We all know the phrase “life imitates art.” It’s a concept explored by Oscar Wilde in his essay titled “The Decay of Lying.” This philosophical saying is used to describe moments when real-life events mimic what is depicted through works of art. A tragic example of life imitating art can be seen through the sinking of the Titanic. Fourteen years prior to the sinking of the Titanic, American author Morgan Robertson published his novella titled “Futility, Or The Wreck of the Titan.” You can guess what the novella is about.
A lesser talked-about concept, however, is when art imitates life. A prime and ever-present example of this is The New York Times Bestselling Series “The Hunger Games.” Suzanne Collins’ now five-book series offers hundreds of pages of social commentary that critiques social inequality, exploitation and the dangers of entertainment-driven violence.
The original “The Hunger Games” trilogy follows Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old pessimist who is unwillingly thrust into being the face of the revolution. Katniss and the other citizens of the dystopian country, Panem, have lived under the ruthless control of the Capitol for over 50 years, ever since the “rebels” lost the war to the Capitol. Since the end of the war, the Capitol has asserted their power over the members of the 12 districts through an annual Hunger Games – a fight-to-the-death spectacle containing two randomly chosen child tributes from each district. The event is televised for all of Panem to watch.
While America has not nearly reached the point Panem has – with extreme hunger, normalized torture and watching children kill each other for sport – it is also no coincidence that the day the children of the districts are reaped for the Hunger Games is July 4, our Independence Day.
Collins replicates America’s class divide with the vast difference between the Capitol and the districts. The citizens of the Capitol live in luxury, with so much money that they spend it by mutilating their bodies to resemble animals. They never worry about where their next meal will come from, as they have so much food to eat that they make themselves throw it up just to eat more. This is a direct contrast to the lives of those in the districts. In the series, readers mainly follow the lives of people from District 12, the poorest district. There, we see that most of the people who live in the districts must work long hours in labor-intensive jobs just to scrounge up enough money to buy a lousy dinner. Decent food is a luxury that they rarely come by, either from a lack of money to buy it or from a lack of access to it.
The Capitol is meant to represent the top 1% of American citizens, and the district citizens represent everyone else. The top 1% in America have so much money that they seemingly “throw it away” on luxury items, body modifications and trips to space. All the while, the rest of America is dealing with high egg prices, educational disparities and a lack of affordable housing.
The connections between this world-renowned series and America’s political landscape are not coincidental. In a 2018 interview with The New York Times, Collins said, “Yes, I was flipping through the channels one night between reality television programs and actual footage of the Iraq War, when the idea came to me.”
The stark contrast between the reality television shows and footage of real war is exactly what Collins encapsulates in her books through the lavish lifestyles of the Capitol people and the poverty of the districts. This connection is expanding beyond entertainment, however, as upper-class individuals have been seen sporting similar clothing and accessories that the people of the Capitol wear, proving that “The Hunger Games” is a grotesque but accurate imitation of our society.
