March Issue
By Maia Zasler
January
Feet planted firmly on purple and teal tiles faintly covered in a layer of filth, I was greeted by the familiar odor of buttered popcorn blended with a candy scent so sweet it could make your teeth ache. Ever since the coronavirus pandemic disrupted and permanently altered our lives in 2020, movie-going has become an extra thrilling prospect, a novelty; we’re able to sit in an often densely-packed room, eating and drinking at our leisure, feeling a profound range of emotions alongside complete strangers. I was pleased to note that Short Pump Regal Cinemas, my local movie theater, had not changed in my absence.
It was 10:30 p.m., the last showing of the night. The theater was practically empty save for me and my good friend from home. The two of us made our way down a dark hallway, ready to see the latest installment in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games franchise, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” released on Nov. 17, 2023. Until that night, we lived adjacent to “The Hunger Games” realm, uninterested in and fairly dispassionate to the story and its characters. Before this outing, I had not seen a single Hunger Games movie, ever. My friend and I were moved to see this new film only due to the immense social media hype surrounding it (and, candidly, a few well-done TikTok edits of one Coriolanus Snow).
We found seats in the center of the unoccupied theater. We took a moment to run around the perimeter, enjoying the freedom from unwatchful eyes and the subsequently liberating lack of social norms before the trailers stopped running. Silence then befell us both.
The original Hunger Games trilogy is set in the dystopian, fictional nation of Panem, a country divided into 12 districts and ruled by the Capitol. Each year, the Capitol hosts a Hunger Games in which a boy and a girl (aged 12 to 18) from each district are “reaped” / selected and forced to fight to the death until just one survivor remains, the Victor. The competition is televised, serving as entertainment for the citizens of the Capitol. The annual, horrific spectacle also serves as a means of punishment for and control of the districts that had attempted a failed revolt 74 years prior. The Hunger Games themes of the growing divide between rich and poor, the weaponization of food access, and the normalization of violence as entertainment are also replicated in this movie-adapted prequel.
“The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes” is primarily oriented around the 10th Annual Hunger Games and the development of the trilogy’s most prominent, detestable villain, Coriolanus Snow, President of Panem. The film chronicles young Snow’s ascension to power and the critical interactions and events leading to his apathy and dictatorial, sociopathic behavior as a totalitarian leader 64 years later.
Dimly lit and foreboding, the first scene opens three years prior to the first annual Hunger Games. These “Dark Days” reveal a young Snow (Tom Blyth) and his cousin, Tigris (Hunter Schafer), fearfully running around desolate city streets littered with dead bodies in a desperate search for sustenance. The pair see a man violently chop the leg off of one of these dead bodies; Coriolanus asks Tigris why the man would do such a thing. She responds, simply: “He’s starving.”
The film then jumps several years into the future, where 18-year-old Coriolanus is in his final year of schooling, hoping to attend university. His family (his grandmother / “Grandma’am” (Fionnula Flanagan) and Tigris) are struggling financially, masking their economic plight from Capitol society. The dynamics between the Snow family members emerge quickly in the plot; Coriolanus may seemingly prioritize his relatives, but there is a lingering sense that selfish motives drive these efforts. He works to preserve the Snow family name to present a strong front in hopes of climbing the political ladder of Panem.
At this time, the Capitol notes that the Hunger Games are losing viewership. To help encourage more spectators, the Capitol enlists Coriolanus and his fellow classmates as mentors, assigned to each tribute, or competitor, from the districts. Whoever is able to make their tribute the greatest spectacle, whoever turns their tribute into a Victor, will be the designated recipient of the Plinth prize, an unfathomable sum of money.
Coriolanus is assigned to Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), an errant singer from District 12. Lucy Gray’s vocal gift captures the hearts of the Capitol audience, aiding in her chance for survival and sparking Coriolanus’s infatuation. The two strike up an unlikely romance, which must be put on hold throughout Lucy Gray’s coerced participation in the Games.
In each scene where the two interact, the audience is left to determine whether or not Coriolanus is acting in good faith: Is he helping Lucy Gray because he genuinely cares for her and is willing to do everything in his power to ensure she makes it out of the Games alive? Or, is he instead helping her because he views her as a pawn in a larger game, a necessary piece in his pursuit of the Plinth prize and political prestige and power?
The progression of the plot and intricate dialogue perfectly captures Snow’s moral regression, the series of choices he makes that increasingly favor “evil” over “good.” Coriolanus is a main character that we, as audience members, cannot, in good conscience, root for. His decaying core characteristics are juxtaposed with the goodness in Lucy Gray, her relative pureness to his internal corruption.
In this prequel, Snow “lands on top” (to use his own words). Along this vein, the portrayal of humanity is thus intensely bleak. As the movie reached its final minutes, I sat, deflated. I longed for the triumph of good, or at least some insertion of hope for future change in Panem’s social structure. In a way, I mourned the hero that could have been, the failed and fraught love story, and the deaths of the only characters courageous enough to challenge the system that Coriolanus goes on to propagate. Truthfully, my upset and frustration felt a bit silly, but upon further reflection—and binge-watching all four original Hunger Games movies—I realized it was far from frivolous emotion.
What ultimately prevails in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is a manipulative, over-indulgent, perverse ruling class profiting off of the labor and—in the case of the Games—relishing in the deaths of those in the districts, the masses. For the impoverished, the victims of a system that is structured to never be in their favor, unity and solidarity are a pipedream. As highlighted by the outcome of each Hunger Games (up until, of course, the 74th), alliances turn to enemies and there is no winning (other than survival at the expense of human life, of the violent extinguishing of children). The tributes make a show of themselves in hopes of attracting rescuers in the Capitol; the elite have the ability to send “gifts” (e.g., bottled water) to competitors in the Hunger Games arena.
Through the lens of “art imitates life,” dystopian stories are often more eerily close to our realities than strict fantasy. Although this film may have been less of an overt political commentary or demonstration of existing societal inequalities and injustices, it astutely captures the initial transitional choices before devolving completely into authoritarian brutality of leadership/regime (on a micro level with Coriolanus Snow himself and on a macro level in the case of Panem).
Income inequality in the United States increased by about 20 percent from 1980 to 2016 according to the Pew Research Center. American programs such as the food stamp system are known to cause resentment among the disinvested: the tax-paying low income and those who receive welfare. Food abundance, extravagance and waste are characteristics of the elite—often of “Western” nations—whereas the masses are deprived of necessities (not due to a lack of supply or resources, necessarily, but inefficient distribution and a focus on profit-driven production). The exploitation of violence for views is extremely prevalent in our modern digital culture. As the ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch asserted: “The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.” The violence of war is turned into blockbuster Hollywood hits or best-selling novels, and the victims of real war, more often than not, do not perish in an honorable manner. They are slaughtered and, in several instances, serve the selfish interests of others more financially well-off. For survivors, veterans who return home are frequently overlooked, and they lack adequate support. This is a particularly prevalent issue in the United States.
The Hunger Games—and, more pertinently, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”—does not provide any answers to pressing social and complex moral questions but rather poses them; the film holds up a mirror to the audience and our society, allowing us to see the impurities, the risks, and the dangers that currently lay bubbling below the surface.
What I thought this film prequel did most effectively (apart from the fantastic world-building, impressive cinematography, character portrayal, and an epic soundtrack) was incorporate veiled, almost diluted elements of silhouettes of real-world systemic issues and moral quandaries into an already action-packed and compelling narrative; at no point during its two hour and 38 minute duration was I bored.
When I finally begrudgingly walked out of the theater, I whined to my friend; I wanted more — both more content (in which I happily absorbed watching the other movies), but also more in a grander sense of the word. We should be able to expect more from our leaders, from each other, and from ourselves.
“The Hunger Games”—like any quality piece of art—gives us an opportunity to reflect, if not just to enjoy its aesthetics and intrigue. In a review published in the New York Times, Amy Nicholson shrewdly writes that the film and its content “moves us to spend its gargantuan running time reflecting on contemporary headlines, mourning the generational tragedy of anger and fear begetting anger and fear.” Through the medium of film, the Hunger Games illustrates the susceptibility of the inherent goodness and purity that we are born to the probability of it being tainted by our surrounding conditions. In this view, nurture trumps nature, and if this is true (which I believe it to be), then change can be made in both directions. What is done can be undone, laws can be written and rewritten, and extended power can be limited. After all, the “Victor” should be a healthy society where collaboration and understanding set a stage for the next generations to thrive.