The Hunger Games – Description of a Leftist Dystopia?

by Jason Schuck

January 25th, 2012

The Hunger Games, the first of a best-selling trilogy of novels being turned into a movie this Spring, is described as young adult literature. And while it definitely spends quite a bit of a time on a teen love triangle, there is more going on beneath the surface than I expected. The story takes place in a future world where the Leftists seem to have won.

[MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW—if you haven't read the books yet, I encourage you to do so, they're quick but good reads, the author knows how to turn a phrase and build suspense.]

At some unspecified future date, the US, now called “Panea,” has been divided into 13 “Districts,” under the control of an authoritarian government known as “the Capitol.” Every year, the Districts, which are all riddled with poverty, must send a randomly selected male and female teenager to compete in the “Hunger Games,” a televised battle to the death in an outdoor arena. Sort of The Lord of the Flies meets Survivor meets The Running Man. Our heroine, Katness Everdeen of District 12, volunteers to go to the Games to save her sister, whose name gets pulled in the lottery. Throughout her story, we see pieces of Panea that give us insight into its culture. A culture that reflects Right Wing fears of what a Left Wing America would look like.

For example…

• Peacekeepers. The shock force SS-types Panea uses to keep its districts in line are called “Peacekeepers.” Same as the baby blue-helmeted UN troops who fueled many a paranoid “New World Order” scenario. I don’t know how that can be coincidence.

• Gun Control. Well, technically, restrictions on all weapons, but same idea. Katness has to hide the bow she uses to hunt in the woods, because if the Peacekeepers caught her with it inside her home district, she’d be executed for rebellion. Clearly the Capitol did away with the Second Amendment at some point in The Hunger Games alt history.

• Taxes. Have to read between the lines here—it’s still young adult literature, not an economics treatise—but Rue, the involuntary contestant from District 11 (a farming area) mentions that the Capitol only allows her District’s residents to keep a small amount of the food they grow. Sounds like a metaphor for confiscatory tax rates to me and in kind taxation of this sort is a medieval form of taxation common on the manor.

• Food Stamps. No stamps involved, technically, but the Capitol also controls its citizens by rationing out food (the book does mention that food supplies are short due to some vaguely described planetary crisis, possibly global warming—although residents of the Capitol have so much to eat that they drink ipecac at at parties so they can vomit then taste more dishes, like the decadent Romans in the time of Augustus). Favored Districts, such as District 2 who are basically the Capitol’s lapdogs, get more food, while potential tributes get extra rations if they put their name into the Hunger Games lottery more than once. It isn’t much of a jump to see “support for the Capitol gets you more bread” is just an evolution from “give someone an EBT card and they’ll keep voting Democrat.”

• Religion. Again, reading between the lines here, but there is no mention of churches in the 13 Districts, no mention of a benediction before the Games, no sign of any tribute praying in the face of danger. The most likely explanation is that the Capitol outlawed religion years ago, making Panea like a Communist country. Again, this plays into New World Order paranoia—I’m a bit surprised the Capitol’s hovercraft weren’t described as black helicopters, though I guess hovercraft are the sci-fi equivalent.

• Homophobia. Definitely more of a stretch here, but the residents of the Capitol are most often described as “flamboyant.” They wear outrageous, colorful outfits, with pink wigs and gold tattoos. They have an affected, mincing accent the people in the Districts love to mock. The majority we get to know by name work in the fashion industry. None of them are physically tough like the hardened residents of the Districts. And, oh yeah, the Capitol is located somewhere west of the Rockies—most likely the former LA or San Francisco. Ultimately, the people of the Capitol are portrayed largely as a “flyover country” stereotype of homosexuals—a hobgoblin of the right-wing evangelical Christians.

• Nuclear Deterrence. OK, this isn’t the Capitol’s policies, but in later books it’s revealed that District 13—which propaganda suggested was wiped out—in fact survived in a location that is clearly supposed to be Mount Weather, locked in an uneasy truce with the Capitol because its residents have control of nuclear weapons. This is pure Ronald “there’s a bear in the woods” Reagan. A strong nuclear defense ensuring freedom from the Evil Empire. Just one more thing that makes the book read like an Ann Coulter fable.

I’m curious how much of this makes it into the movie come March. If it’s true to the book, who knows, it may end up becoming Ron Paul’s ultimate campaign ad.