Is Fostering Class Consciousness an Act of Unfettered Freedom of Speech or Institutional Over-confidence?
It is the author's solid belief that modern cinematography of the futuristic fiction genre is becoming increasingly a forum of political commentary, as demonstrated previously by the Purge, and now by the newly released second installment of the Hunger Games trilogy. In fact, the political commentary associated with this latest film was so obviously presented, so not at all subtly nuanced, and so blatantly naked that as a member of the audience in a rather upscale cinema, the author was feeling cold sweat running down his back thinking just how subversive and seditious its conveyed messages are.
For the less politically astute, here are some of the straight-up real-world parallels that the author (and what seems to be a large number of viewers online) drew from the film. In the world of the Hunger Games, a bipolar society emerges. A rich hereditary elite living in a technologically advanced Capitol, enjoying the all the materialistic opulence associated with extremely high standard of living while doing no work whatsoever to produce anything they need. While a poor majority, starving in dangerous manual labor in the slums of outlying Districts, toils to supply all the material needs of the Capitol.
Even with just this superficial observation, the deeply unfair society of the film can already remind the audience of some real societies in the world today. While it is most likely that the stark contrast of the Capitol vs Districts is modeled after the inequalities of Pyongyang vs provinces of North Korea, to a less extreme extent, it resonates with inherent inequalities, to varying levels, that exist in ALL societies, whether rich or poor, East or West. A seemingly advantaged politically and commercially connected class exist everywhere and seem to go on generation after generation.
But what is really scary about the film under such a societal backdrop is the very narrative of how an all-out armed revolution can break out by fulfilling certain conditions. Consider the further parallels as follows. In the film, the annual Games gradually create a new social class, the Victors (of their respective Games) who come from impoverished Districts but rise to wealth in the Capitol due to their spectacular performances. The hereditary elites of the Capitol are keen to parade these Victors year after year to project the sense of hope to those in the Districts that riches can come to those who obey.
In essence, what the Victors represent is a small middle class that went from rags to riches by playing according to the "rules of the game" as set down by the hereditary elites. The elites create a semblance of "fairness" in its created rules by noting that anyone who follow the rules obediently can thrive, just like the Victors have. And on the surface, the Victors have adopted the modern lifestyles of the Capitol while continuing to do certain lowly bidding for the elites (entertainment as lowly as prostitution, as mentioned in the film), so have little incentive to oppose this arrangement.
Into this seemingly stable mix enter Katness and Peeta. Their significance is not so much that they won their Games (rather than someone else) or their backgrounds, but the methodologies by which they won. In short, they won the Games by bending the rules along the way, and by swaying the public opinion, both in the Capitol and the Districts, to support their pushing the limits of what is possible within the set of rules. The regime was force to deal with the consequences of such rule-bending, to trivialize the consequences as a simple matter of romance to an increasingly aware public.
Yet in dealing with the consequence of Katness and Peeta's rule-bending, the regime started suspecting the very group they spent so much effort in cultivating loyalty - the Victors. While the suspicion is understandable (the Victors do coach new participants on strategies for survival), the regime did so in a fashion that immediately led to massive alienation of the Victors - putting them back into the Game. The analogy here to throw a well-established middle class back down to the bottom of the social ladder that they already shed so many blood and tears for climbing to the top.
And this alienation leads to the takeaway political message. The only thing that ties the middle class's loyalty to the regime is predictability of the rules that allowed them to reach where they are. If the middle class is made certain that the social status they achieved by fighting off so many competitors is not guaranteed (in fact, quite ephemeral) and they can be thrown back down to the bottom of the pile by the regime at a whim, then they have literally no reason to support the existing arrangement with the regime any further. They have every reason to join forces with the lower classes to incite rebellion.
So despite their tiny numbers, a middle class in a highly bipolar society still holds the key to their stability. The poor has every reason for the existing arrangement to be scrapped so that they are no longer confirmed to hereditary second-class status. But lack of political education (read: class consciousness) and resources (in cash or weapons) means their large numbers still do not pose threat to the numerically inferior elites. The poor simply have too much to worry about just in everyday survival of paycheck-to-paycheck living to challenge the regime systematically.
The middle class, then, is the kingmaker in the fragile trilateral arrangement. They have both the knowledge and the resources of the elites as well as the understanding of the grim conditions faced by the poor. If they feel the need to take down the elites, they can easily connect with the poor through their equally humble backgrounds and use the masses in their advantage. The failure of the elites to convince the poor that the middle class is no longer "with them" but "with us" will very much spell the end of the regime and push the middle class to new elite status.
And this message is what makes the film so scary. In the aftermath of the global economic crisis, the middle class suffered the most while the rich escaped almost unharmed. In many places, particularly in the Middle East, it seems that this was the tipping point to drive the middle class to the side of revolution. for other countries with the inescapable bipolar wealth structure (Philippines is a prime example) the results are still ambiguous and maybe too earlier to judge. But either way, the film gave the middle class a very clear road-map on how to achieve their goals when worse comes to worst.
For the less politically astute, here are some of the straight-up real-world parallels that the author (and what seems to be a large number of viewers online) drew from the film. In the world of the Hunger Games, a bipolar society emerges. A rich hereditary elite living in a technologically advanced Capitol, enjoying the all the materialistic opulence associated with extremely high standard of living while doing no work whatsoever to produce anything they need. While a poor majority, starving in dangerous manual labor in the slums of outlying Districts, toils to supply all the material needs of the Capitol.
Even with just this superficial observation, the deeply unfair society of the film can already remind the audience of some real societies in the world today. While it is most likely that the stark contrast of the Capitol vs Districts is modeled after the inequalities of Pyongyang vs provinces of North Korea, to a less extreme extent, it resonates with inherent inequalities, to varying levels, that exist in ALL societies, whether rich or poor, East or West. A seemingly advantaged politically and commercially connected class exist everywhere and seem to go on generation after generation.
But what is really scary about the film under such a societal backdrop is the very narrative of how an all-out armed revolution can break out by fulfilling certain conditions. Consider the further parallels as follows. In the film, the annual Games gradually create a new social class, the Victors (of their respective Games) who come from impoverished Districts but rise to wealth in the Capitol due to their spectacular performances. The hereditary elites of the Capitol are keen to parade these Victors year after year to project the sense of hope to those in the Districts that riches can come to those who obey.
In essence, what the Victors represent is a small middle class that went from rags to riches by playing according to the "rules of the game" as set down by the hereditary elites. The elites create a semblance of "fairness" in its created rules by noting that anyone who follow the rules obediently can thrive, just like the Victors have. And on the surface, the Victors have adopted the modern lifestyles of the Capitol while continuing to do certain lowly bidding for the elites (entertainment as lowly as prostitution, as mentioned in the film), so have little incentive to oppose this arrangement.
Into this seemingly stable mix enter Katness and Peeta. Their significance is not so much that they won their Games (rather than someone else) or their backgrounds, but the methodologies by which they won. In short, they won the Games by bending the rules along the way, and by swaying the public opinion, both in the Capitol and the Districts, to support their pushing the limits of what is possible within the set of rules. The regime was force to deal with the consequences of such rule-bending, to trivialize the consequences as a simple matter of romance to an increasingly aware public.
Yet in dealing with the consequence of Katness and Peeta's rule-bending, the regime started suspecting the very group they spent so much effort in cultivating loyalty - the Victors. While the suspicion is understandable (the Victors do coach new participants on strategies for survival), the regime did so in a fashion that immediately led to massive alienation of the Victors - putting them back into the Game. The analogy here to throw a well-established middle class back down to the bottom of the social ladder that they already shed so many blood and tears for climbing to the top.
And this alienation leads to the takeaway political message. The only thing that ties the middle class's loyalty to the regime is predictability of the rules that allowed them to reach where they are. If the middle class is made certain that the social status they achieved by fighting off so many competitors is not guaranteed (in fact, quite ephemeral) and they can be thrown back down to the bottom of the pile by the regime at a whim, then they have literally no reason to support the existing arrangement with the regime any further. They have every reason to join forces with the lower classes to incite rebellion.
So despite their tiny numbers, a middle class in a highly bipolar society still holds the key to their stability. The poor has every reason for the existing arrangement to be scrapped so that they are no longer confirmed to hereditary second-class status. But lack of political education (read: class consciousness) and resources (in cash or weapons) means their large numbers still do not pose threat to the numerically inferior elites. The poor simply have too much to worry about just in everyday survival of paycheck-to-paycheck living to challenge the regime systematically.
The middle class, then, is the kingmaker in the fragile trilateral arrangement. They have both the knowledge and the resources of the elites as well as the understanding of the grim conditions faced by the poor. If they feel the need to take down the elites, they can easily connect with the poor through their equally humble backgrounds and use the masses in their advantage. The failure of the elites to convince the poor that the middle class is no longer "with them" but "with us" will very much spell the end of the regime and push the middle class to new elite status.
And this message is what makes the film so scary. In the aftermath of the global economic crisis, the middle class suffered the most while the rich escaped almost unharmed. In many places, particularly in the Middle East, it seems that this was the tipping point to drive the middle class to the side of revolution. for other countries with the inescapable bipolar wealth structure (Philippines is a prime example) the results are still ambiguous and maybe too earlier to judge. But either way, the film gave the middle class a very clear road-map on how to achieve their goals when worse comes to worst.
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