To Kill a Mockingjay: The Hunger Games and the Politics of Race

As a dystopian version of a nation that has struggled with racism since its inception, the world of The Hunger Games is a natural setting to imagine how our own discord might look in a few centuries, when factions of … ah, to be honest, I don’t really know. The truth is, I thought of this title, and it was too good not to use. So I started typing, hoping something great would just sort of appear on the page. Oh well.

I’m sure race is something in The Hunger Games, right? It has to be. Look at those two in the picture up there. Kasper and the other one, her little friend. One is black and one is white. I’m sure in the movie they played that up, like, “Even in a world where kids are forced to join the Army, they are the only ones wise enough to see past the color of their skin.” These books aren’t exactly subtle, I’m guessing. I don’t know, I’ve never read them. I’m more into the classics. Proust, Tolstoy, etc. The masters.

Today on Twitter, I saw that one of the kids that played a soldier in The Hunger Games had criticized a Kardashian over some race-related issue. A few hours later I was reading about To Kill a Mockingbird — another book I quite honestly couldn’t be bothered to read — and the idea came to me. It was a moment of pure inspiration, and you know how hard those are to come by. I honestly thought I might be able to spin this one into a job, if I really nailed it. Race is such a hot issue right now, and all of the big writers are giving their takes on it. This was going to be my moment. But I’m not getting too down on myself, I’ll have more ideas.

As they probably say in The Hunger Games: “You live to fight another day, my son. And that is all that matters.”