By Maria Padhila
To me, there’s no point in talking about what might have been… I still wouldn’t have wanted to marry anyone. I only got engaged to save people’s lives, and that completely backfired. — The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
I had to get eye surgery halfway through reading the Hunger Games trilogy, and I’m just now picking it up again — with one eye. Everything on the horizon is clear, but my close vision is kaput. Same thing will happen in two weeks to the other eye. So I suppose that means I can’t see what’s right in front of me anymore. I’ll have to discover the implications there later.
My daughter and I also saw the movie, with Issac. I loved Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, and I think she did pretty well in this one, too. But like everything and everybody else associated with Hunger Games, she and her character have been analyzed from every angle. I’m going to continue this madness, from the one direction I haven’t seen too much about yet — relationships. In the plural.
I’m an old-school believer that our pop culture obsessions say interesting things about us, whether or not we’re immediately engaged with them. So even if the last thing you’d do is care what Mockingjay means, you’ll still be affected by a generation of primarily young people who are shaped by the phenomenon. Barbie dolls and YouTube shares are no lesser texts than Quality Works of High Art or the most avant-garde pieces. Seeing as how I practice the exalted art of poetry, which gets read by about five people nowadays, that’s saying something.
For those who don’t know the story, it’s not giving too much away to share the basics: In a dystopian future, in a country called Panem — North America before the waters climbed over the edges — the evil, trivial, rich and partying denizens of a Capitol district are supported in their debauchery by the dozen districts of serfs that ring the region. Some provide food, others textiles, others power.