Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy: How Society of Spectacle Bred the Mockingjay

Using spectacle to alienate people from each other and life, President Snow's Panem from Collins' Hunger Games trilogy is Guy Debord's Society of Spectacle. As Debord predicts, the spectacle of the Annual Hunger Games causes a degradation of life for citizens in the Districts and the Capitol, leading to a society where nobody truly lives and citizens accept the narrative that President Snow and his regime promote about the Games. Using Luis Althusser to understand how President Snow links his power to that of the Games, we understand how the dictator brainwashed his citizens into compliance through his narrative, and also, how this narrative is constantly delivered through the various ISAs and SAs in Panem to degrade life into false unity and false consciousness, socially coercing citizens to fall in line with the narrative around spectacle. Katniss Everdeen is unique as she is too authentic to use her celebrity status in promotion of the Games; instead, she accidentally performs Debord's true critiques, sparking a rebellion through love. Katniss' acts of love translate into true critiques of the spectacle that is Panem and the Games, and because Snow has spent decades brainwashing his populace into a blind acceptance of celebrity and social similarities, Katniss is successful as the Mockingjay through rebellious love. Through Katniss, we see how spectacle can be as self-defeating as it is self-perpetuating