social classes, we can see the poor facing the dehumanizing effects of poverty; such examples can be found while watching the Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The citizens from the Districts, wearing threadbare grey clothing, endure hard times. The male citizens work as miners; the females stay at home or sell items at the black market. Aspects of Katniss’ home environment represent poverty from a sociological perspective. Because of limited economic opportunities and lack of access to the few opportunities available, Katniss must devise ways alternate ways of supporting her family. She must hunt illegally, and sell game on the black market, in order to feed her family. Having witnessed poverty in today’s society, we can understand better through watching the movie to learn how “the lower class was unable to escape their own poverty because they were not future oriented” (Conley 380). Because the poor must struggle to meets the needs of daily existence, they cannot transcend the boundaries between themselves and the rich. The poor have no choice but live in such environment that the cycle of poverty continues forever. The portrayal of poverty in the movie helps us to understand how such communities exist in our society.

            Governmental authority can wield extensive control over its citizens, overpowering the people who have little or no power. In the movie, the sociological theory that power and authority leading to social conflict is clearly found. This sociological theory expresses an important lesson about humanity: people from different classes behave differently because they do not view others equally, which can lead to social conflict. Throughout the movie, the actions of the Capitol relate directly to the article “The Power Elite” by C. Wright Mills, who defines the powerful people as those who are “in positions to make decisions having major consequences” (465). When a certain group of people have such power, the control and influence they have over other less powerful people bring about inequality in terms of power and social class. The Hunger Games, in general, represents the power of Panem’s government, the Capitol; the Capitol uses its power to force the poor to kill each other in the Hunger Games until one person remains as the winner. The Capitol uses this reprehensible event as an entertainment for the rich, but for the poor, it is an unbearable cruel fight that relates to life and death situation. Because of the Capitol’s power in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the Districts unite in rebellion against the government that has the authority to do whatever it wants. This social movement is provoked by the government’s controlling power, showing that inequalities in power can create strong conflicts between human beings. As we watch the movie, we can see the citizens from the Districts begin to grow angry with the government and the government’s practices, unhappy with its control of the people. When the peacekeepers invade District 12, they burn the factories and peoples’ houses. Also, they enforce a curfew as an additional insult, to blatantly demonstrate to the citizens the extent of the government’s authority. The citizens are forced to obey the peacekeepers, who will use any means to subdue any rebellion. Any disobedience is punished severely; when Gale pushes the head peacekeeper to the ground, he is soundly whipped. The Capitol is determined to show its domination and remind the citizens of its absolute authority. The film’s scenes relate to those in our own society; we often see domination, inevitably both economically and socially, everywhere in society, and the adverse effects of such domination.   

            As we scrutinize the movie closely, we can see the influence and effectiveness of media, a sociological theme, portrayed as an important communication tool for the Districts and a way for Panem’s government to broadly deceive the citizens. As in the first movie, the power of media is apparent: in fact, it is the only means of receiving information. With the government’s power, President Snow manages to manipulate media to deceive the citizens of the Capitol, preventing them from discovering the truth about life outside of the city. Also, we can see the parades, interviews, and tours are designed to distract the citizens from the reality of life in the Districts outside the Capitol. The government wants manipulate the citizens’ perception of reality into what it chooses. In the beginning of the movie, Peeta and Katniss are no longer strangers to the media’s power, as they use the media to present star-crossed versions of themselves to the adoring crowds in order to win favors from the crowd.  President Snow wants to use Katniss and Peeta to deceive the Capitol citizens into believing Katniss and Peeta are part of the government. In the movie, Snow uses the influence of media to shield them from the reality of the outside world. When Katniss peeks into the media control room, she witnesses the chaos of the Districts’ rebelling against the government. She then realizes that the people are beginning to fight back. From this point of view, we can see how the government has employed the media to keep media secrets, so that the people from each District have no idea what is happening in other Districts, and that the people in the Capitol have no knowledge of anything happening in the Districts. After watching the first movie, we can tell that the Districts are only allowed to watch the Hunger Games shown by the government. As in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the people have no idea that other Districts are rebelling. Because they lack resources and government control, they have little or no access to media and communication tools. The government uses the “media as their own means to shape, redefine, and change culture” (Conley 97). With the power of media, the government intends to cover the reality of Katniss as a symbol of rebellion to destroy any hopes the citizens have.

            The film’s sociological theme of social groups teaches us that forming social networks is an essential skill and that leads to the understanding of social interaction between people. Throughout Hunger Games: Catching Fire, social groups are considered to be an important concept that teaches us the sociology behind them. In "Social Identity and Intergroup Relations” by Tajfel, Henri, the author defines social groups as “two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics and collectively have a sense of unity” (56). Applying the theory to the movie, we can understand better what makes people form groups. In the movie, the 75th Hunger Games becomes a serious fight against professional killers; making allies is the only way to ensure survival. Katniss, an independent and strong-willed young woman, cannot make friends easily, which places her at a distinct disadvantage during the games. As part of our human nature, gathering or forming people into groups can help us to gain better knowledge or even serve as a way to protect ourselves. The tributes want to make allies who have the best survival skills and personalities. As the game starts, the tributes begin to find allies to help each other as the most pragmatic means of survival. Examining the tributes, we see they are of all different ages and genders. From a sociological perspective, the director wants to depict the importance of not only forming groups to ensure physical survival, but also the social interaction between different kinds of people. Despite being older, Mags, a tribute from District 9, allies herself with Katniss, and Wiress, who has a mental disability. The movie portrays the social action of forming social groups for many reasons; the social groups in the movie are formed for the sake of survival, but also on the valuable interpersonal interactions between different people in the arena.

            All in all, in the movie Hunger Games: Catching Fire, we can find several interrelated sociological theories reflecting real life images of our society. With all its sociological themes, the movie tells us about humanity as a whole. Viewing films from a sociological perspective, we can find sociological themes and theories present in various movies, which can demonstrate innumerable social ills, such as racism, poverty, and inequality. Even though fictional movies provide diverting entertainment, they also offer deep messages about society if we watch closely.

Work Cited

Conley, Dalton. You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking like a Sociologist. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2011. Print.

Elizabeth Warren. “America Without a Middle Class” Understanding Society. Huffington Post, December 3, 2009, 180-182

Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Dir. Francis Lawrence. Perf. Jennifer Lawrence. 2013. Film.

Mills, C. Wright. "The Power Elite." Understanding Society. New York: Oxford UP, 1956. 464-69. Print.

Tajfel, Henri. "Social Identity and Intergroup Relations." Google Books. N.p., 1982. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.