Fashion Studies; The fashion of the Hunger Games as sighted in my previous paper on sociology (fashion and sociology mix together in my mind because fashion reflects the culture’s values, this is way this paper has almost identical notes as the sociology paper), is very much based on Euro-American culture. This huge Western influence in Panem is understandable since the Hunger Games took place just a few centuries after the fall of the American government, so Panem culture most likely heavily took ideas, customs, fashions, and technology from its predecessor. Despite the extremely similar roles that Men and Women have in Panem culture, they still have different clothing for the sexes, like women still wear dresses and men still wear suits and ties. However, as explored in the film, the fashion and clothing styles in the Panem Capitol (the main government) and its Districts (especially District 12 were the main protagonists live) that it controls are radically different, reflecting the enormous difference in economic class between the Capitol and its Districts. The clothing style of the Capitol citizens has the emergence of European Renaissance with modern twists. They have powdered wigs, extremely colorful clothing, and even surgically modified their bodies with animal parts such as Cat whiskers. In contrast, the people living in most of the Districts live in poverty conditions, and their clothes are ragged and are that of the 20th century Great Depression.
Sociologist Studies; The culture depicted in the Hunger Games has strong Euro-American influences in its values and its dress. The culture appears to be very feminist since men and women have virtually the same roles in the government, armed forces, the Hunger Games itself (etc.). Men and women in the Capitol are very focused on fashion, something more or less untouchable and “too girly” for men in 20th century Western culture. The clothing is very Euro-American (such as the presence of tank-tops, suits and ties, dresses etc.), but much more exaggerated (at least in those of the Capitol, most of the clothing worn by the other Districts or much more impoverished and improvised then the clothes in the Capitol) than those of 20th century Euro-Americans. The Capitol fixation of romance and drama (especially on Peeta and Katniss’s relationship) is very similar to that of Western audiences obsession of 20th century Celebrity gossip. The people of the Capitol’s extreme obsession with appearances (to the point of swallowing pills to vomit their food and taking plastic surgery to look younger than they actually are) is virtually parallel to those of insecure Western teenage girls that mutilate their bodies to make themselves more sexually attractive. Panem culture has very little if any racism, evident by the fact that several Black people are presented in the background in the Capitol scenes. The Capitol’s foreign policy is virtually unknown to the viewers or readers, since other nations or tribes in the Hunger Games are never mentioned, so this does not reveal the stand of Panem culture on foreign wars or its interactions with other foreign cultures. Religion is never mentioned, so this hints that religion plays little role in the lives of Panem.
Connection with History; The Hunger Games are similar (but somewhat sugarcoated) futuristic version of the Roman Gladiator “Games”. However most of the combat in the real Gladiator Games were on a much larger scale (c.3,000,000 deaths in the real Gladiator Games, compared to c.2,000 total death toll of the Hunger Games). Both the Gladiator Games and the Hunger Games have extensive use of animals in their games, in fact in the real Gladiator games, several species of Lions, Panthers, and other dangerous animals were driven to extinction by the Gladiator Games, along with the death of thousands of unfortunate animal fighters that were sent to fight them (some unfortunate hunters were sent with no weapons or even clothes at all against powerfully built Lions). Some of the most disturbing use of animals in the Roman Gladiator Games was training Goats or Giraffes to rape unfortunate victims. Another horrific use of animals was to have naked victims (usually women, but it was not unusual for the victims to be males) tied to poles to be eaten alive by predators (usually Lions, but other animals were used as well). In the Hunger Games, the Capitol (the ruling government in the series) has specifically created animals called “mutts” to fight the contestants. One major difference was the presence of female combatants in the Hunger Games. Although the real Gladiator Games had female combatants, they were extremely unpopular and they had only a limited presence in the Gladiator Games, while in the Hunger Games, they are much more accepted and they have an identical role to the male combatants. Recruitment methods for combatants in the Hunger Games was the use of a lottery to select one girl and one boy from ages 12-18 (24 contestants total) from districts under Capital control for use in the Hunger Games, while the recruitment methods are much more diverse and far less formalized in the Roman Gladiator games. Most Gladiators recruits were criminals, POWs, escaped slaves, and the occasional “volunteer”.
Interesting Scenes that Show the Nature of the Panem Government; The scenes in District 12 shows the real oppression of millions of unfortunate people by oppressors (such as totalitarian dictators, drug cartels, rebel/terrorist groups, warlords etc.) that theoretically control them in world history. One interesting incident in the Hunger Games film is that the District 12’s perimeter has a deadly electric fence that will kill anyone that tries to escape the district that in theory, but in reality the fence is almost never on and is broken done. Katniss (the main character) even bangs against the fence with her stick. This shows that most groups that practice one sided violence and attempted totalitarian control on its people are like what some people would call “punks”. Like “punk” bullies, violent armed groups are often extremely weak, and their hold on the people that they control is tenuous at best. So like a weak “punk” bully, violent armed groups and corrupt dictatorships resort to horrific violence on even weaker prey. Another interesting thing to take note in the scenes in District 12 is most of the people that live in district 12 live in extremely poor conditions (although toned down for the sensibilities of the films audiences). The local people of District 12 in the film resemble that of old photos in the Great Depression of the 1920s (the filmmakers might have actually based their conception design of District 12 on people in the Great Depression). Most of the people in District 12 live in fear of the ruling regime’s government troops (euphemistically known as “Peacekeepers”) that will kill them for the most trivial reasons. The corrupt “Peacekeepers” exploit the local population of the District mercilessly (explained in the novel that the Peacekeepers extort the locals for food, money, and sex).
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