3. Reality Television
The Hunger Games themselves are the ultimate reality television show - what's more terrifying is that it's actually believable that future society could really come to this. Suzanne Collins took the idea of reality television and called us out as a society out on the media's biggest, most exaggerated form of entertainment today. Reality TV has grown and grown in recent times, where people become so invested in the characters they are watching that it all feels real to them - and that is the draw of it. The Hunger Games takes this cultural phenomenon and does two things with it: firstly, it shows us how far we can fall as a society. Pain already exists in modern reality television, if mostly emotional, so who is to say that won't grow? And secondly, the series makes a point of telling us that reality television is as unrealistic as the fiction we watch when we go to the movies. The game makers sit in a room and create obstacles for the contestants, just as they do today. Everything is for the show. In the lead up to the first games, Katniss and Peeta play the role of celebrities as they attempt to show the sponsors that they deserve their money and their aid in their attempts to survive. Everything is fake when there is a camera front and centre. And then there is Caesar Flickerman, the reality TV host who shows off the contestants in a parade, introducing them to the world before providing commentary of their actions once they're closed off from reality. Sound familiar? And consider just how real the actions of the contestants really are, both in Katniss' world and in our own. She convinced the people of her love for Peeta, and it gained her the love and support of the crowd - now think of your favourite reality TV romances. This
could happen. Suzanne Collins calls us and the media out on a format of entertainment that seems to be digging itself into a hole, pushing the boundaries. Who knows what's at the bottom of it? Could we stoop so low, and fall into a world where we accept something like this? Collins used the state of reality TV as building blocks for the possibility of a terrifying future, and, at the same time, these could be the same building blocks we have laid out for ourselves. We already see enough pain and torment on the screen. There is no reason why it can't get worse.