Structural Functionalism as Seen in The Hunger Games (including Catching Fire sorry for the spoiler alert if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie!)

The Hunger Games trilogy, written by Suzanne Collins, is a book series in which the first book, The Hunger Games, then Catching Fire, and ending with Mockingjay.  The Hunger Games trilogy developed into a film series because of its popularity within our culture. The Hunger Games series variously displays in both individual (individual aspects within the individual novels/ movies) and collective manners aspects of Structural Functionalism. The Structural Functionalism is seen in the rights of rebellions as discussed by Max Gluckman in his piece "Rights of Rebellion in South-East Africa [1963]," where rights of rebellion is defined as "rituals that provide cathartic ["socially sale release of feelings of social resentment" (582)] protest against abuses of political authority, heading off revolution against authority itself" (593).

The first part of the trilogy, The Hunger Games, describes how each year, two people (tributes) from the 12 Districts of Panem, between the ages of 12 and 18, are drawn from a bowl of name cards and will have to fight against one another in what is known as the Hunger Games, a nationally televised event, until there is one survivor left who wins. This competition is a result of a rebellion that took place in District 13, which was destroyed by the political power in the series known as the Capitol, and serves as a reminder to the people that revolt will not go unpunished in the eyes of the lead of the Capitol, President Snow. The two main characters in the series are Katniss and Peeta, the female who volunteered as tribute in place of her younger sister (and the male who was chosen as tribute from District 12. 

In the beginning of their time leading up to the games, the tributes are asked to individually display a set of skills to the Gamemakers. While Katniss is asked to display her skill, the Gamemakers are conversing amongst themselves and paying her very little attention, and thus in a rebellious manner, Katniss shoots an arrow at the apple in the pigs mouth from which they are eating on, startling the Gamemakers yet also gaining their attention, takes a bow, and walks out the door. This is her first important display of act of rebellion seen in the series. 

During the games, Katniss befriends a young girl named Rue. When Rue was killed while trying to help Katniss. In rebellion to just leaving the body of a tribute there to be picked up later, Katniss surrounds her bodies with flowers, looks to the camera and continues her performance of a rebellious act. She makes the hand gesture known from within her District for when someone loved has died as means for the people of District 11 to see. This rebellious act is followed by a riot in District 11 due to their anger towards the Gamemakers.

Throughout the duration of the Hunger Game, the rules were changed to say that the two chosen from a District could be victors of the games as a couple, which bring Peeta and Katniss together. In the end of the games, when the two have survived, the rules are drastically changed to say that one must kill the other. In an act of rebellion, Katniss suggests that her and Peeta both eat poisonous berries at the same time so neither of them have to kill the other because of their love for one another (a nice ploy Peeta created during an interview as means to gain more sponsors for supplies during the games that Katniss used to her advantage to ensure that her act of rebellion would work). The Gamemaker did indeed react to this rebellion and allowed the two to win the 74^th Hunger Games together, despite the wants of President Snow. This is the most significant act of rebellion that Katniss performs in the first part of the series. Because President Snow was not happy that there were two victors instead of one, he orders that eating the very same poisonous berries kill the head Gamemaker.

           

           In the second book, Catching Fire, the ritual rebellions are much more prominent. Following the rebellious act of a riot in District 11, the other Districts have begun ritual rebellions in the form riots as well. Before Katniss’s display at then end of The Hunger Games, there had been virtually no displays of rebellion or riots in the Capitol and surrounding Districts due to the destruction of District 13 after its revolt and the implementation of the Hunger Games as means of constant reminder that rebellion is not allowed. This supports Gluckman’s argument about ritual rebellions as indicated in this quotation, “I would chiefly stress that the rebellious ritual occurs within an established and unchallenged social order” (207).  Because President Snow now views Katniss as a threat since her rebellious acts have now started to form rights of rebellion, he changes the rules the 75^th Hunger Games to include a male and female tribute who were previous victors, placing Katniss and Peeta yet again in a fight for their lives in hopes that she will not survive this time. President Snow also threatens Katniss’s family if she cannot make him believe that her love for Peeta is true, knowing very well she was in love with another man from her District. 

        Not only have the other Districts began to perform ritual rebellions, but her peers also incorporates these rights of rebellion. Peeta, specifically, incorporates one of Katniss's rebellious acts to form a ritual rebellion: acting out in front of the Gamemakers in order to draw their attention. This year when the Gamemakers ask the tributes to display their set of skills, Peeta paints a picture of Rue on the ground surrounded by the flowers. This is followed by Katniss, yet again performing the same ritual of rebellion and acting out as means of drawing the attention of the Gamemakers, by hanging a dummy and painting the name of the dead head Gamekeeper on it, bowing, and taking her exit.

 At the interview session before the games began, President Snow made Katniss wear a wedding dress due to the fact that she Peeta announced their engagement as means to appease President Snow to keep Katniss's family safe. Because her designer had established her outfits as “The Girl on Fire” her clothes tend to involve flames when at public events. When she began to twirl, the wedding dress started to flame at the bottom and then transformed into completely different attire. Because of this President Snow had her designer killed, due to his rebellious act that contributed to the other rituals of rebellion that were taking place in the nation.

         

         The acts of rebellion displayed by Katniss that give rise to ritual rebellions in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire have greatly supported Gluckman's argument of ritual rebellions: "I shall argue that these ritual rebellions proceed within an established and sacred traditional system, in which there is dispute about particular distributions of power, and not about the structure of the system itself. This allows for instituted protest, and in complex ways renews the unity of the system." Due to her actions in the 74th Hunger Games, the Districts decide that a revolution needs to take place aimed at those who hold the distribution of power in the Capitol rather than the Capitol itself: the Gamemakers and most importantly, President Snow. In the end of the second part of the series it is revealed that even those within the Capitol that are close to President Snow join the revolution which brings about the unity of the system, and the recreation of District 13, that Gluckman mentions in his argument. These rituals of rebellion are solely due to the differing fundamental truths/ worldviews between the people within the Capitol and the surrounding 12 Districts and President Snow. This feeling within the nation has been a building tension since the destruction of District 13, a supporting factor in the argument made by Gluckman when he suggests that "rebellious rituals may perhaps be confined to situations where strong tensions are aroused by conflict between different structural principles” (214).  I can’t wait to see what the third part Mockingjay  has in store and what ritual rebellions may appear.