I'll admit I read the entire trilogy, although I thought it really went downhill after book one. That said, after seeing the first movie I was pretty confident that the follow-up films were going to be much stronger than the book sequels because it's a story that translates better to film. Sure enough, it did.
Of course, they pulled in a remarkably strong team of film people and actors to put it together. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Woody Harrelson did awesome work in this series to say nothing of how the series hit the jackpot by casting Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role.
I finally saw Mockingjay part II the other night and wanted to give some thoughts on the series' themes.
Don't read if you want to avoid spoilers*
Theme 1: Elites on the inside, poor out to the burbs
For several decades in the US the phenomenon of "white flight" led to the inner city featuring decay while urban sprawl and suburbs began populated by most of the nation's wealthier citizens. However, through the process of gentrification you're now seeing wealthy white people reclaim cities and drive poorer black folk out to the suburbs through pricing.
"Our prices discriminate so we don't have to."
Ironically, many of the nation's most liberal cities are the worst offenders of this phenomenon with San Francisco, New York, and Austin some notable examples. Even Oakland is getting there as people who want to live in San Francisco but can't quite afford to get in are settling for Oakland and turning it into a hipster depot.
One of the central themes of the Hunger Games is how the ruling elites live in the city with its well maintained infrastructure and impressive architecture while the poor dregs of society are cast out to the suburbs and controlled with the brutal bread and circus "Hunger Games" process.
Collins was really on point here with her sense of where things are headed, you wonder if liberal white Americans are pausing to consider if their current policies are leading to a similar type of dystopian future in which the nation's minority groups are on the outside looking in. Obviously it'd be nice to avoid that kind of result.
Theme 2: The moral level is the strongest in war
The depictions of the politics of warfare in "Mockingjay" parts I and II" are really some of the best I've seen at the movies. It's a tad ironic, given that it's a young adult series with a female hero aimed largely at a young female audience. Clearly Collins also has a strong grasp of the emotional side of war, the power of rhetoric, the effectiveness of "soft power," and the supremacy of morals in a fight.
As William S. Lind put it in his grid for evaluating actions in war:
A smaller group of people with more to fight for will generally beat the larger group with less motivation because war and struggle is difficult and doing what it takes to win requires serious dedication and emotional commitment.
Throughout the entire series the "Mockingjay" affects tremendous change by being an example and a hero to people that gives them the fight they need to overcome the resources of the capital and the brutality of President Snow.
Of course Catniss barely cares about all of that, she's just doing what's natural to her, which makes it all the more powerful and effective.
You see this in politics all the time, the people who can be charismatic naturally always demolish the people who have an affected, corporate feel to their rhetoric and appeals.
If you haven't seen Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) break down the differences in Trump and Clinton in persuasion this appearance on Bill Maher's program was surprisingly effective at communicating what's going on:
When I heard Adams was going on Maher's show I figured he'd be shouted down by Bill's typical snarky condescension but he wasn't. Maher must respect Adams, perhaps because he's a fellow atheist, but I digress.
Theme 3: Fairly traditional gender roles
It's hilarious that whenever women are responsible for creating excellent entertainment products they usually don't adhere to feminist-approved depictions of gender but generally draw their female characters pretty realistically and do the same for the men. Better emotional awareness, imo.
It's with liberal male authors that you see the most ridiculous female characters as they draw the most ridiculous portraits of what women really look like while intending to create "strong female characters" that generally just behave like men.
Catniss is entirely believable as a strong female character. She needs emotional support in her life, she is routinely bested in physical combat when she can't rely on shooting people from a distance (it's ridiculous in films when we're asked to believe that 5'6" 100 pound models could realistically take down a pack of 6'2" 240 pound male goons), and her motivations are purely feminine.
The reason that Catniss works is because her skill in the midst of dystopian horror is simply figuring out how to survive and stand tall. That's what real feminine strength looks like, not aping James Bond's detached approach to murder or emotional connection, or Bruce Wayne's explosive strength and ability to take a punch.
Theme 4: From revolution to revulsion
The one place where the movie series failed was in the depiction of President's Coin descent from ideologue purist to power-hungry totalitarian. They do a good job of setting that development up in the movie, but there's no character development for Coin that explains how and why she ended up succumbing to the temptations of power.
It's a shame, because everything else about the series was really artfully done and captures what real life characters and motivations look, and we've seen people go from ideologues to control-obsessed totalitarians all too many times in the course of human history.
However, Snow and Coin were both a little bit cartoonish in this regard. Snow is portrayed as the ultimate machiavellian but he's just a little too comfortable in his own shoes as a brutal dictator. In real life such people would be at much greater pains to justify themselves to everyone. I guess you could make the same complaint of most villains in film though.
Meanwhile Coin, she just flips a switch at some point off screen and becomes something similar. The movie focuses on developing how Catniss figures out that she needs to be stopped rather than ever showing a hint at what's happening in Coin's soul. It's a shame, because it makes the film's climax and twist less effective.
My favorite depiction in modern entertainment of the human tendency to overthrow evil only to succumb to the same temptation and fall just as hard remains this scene from "The Office"
We have to learn from Catniss or Captain America and effect change in other people through virtuous example, not cynical attempts to exercise control directly. After all, that's how our Lord did it.
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