Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games (Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy) 3030673332, 9783030673338

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PALGRAVE FILM STUDIES AND PHILOSOPHY

Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games

Tarja Laine

Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy Section Editor Catherine Constable Milburn House University of Warwick Coventry, UK Series Editor Andrew Klevan St Annes College University of Oxford Oxford, UK

This series offers a Film Studies centred approach to philosophy. In the light of the increasing numbers of volumes appearing in the fast-­developing field of film-philosophy, it is fruitful to distinguish between those that are designed to introduce students to philosophy through the use of popular film – the films acting as a bridge to the subject area of Philosophy – and those that critically consider the myriad ways in which films might be said to ‘do’ philosophy. Importantly, within both approaches, the term ‘film’ is ambiguous, standing for specific film texts and, less directly, for the subject area of Film Studies itself. Numerous philosophers writing in this new field conjoin philosophy with a discussion of specific films, following a template drawn from aesthetics in which philosophy is applied to a particular art form. As a result, the discipline of Film Studies is oddly absent from such works of film-philosophy. This series aims to redress the balance by offering a Film Studies centred approach to philosophy. This truly interdisciplinary series draws on the long history of philosophical debates within Film Studies, including aesthetic evaluation, style, genre, representation, and the image (its properties and processes), placing them centre stage. The series would encourage philosophising about areas of aesthetic evaluation, style, genre, representation, and the image through engagement with the films and the use of evidence from them. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15761

Tarja Laine

Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games

Tarja Laine University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy ISBN 978-3-030-67333-8    ISBN 978-3-030-67334-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67334-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Alamy images, Courtesy of Lionsgate Cover design: eStudioCalamar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To the memory of Thomas Elsaesser (1943–2019)

Acknowledgments

My previous work on cinematic emotions has dealt with affective processes that support the continuous, shifting, and reciprocal exchange between the film’s world and the spectator’s world. At first, I did not have a specific interest in cinematic ethics although the moral dimension was often implicitly part of the essential insight which I discovered being affectively embodied in a film. My work was always borne out of conviction that emotions provide a distinctive approach to philosophical problems conveyed in cinema, which is nowadays recognized by many contemporary film scholars. This book continues the project that has been at the center of my attention ever since I was a student, both as a scholar and as a cinephile. It is a contribution to the growing number of books on cinematic ethics, demonstrating that dealing with emotions is necessary to evaluate moral insight in cinema in all its complexity. Many friends and colleagues generously provided illuminating comments during the process of writing this book. First I would like to thank my first (and most critical?) reader Charles France, whose remarks shaped my thinking on the topic from the beginning of the process. I am also very grateful to the Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy series editors Catherine Constable and Andrew Klevan, for their early comments and encouragement. For help with and comments on drafts of the various chapters I am grateful to William Brown, Sarah Cooper, Morgan Harper, Julian Hanich, Tina Kendall, Zoë Laks, Susanna Paasonen, Toni Pape, Greg Singh, Robert Sinnerbrink, Jane Stadler, and Catherine Wheatley. I am also extremely grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers of this book for providing invaluable feedback, encouragement, and suggestions on vii

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how to complete the manuscript. For extremely valuable assistance before, during, and after the writing process I owe thanks to Lina Aboujieb, Ruby Panigrahi, Petra Treiber, and Emily Wood at Palgrave Macmillan. While I was writing this book, an outburst of grief and shock swept over the Film Studies community at the sudden and unexpected death of Thomas Elsaesser. I am in many ways deeply indebted to Thomas. He has been my example both as a scholar and as a mentor, and it is therefore fitting that I dedicate this book to his memory.

Praise for Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games “In this fresh, engaging, and insightful study of The Hunger Games film trilogy, Tarja Laine explores the crucial role that emotions play in appreciation of the ethical qualities of the movies. She forges productive dialogues between a range of film theory, scholarship on moral philosophy, and debates on ethics, as she performs a multi-layered investigation of the aesthetic qualities of the trilogy, the multiple emotions embodied in these qualities, and the philosophical-ethical insights that are in turn embedded in these emotions. The cinematic connection between emotions and ethics that emerges through Laine’s detailed textual analyses confronts us with complex moral dilemmas while enriching our aesthetic experience.” —Sarah Cooper, Professor, Film Studies Department, King’s College London, UK

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Between Fear and Hope 35 3 Anger and Generosity 65 4 The Many Forms of Love 93 5 Survivor Shame and Guilt119 6 Dynamics of Contempt and Dignity151 7 Conclusion183 Appendix A: The Hunger Games Filmography187 Appendix B: Overview of the Analysis189 Index193

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2

The Hunger Games: Cato’s pathetic monologue. (Screen capture) The Hunger Games: District 11 citizens return Katniss’ three-finger salute. (Screen capture) Mockingjay Part I: Fear closes in on Katniss. (Screen capture) Mockingjay Part I: A reflection superimposes Katniss’ face on her POV of Peeta. (Screen capture) Mockingjay Part I: The hackers’ signal pollinates Capitol propaganda. (Screen capture) Catching Fire: The symbolic hanging of Seneca Crane. (Screen capture) Catching Fire: Katniss in a Christ-pose, arms held out. (Screen capture) Mockingjay Part II: Coin in the seat of power. (Screen capture) Mockingjay Part II: Pastoral happiness. (Screen capture) Catching Fire: Katniss and Peeta ‘wearing drama masks’. (Screen capture) Catching Fire: White symbolism on the Victory Tour. (Screen capture) The Hunger Games: Katniss and Gale in their natural setting. (Screen capture) Mockingjay Part II: Katniss in the final shot of The Hunger Games trilogy. (Screen capture) The Hunger Games: Rue’s funeral. (Screen capture) The Hunger Games: The circle of shame around Primrose. (Screen capture)

7 13 40 52 60 75 77 81 89 104 106 108 115 122 126

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Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 6.4 Fig. 6.5

(a, b) The Hunger Games/Catching Fire: Marvel’s death (replicated). (Screen capture) Catching Fire: The wall of fog. (Screen capture) Mockingjay Part I: Katniss and a stray dog in the ruins of District 12. (Screen capture) The Hunger Games: “Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, for ever …” (George Orwell). (Screen capture) The Hunger Games: Capitol fashion. (Screen capture) The Hunger Games: A split screen centering President Snow. (Screen capture) Catching Fire: Katniss and Peeta’s costumes catching fire. (Screen capture) Catching Fire: The mockingjay dress. (Screen capture)

136 140 144 164 168 170 176 178

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The Hunger Games as Dystopian Pageants of Bravery The subject matter of the book at hand is cinematic emotions as sources for ethical knowledge in the hugely popular The Hunger Games films, which star Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, surviving in the post-­ apocalyptic, dystopic world of Panem. The narrative premise of these films is anchored in a yearly event known as the Hunger Games organized by the Capitol, which consists of randomly selecting 24 ‘tributes’ among the teenagers from the oppressed Districts of Panem to participate in a brutal, gladiator-style death battle until there is one sole ‘victor’. During the Games, the tributes find themselves enclosed in an arena surrounded by a force field, which makes escape impossible, and within which the Gamemakers plant lethal traps, cunning obstacles, as well as genetically engineered insects, birds, and mammals called ‘muttations’ or ‘mutts’. These ‘mutts’ have been created for various purposes: jabberjays to drive people to madness, tracker jackers to evoke severe physical pain and violent hallucinations, as well as wolf mutts to cause mortal wounds and death. The function of such ‘unsportsmanlike’ ploys is to remind the tributes that the Gamemakers can kill tributes at all times, even though the real sport of the Games is to incite the tributes to kill each other. The foul play element in this canned hunt Hunger Games is an obvious allegory for the unethical nature of Panem’s political system at large. The carnage of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Laine, Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games, Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67334-5_1

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the Games is broadcast live on television as entertainment for the Capitol’s residents, but also as mandatory viewing for the Districts to remind them of the ultimate power of Panem’s totalitarian government led by President Snow. The Hunger Games films can be described as dystopian cinema insofar as they involve three of its distinguishing characteristics. First, their world is a political dystopia defined by social and economic inequality, imprisonment, slavery, and other forms of extremely cruel oppression of underprivileged groups. As Mark Fisher (2012) writes, in The Hunger Games, to be in the dominant class is […] to achieve a certain liberation from precariousness; for the poor, meanwhile, life is harried, fugitive, a perpetual state of anxiety. Yet precariousness here is not a natural state which the rich are fortunate enough to rise above; on the contrary, precariousness is deliberately imposed on the poor as a means of controlling and subduing them. (27)

In the Districts of Panem, any ambition for political power is quashed, while unity, order, and homogeneity prevail at the cost of individual agency and cultural diversity (Claeys 2018, 5–7). This situation is distortedly mirrored in the ‘utopian’ Capitol, which seemingly celebrates individual style and creativity in outward appearances. Yet this heterogeneity is doomed to remain an empty, tamed spectacle, and, paradoxically, their desire to be different from others in appearance makes that the Capitol inhabitants form as homogeneous a group as the people who live in the Districts. The Capitol is what Jon Elster (1999) calls a “culture of hypocrisy” (336) where people “believe” in the political system because they benefit from it, without imagining any alternatives. The inhabitants of the Capitol are protected by the ‘inner party’ led by President Snow, who holds all significant governmental power, and as a result the inhabitants are not the political decision-makers in Panem. The only way out is to escape the Capitol at the risk of being transformed into an Avox, an enslaved servant with his or her tongue cut out. Therefore, not only does the Capitol’s decadence and plenitude rest upon the ruthless oppression of the Districts, but in its utopian semblance it also appears as the ‘evil twin’ of the dystopian Districts. Following the distinction made by Hannah Arendt (1968) in her Origins of Totalitarianism, it could perhaps be said that the Capitol inhabitants form the ‘mob’ who readily follow Snow’s

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political endeavors, and the people in the Districts constitute the ‘masses’, passive and hopeless until activated in times of desperation (431–432). A second characteristic of dystopian cinema that is present in The Hunger Games films is the nightmarish scenario of what happens to humanity when its natural environment is largely destroyed. Nature plays an important role throughout The Hunger Games franchise, and it is suggested that Panem—located on the North American continent—is born from the ashes of a catastrophic social collapse following some climate disaster. This environmental background is explored in more detail in the first novel, where the mayor of District 12 reads the story every year at the reaping, which is the ceremony whereby tributes from each of the Districts are selected for the Hunger Games: “He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained” (Collins 2011, 20). With this backstory in mind, Panem can be seen as an environmental dystopia, where it is believed that the Districts must be oppressed in order to keep control over Panem’s natural resources. Finally, Panem is a technological dystopia, where the mechanics of biopower extend into people’s personal sphere, blurring the line between private and public. Biopower is a concept coined by Michel Foucault (1978), who argued that one of the privileges of sovereign power was the right to decide between life and death. This means that power is situated and exercised at the basic level of sheer human existence, with regimes acting as “managers of life and survival” (137). The effects of biopower are twofold. On the one hand, biopower controls human bodies by means of “anatomo-politics” and disciplinary institutions, which seek to maximize the body’s forces and to integrate it into efficient systems. On the other hand, biopower focuses on the biopolitics of the population and the mechanisms of life: birth, longevity, mortality (139). Michael Macaluso and Cori McKenzie (2014) analyze The Hunger Games novels in these terms when they write that the most salient example of the Capitol exercising biopower is its treatment of the District children as objects that can be ‘harvested’ during the reaping, denying their human agency and personhood. This objectification is further enhanced by the tributes being typically referred to by their District number instead of by their name (105).1

1  In addition to through the concept of biopower, The Hunger Games could be read through the concept of necropolitics, especially as devised by Achile Mbembe in On the

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Another Foucauldian concept that is central to understanding Panem as a technological dystopia is derived from Jeremy Bentham’s architectural design of a prison: the panopticon. This design allows a guard to observe (opticon) all (pan) prisoners without them being able to tell whether they are being watched or not at any given moment. In his Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1995) Foucault argued that in modern society power is organized in a panoptic fashion with different disciplinary institutions in its service. On the one hand, these institutions function as bodies of knowledge, which define norms of behavior and deviance, normality, and abnormality. On the other hand, due to the disciplinary measures of these institutions, all individuals internalize the panoptic observer, so that the society becomes a self-regulating system, and all its members are simultaneously prisoners and prison guards. In The Hunger Games franchise, the powers of surveillance and exposure are not only a constant phenomenon in the Game arena. Functioning security cameras and Orwellian ‘telescreens’, which are receiving and transmitting simultaneously, are omnipresent in all of Panem. With its mandatory newsflashes, television occupies a central place in the panoptic system, reducing citizens to “objects of information”, but never “subjects in communication” (200). Nevertheless, Foucault (1982) also argues that “there is no relationship of power without the means of escape or possible flight” (225). For instance, the flickering force field protecting the Gamemakers in Catching Fire is an apt metaphor for the idea that there is “always a flaw in the system”, as Beetee Latier, the tribute from District 3, points out in the film. It is because of this flaw that the rebellious tributes are able to destroy the Game arena, escape to District 13—a breakaway District thought to be destroyed by those remaining in Panem—and to start the revolution.2

Spectacular, Spectacular In The Hunger Games franchise the principle of panopticism is related to the concept of spectacle, by which this totalitarian society attempts to masquerade its panoptic nature. Panem can be appropriately characterized as Postcolony (2001). It refers to a form of biopolitical governmentality in which technologies of control strategically subjugate life to the power of death. 2  On Foucault-inspired interpretations of The Hunger Games novels, see for instance Connors (2014), Macaluso and McKenzie (2014), and Wilson (2016). For a Foucauldian reading of The Hunger Games films, see Laine (2018).

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a society of the spectacle, which is a notion developed by Guy Debord in his 1967 book of the same title. In this book, Debord argued that “all that once directly lived has become mere representation”, all authentic life has declined into “merely appearing” (Debord 1994, 12). For Debord, such lack of authenticity and intoxication by spectacular images result in the degradation of knowledge and a lack of critical thought. We witness how spectacle functions in the Capitol, when already in the very first shot of the first film instalment the importance of appearance, mass entertainment, and commodity fetishism is established. Inside a television studio, characterized by flashing lights in bright colors, we see the flamboyant Hunger Games TV show host Caesar Flickerman with an extravagant, blue hairdo and a blinding white smile interviewing Seneca Crane, the head Gamemaster, who is sporting a seriously sculpted, Mephistophelian beard. Furthermore, the spectacle to end all spectacles are obviously the Games themselves. Viewing is mandatory, often in public, both for the cheering, bloodthirsty, colorful audience in the Capitol, and for the quiet, fearful, passive crowds in the Districts. Only Katniss’ best friend Gale Hawthorne refuses to watch, as it is his belief that “if no one watches, they don’t have the game”. This suggests that the film also poses a question about the meaning of watching the spectacle of others suffering. This is famously asked by Susan Sontag (2003) in her Regarding the Pain of Others, in which she argues that the only people with the right to look at images of suffering are those who could do something to alleviate it, the rest of the onlookers being categorically voyeurs (42). Sontag writes that people have become less responsive to the pain of others because a steady diet of images of violence has made them indifferent [i.e.] there is a mounting level of acceptable violence and sadism in mass culture: films, television, comics, computer games. Imagery that would have had an audience cringing and recoiling in disgust forty years ago is watched without so much as a blink by every teenager in the multiplex. Indeed, mayhem is entertaining rather than shocking to many people in most modern cultures. (100–101)

It would seem that an intriguing paradox lies at the heart of The Hunger Games films. On the one hand, the films are obviously not meant to be mere ‘action thrillers’ (as well as romantic science-fiction adventure cinema) insofar as they denounce violent entertainment in media and cinema

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in general. On the other hand, The Hunger Games films clearly turn out to be action thrillers, all of them using violence as a major narrative element. All cinematic instalments of The Hunger Games are also highly entertaining as well as spectacular in every sense of the word, especially Catching Fire, which was partly shot with IMAX cameras that allow extreme wide shots and close-ups, as well as a deeper, more immersive vertical space. In addition, the film features a spinning jungle arena with poisonous fog, raging monkeys, and other lethal gimmicks, which were for a large part created digitally.3 It can therefore be characterized as ‘cinema of attractions’, which is a concept introduced by Tom Gunning (1990) in relation to early cinema. The cinema of attractions is characterized by the filmic ability to “make images seen” (56), to directly address the spectator by means of the spectacle, special effects, surprise, and sensation, beyond the narrative and the narration. Since the cinema of attractions is grounded in the spectacular, the concept is useful in analyzing post-classical special effect cinema as well, as Wanda Strauven (2006), Thomas Elsaesser (2012), and others have shown. However, in his original article Gunning (1990) writes that the contemporary “cinema of effects” that has its roots in “stimulus and carnival rides” only consist on “tamed attractions” (61) aiming at mere aesthetic shock at the expense of political value and critical thinking. In his article on immersion cinema, Tim Recuber (2007) makes a similar argument when he writes that “its overemphasis on physical experience creates passive consumers who pay to plug in to visceral thrills without, necessarily, any meaningful interaction with the film” (325). In this line of thought The Hunger Games films could easily be criticized for their ‘mounting level of acceptable violence’, as well as for their computer-generated imagery and digital effects, which are designed to evoke physical, kinesthetic, and affective cinematic experiences, potentially diminishing reflective distance. For example, in The Hunger Games, the first instalment of the series, there is a ‘finale’ with the wolf mutts, a pack of wolf-like creatures which the Gamemakers release on Katniss, her fellow 12th District tribute Peeta Mellark, and the Career Tribute Cato from District 2, to drive them together in the Game arena. The scene is darkly lit, which would make it 3  As a result, in this particular instalment the violence comes less from tributes attacking each other, but from the arena itself attacking the tributes. In addition, the twelve wedges of the arena which each hold a different threat are designed to convey different emotions, so that the wedge with the fog represents sacrifice and loss, the blood panic, the jabberjays’ emotional turmoil, the monkey attack fear, and so forth (Egan 2013, 23; 104; 111).

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difficult to observe the anatomic muscularity of the mutts with razor-sharp teeth, if the film did not crosscut to the control room where the mutts are created, materializing as if from thin air. The darkness of the scene renders sound the most salient element, starting with ominous hissing followed by menacing roars, which are musically accompanied by a hollow brass timbre that quickly turns into a fast-paced, percussive orchestral action. Both darkness and sound immerse us in the scene so completely that it is impossible to detect from which direction the threat shall emerge, which makes the fast-paced chase through the forest all the more affective. Yet the scene climaxes with bloody-faced Cato bursting into a pathetic, maniacal monologue while holding Peeta in a rear-arm choke, urging Katniss to shoot (Fig. 1.1): Go on! Shoot, then we both go down and you win. Go on. I’m dead anyway. I always was, right? I didn’t know that till now. How’s that? Is that what they want? I can still do this. I can still do this. One more kill. It’s the only thing I know how to do—bring pride to my District. Not that it matters. (Cato in The Hunger Games)

The function of Cato’s outburst in this scene of combat is to redirect our attention from the action to reflection on the dystopic reality that forces the tributes to kill for their lives.4 Even though the scene primarily

Fig. 1.1  The Hunger Games: Cato’s pathetic monologue. (Screen capture) 4  Hilary Brewster (2014) makes a similar argument of the scene when she writes that its “invented” dialogue, which is missing in the novel, is “one of the best ethical choices in the entirety of the film. Cato is no longer just a vicious enemy, but a scared, emotionally dis-

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addresses our sensory-motoric faculties, its significance is contextualized in emotional ethics concerning the justification of killing for survival. For Cato’s death is not ethically justified, and both Katniss and Peeta know this to be so. Furthermore, the scene draws attention to the difference between non-diegetic and diegetic audiences. Here the diegetic audience, the audience in the Capitol, is demanding pain and death. This audience is the ‘they’ in Cato’s monologue for which he hitherto has performed. By contrast, the non-diegetic audience, the spectators of the film, are potentially invited to reflect on their viewing position. I posit that one of the central ‘viewing tasks’ The Hunger Games films set for its non-diegetic spectators is to compare themselves with the diegetic audience. This is especially epitomized in the first instalment, which by constantly crosscutting between different audiences inside the world of the film refers us to some extradiegetic level where these audiences ‘come together’ as it were. In its own way, The Hunger Games films ask the same question posed by Sontag: are we, as viewers, desensitized or provoked by the depiction of violence? This is why our allegiance with some tributes rather than with others pushes the limits of our viewing position, functioning as an insightful thought experiment. It would seem that Suzanne Collins, the author of the young adult novels upon which the films are based, might agree with this suggestion, as she reflects on the movie in a New York Times (Dominus 2011) interview as follows: When you go see the movie, you’ll be part of the audience in the theatre, but will you feel like part of the Hunger Games audience as well? Will you actively be rooting for certain tributes to live or die? Or will you distance yourself from the experience? How much will you be caught up in the Capitol’s Game? (quoted in Egan 2012, 157–158)

It is a common strategy to approach dystopian narratives as reflections of actual economic and social conditions outside the world of their fiction—for example, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) can be seen as an allegory for Stalin’s Soviet Union; Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) can be read as an allegory for gender oppression in repressive theocracies; Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998) critiques traught teenager without much of an identity reflecting on his mortality moments before his imminent demise. […] Cato’s death speech not only humanizes him. It humanizes the viewer” (185).

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the culture of reality television by splitting spectator positions across diegetic and non-diegetic audiences; and Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale (1999) can be seen as a reaction to the real-life rise in violent youth crime in Japan.5 With individual bravery as its central theme, the popularity of The Hunger Games franchise could be explained by desire for heroic narratives in which one person can actually make a difference on a global scale. In reality such desire might seem utopian at best, derived from the individualistic idea that self-sacrificing determination to complete a noble mission brings hope for human survival. Instead of a reflectionist approach, which would take the dystopian world created in The Hunger Games franchise as a mirror of the real world, the argument of this book strikes another note. It proposes that the philosophical relevance of The Hunger Games films has to do with the way in which emotions function as a source of ethical knowledge both within and beyond their cinematic world. These emotions are incorporated in the thematic and aesthetic organization of The Hunger Games films, reflecting a crisis in moral standards, while cultivating and exemplifying ethical attitudes toward such phenomena as totalitarianism, the culture of reality television, and the society of the spectacle. Cinematic ethics is currently a ‘hot topic’. Lisa Cartwright’s Moral Spectatorship (2008), Jinhee Choi and Mattias Frey’s Cine-Ethics (2014), Sarah Cooper’s Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French Documentary (2006), Lisa Downing and Libby Saxton’s Film and Ethics (2010), Sam Girgus’ Levinas and the Cinema of Redemption (2010), and Robert Sinnerbrink’s Cinematic Ethics (2015) are but a few examples of this ‘ethical turn’ in Film Studies. From the specific perspective of emotions, however, the question of ethics in cinema is less extensively explored. One finds an example in Jane Stadler’s Pulling Focus (2005), where she analyses Rowan Woods’ The Boys (1998) and Little Fish (2005) through emotion and character engagement, in Sinnerbrink’s Cinematic Ethics, which discusses Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011) through the notion of ‘cinempathy’ and in Carl Plantinga’s Screen Stories (2018), in which Katniss’ moral development in The Hunger Games is analyzed in terms of three concentric circles, the nearest being her own body, the middle one her family and friends, and the furthest the whole of mankind. The Hunger Games can be seen as Katniss’ ethical journey, or progressive movement, by which she shifts the circles of the world closer to the center of her own existence: 5  Similarly to The Hunger Games, in this novel/film adaptation too teenagers are forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by a totalitarian government.

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“The expanding circle of concern extends beyond [Katniss’] immediate family to friends and acquaintances, and then finally to all of oppressed people of Panem” (38).6 This book also argues that emotions play an important role in our appreciation of the ethical qualities of The Hunger Games films, but the focus of the analysis will be on the spectators’ emotional engagement with other cinematic strategies, rather than on their sympathy and empathy toward Katniss Everdeen. It must immediately be noted that in my understanding the ‘spectator’ is neither some individual person of flesh and blood, nor any collective audience. This is why, even though much could be said about the affective significance of The Hunger Games trilogy from the perspective of fandom, this study is empathically not based on audience reception research, or the different ways in which the films have captured the emotions of specific audiences.7 The method applied in this book is what Andrew Klevan (2018) refers to as ‘aesthetic evaluation’, which involves a close examination of the affective-ethical merits of the formal and stylistic qualities in The Hunger Games films. Such evaluation of form consists of apprehending how a film addresses us in different ways by means of its aesthetic salience, thereby inviting us to respond emotionally and intellectually as spectators. This means that, in my understanding, the ‘spectator’ is a ‘structure’ in the formal and stylistic organization of a film, much in the same way as an ‘author’ can be considered as a structure or a function in a (film) text. As Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener (2010) argue, every kind of cinema presupposes an ‘ideal spectator’, and then imagines a certain kind of relationship between that spectator and the screen (4). The spectator is thus the dimension in the cinematic event that responds to the affective 6  Erik Feig, a producer of Catching Fire as well as Mockingjay Part I and II, describes the trilogy’s dramatic arc in a similar way when he says that “Katniss’ circle of caring gets broader in a highly realistic and relatable way. In the beginning of The Hunger Games, she mostly cares about herself and about Prim. In Catching Fire, she starts to see that she also cares about Peeta and she cares about Gale, then maybe by the end she cares some of the tributes as well. Then, in Mockingjay, we see that she cares about her family, she cares about the larger group, and ultimately she begins to care about the citizens of Panem. Her growth mirrors the growth that we all go through, from being true individuals to becoming part of a civic community” (Egan 2013, 157). The expansion of Katniss’ circle of caring in The Hunger Games novels is also discussed by Lindsey Issow Averill (2012) as a transformation from ‘natural care’ to ‘ethical care’. 7  On fandom and The Hunger Games franchise, see for instance Garcia and Haddix (2014) and Balkind (2014).

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qualities and narrative meanings embodied in the aesthetic system of the film, a concept without which it would be very difficult to say anything substantial about emotional ethics emerging in and through the cinematic experience. Furthermore, as a starting point I will take the operational logic of the specific emotions themselves, rather than affects borne out by empathy or sympathy felt with or for a character. For instance, one of the emotions that drive The Hunger Games films is Katniss’ feelings of guilt about surviving the Games at the cost of the death of others. Yet I argue that the films invite the spectators to feel this sensation of guilt not by means of empathy for her, or being in her shoes, but because the films’ aesthetic organization parallels the logic of guilt, so that they experience its effect directly.

The World of The Hunger Games The fictional world of Panem, loosely modeled on Ancient Rome, is a totalitarian society in which the twelve Districts are subservient to the Capitol. The word ‘panem’ derives from the Latin phrase panem et circenses (bread and games), attributed to Juvenal, a Roman satirical poet, who cynically describes his fellow citizens’ preference for short-term gratification at the expense of political involvement and civic virtue (Thomas 2013, 211). Numerous classical and mythological references permeate The Hunger Games franchise. Katniss’ story is based on the Greek mythological legend of Theseus for example. As part of the terms for surrender at the end of a war, King Minos of Crete required the city of Athens to send young tributes to enter the Minoan Labyrinth, where they would be killed by the Minotaur. This bloody tradition continued until the Athenian Prince Theseus volunteered as a tribute and slayed the monster, after the essential advisory plan and with indispensable assistance from Minos’ daughter Ariadne. The Hunger Games franchise is also partly inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), which recounts how in Ancient Rome a Thracian mercenary ultimately becomes an escaped slave leader in the Third Servile War (73–71 BCE) after building self-esteem through his experiences in gladiator arenas. The stylist Cinna who designs Katniss’ public image as the ‘girl on fire’ and later as the ‘Mockingjay’ shares his name with Spartacus’ trainer in Kubrick’s film, as well as with Lucius

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Cornelius Cinna, a leader of opposition to Roman dictator Sulla.8 Other characters with striking forenames include the two Head Gamemakers Plutarch Heavensbee, whose name refers to a Delphian priest famed for his essays in which he criticizes the moral deficiencies of Roman rulers, and Seneca Crane, named after the Stoic philosopher and writer of On the Shortness of Life (app. 49 CE).9 In fact, numerous characters from The Hunger Games franchise have Roman names (Caesar Flickerman, Coriolanus Snow, Octavia and Flavius, Cato and Brutus), even when these characters do not live up to their namesakes (Murty 2012). Regardless of the fact that there are actually four instalments in The Hunger Games film series, throughout this book I shall refer to it as a trilogy, instead of as a quartet or a quadrilogy. My privileging the original division by Suzanne Collins is based on the assessment that the book trilogy is a compound work made up of three distinct instalments, while the film series is not. Mockingjay Part I and II cannot be seen as two distinct films, but as one instalment stretched out over two segments, at the expense of its aesthetic quality, and probably for maximum financial gain on the hugely popular franchise.10 Furthermore, it would be beyond the scope of this book to conduct a novel-to-film analysis of The Hunger Games franchise from the perspective of Adaptation Studies. Nevertheless, mentioning some crucial differences seems to be unavoidable. For instance, while the narration in the novels is strictly focalized through Katniss’ point of view, her being the present-tense, first-person narrator throughout the trilogy, the film adaptation regularly (cross) cuts between different perspectives across different locations, the various Districts and the Capitol (Fig. 1.2). This includes President Snow’s perspective, who in the film adaptation is given a remarkably larger, more complex, and much more multifaceted role than in the novels, which helps to elaborate the protagonist/antagonist relationship between him and Katniss. President Snow is marvelously portrayed by Donald Sutherland, an actor with an impressive record of

8  On the classical connections in The Hunger Games novels, see for instance Seelinger Trites (2014). 9  And who would definitely disagree with the immorality and decadence of the Capitol, as Adam Barkman’s (2012) Seneca-inspired interpretation of The Hunger Games novels demonstrates. 10  Thus one Atlantic critic describes the last instalment as lacking both in levity and in pace, with “scene after scene one, two, three beats too long” (Orr 2015).

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Fig. 1.2  The Hunger Games: District 11 citizens return Katniss’ three-finger salute. (Screen capture)

political activism.11 In an email to Gary Ross, the director of the first instalment of the trilogy, Sutherland analyzed Snow’s character as follows: How will you dramatize the interior narrative running in Katniss’s head that describes and consistently updates her relationship with the President who is ubiquitous in her mind? With omniscient calm he knows her perfectly. She knows he does and she knows he will go any necessary end to maintain his power because she knows that he believes that she’s a real threat to his fragile hold on his control of that power. She’s more dangerous than Joan of Arc. (quoted in Rainbolt 2014, 224)

As Martha Rainbolt points out, Sutherland’s insight demonstrates that the tension between Katniss and President Snow is more than a mere power struggle insofar as Katniss needs Snow to understand her own self and to develop a moral consciousness (225). From a Sartrean perspective one might analyze the relationship between Katniss and Snow as a liaison, in which the other is indispensable for one’s existence, as well as indispensable for one’s self-knowledge: “This being so in discovering my inner being I discover the other person at the same time, like a freedom placed in front of me which thinks and wills only for or against me” (Sartre 1978, 44). Therefore, the expansion of Snow’s character for the film adaptation

11  And who played in films such as Philip Kaufman’s The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), which made Sutherland an icon of resistance to totalitarianism.

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of The Hunger Games trilogy is an enrichment in the complexity of its emotional ethics. A more ambiguous modification from an ethical point of view is changing the way in which Katniss interprets Peeta tossing a loaf of bread to her when she is starving in District 12. In the novel, Katniss understands Peeta’s deed as an act of kindness without which she would not have survived (Collins 2011, 104–105). In the film adaptation, however, Katniss considers it a humiliating act, the cause of initial hostility between these central characters, and only in Mockingjay Part II is it revealed that Peeta, a baker’s son, burnt the loaf on purpose so that he might give it to a starving Katniss. What the novels and their film adaptations share is the centrality of Katniss as a locus of readers/viewers’ emotional engagement. While her first-person narration in the novels draws the reader into close proximity of her thinking and feeling, in the film adaptations the spectator is immersed in her first-hand experience by means of handheld point-of-view filmmaking, especially in the first instalment of the trilogy. Gary Ross, the director of The Hunger Games, describes the process as follows: One of the most important things here is to convey the immediacy, the first-­ person point of view that the book has. The cinematic style has to reflect that. So in this movie I got to shoot in a way that I’d never shot before— more urgent, more personal. I needed to give the audience that incredibly immediate sense that they’re not watching this girl—they are this girl. (Egan 2012, 138)

As a strong female lead as well as the most important moral and narrative agent in the trilogy, Katniss’ character would be a particularly suitable case study for emotional ethics borne out by identification with the protagonist. The concept of ‘identification’ is tricky though, insofar as its significance changes depending on the theoretical framework and the methodological approach of the film scholar. Within psychoanalytical film theory the concept is largely understood as identification with one’s own vision as ‘omniscient’ on the one hand, and as the projection of one’s ego ideal onto film characters on the other. From this perspective, the heroic status achieved by Katniss as she survives the lethal Games renders her the narrative ideal ego who invites our identification as the story unfolds. Furthermore, Katniss’ ascent to the position of (feminist) heroine takes place within the constraints of the dominant (patriarchal) ideology that

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informs the world that she inhabits, even though the epilogue of the trilogy can be criticized for removing Katniss from her heroic position. It is almost as if Katniss’ sudden transformation into ‘passive’ motherliness in the epilogue compensated for her earlier active narrative agency, which especially in classical Hollywood is usually reserved for a male character. This is why in the final analysis the epilogue can be interpreted as effecting the rebirth of patriarchy, disguised as powerful and progressive feminism.12 Sarah Thaller (2016) makes a similar claim when she writes that The Hunger Games has been praised for its strong female protagonist who resists societal conventions and stands as a symbol of resistance to patriarchal systems. Yet Katniss Everdeen eventually abandons her steadfast individualism and feminist sensibilities in order to submit to the domestic desires of a male character. The series uses feminism and the illusion of female empowerment to establish Katniss as a role model for young readers, but ultimately pulls a bait-and-switch. In the end, The Hunger Games series reinforces the same patriarchal systems it supposedly resists and encourages hetero- and repronormativity, thus indoctrinating young readers toward prescribed gender roles and constraints.

From the perspective of cognitive film theory, meanwhile, the concept of identification is understood as the way in which the “criterially prefocused text” (Carroll 1999, 30) activates the spectators’ understanding of cinematic events as emotionally relevant by encouraging them to form pro and con attitudes toward the characters experiencing those events. A variation on this is found in Murray Smith’s (1995) structure of sympathy-­ model, where the phenomenon of allegiance refers to the way in which the spectator evaluates film characters according to their morally (un)desirable features, and adopts an attitude of sympathy or antipathy toward these characters based on this evaluation (188). In The Hunger Games the scene 12  This is related to Jennifer Lawrence being widely regarded as a ‘celebrity feminist’ partly due to her portrayal of Katniss Everdeen as a feminist heroine. In her analysis of Lawrence’s star persona, Akane Kanai (2015) argues that “while Lawrence might accordingly be seen as a figure of rebellion, I suggest that this is in virtue of Lawrence’s gendered performance of just-tomboyish enough authenticity through which she meets postfeminist structures of surveillance and regulation […] it is Lawrence’s very ability to navigate the ‘feeling rules’ of postfeminist subjectivity […] that allows certain forms of transgression to be enactable” (329; 332). At the same time, the form of ‘celebrity feminism’ represented by Lawrence can be criticized for its neoliberal ethos, as Catherine Rottenberg (2013) has argued.

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with the poisonous nightlock berries, which Katniss and Peeta threatened to consume in order to leave the Capitol with no victor for the 74th Games, aligns us emotionally with Katniss and Peeta as they glide off Cornucopia to the hopeful sound of songbirds. This moment of relief is brought to an abrupt end with the hollow and metallic-sounding announcement that revokes a previous rule change that allowed two victors to the Games. The mobile frame shifting between Katniss and Peeta aligns the spectator with the two characters torn between betrayal and trust, between loyalty and self-preservation, before the camera settles in a medium shot with Katniss and Peeta facing each other. The suicide pact that follows can be seen as what Smith calls the “moral resolution” (213) of a film, a moment that makes clear the ethical status of the characters. The ethical importance of this moment is highlighted by crosscutting the action to the Games’ control room, to the Capitol, and to District 12, where audiences follow the course of events on enormous screens. The suicide pact scene is more than a strategic move within the Games. It is a radical re-conquest of the self and a way to re-shape unfair circumstances according to one’s own free will. Such emphasis on the assertion of agency through suicide can be found in the writings of Antonin Artaud (2001), where it appears as a positive force resisting totalitarian morality.13 This is why Katniss and Peeta threatening to swallow the poisonous nightlock berries is an anti-totalitarian act, which invites moral alignment by the spectators as it captures the ethical insight in which the survival of the one is intricately linked to the survival of the other, even when Katniss and Peeta are both risking death. Furthermore, especially as Cato’s death is directly followed by this scene, it could be read as an act in Artaud’s ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ (1958), designed to shatter the spectators out of the state of pleasurable aesthetic consumption and into a critical engagement with a play, by means of affective immediacy and vital participation in the performed suicidal threat. Even though narrative engagement with the characters and our moral appreciation of them is important throughout The Hunger Games trilogy, this book deals less with the notion of identification and how this 13  “If I kill myself it won’t be to destroy myself, but to rebuild myself. For me, suicide would only be a means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating God’s unpredictable approach. I would reintroduce my designs into nature through suicide. For the first time I would give things the shape of my will” (Artaud 2001, 57).

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phenomenon captures our emotions.14 Rather the focus will be on cinematic aesthetics expressing emotions in a way that highlights their ethical significance, running the gamut from fear through guilt and shame, to love, anger, and contempt. The central claim of the book is that these emotions are symptomatic of some moral conflict, which renders the trilogy a meaningful commentary on the affective practice of ethics. For instance, the emotional urgency in the Cornucopia bloodbath scene saturates its affective mood thoroughly, beyond character engagement with Katniss. On the one hand, the point-of-view (POV)/reaction shot structure of the scene invites the spectators to imagine that they are experiencing the events from Katniss’ embodied standpoint.15 Following Richard Wollheim, Richard Allen (1995) describes this mode of cinematic experience as “centered iconic imagination” (127). Even though the spectators do not necessarily adopt an emotional state of mind intrinsic to the scene in which they occupy a position of centered iconic imagination, with regard to the Cornucopia bloodbath scene one might safely assume that most spectators fear with Katniss rather than for her, appropriating her emotional point of view of the events as their own.16 On the other hand, the handheld aesthetics and the guerrilla quality of this scene directly engage the spectators within the scene, without a 14  Further alternatives to identification-based approaches include analyses of the sensuous and affective cinematic moods that work to disclose film worlds, as Robert Sinnerbrink (2012) argues (161). Similarly, Daniel Yacavone (2015) writes that aesthetic experiences in cinema are based on “world-constitutive dynamics” in which the spectators find themselves affectively immersed (12). Sianne Ngai (2005) talks about ‘tone’ in a work of art as an “affective bearing, orientation, or ‘set toward’ its audience and world” (43). A more radical approach can be found in Eugenie Brinkema’s (2014) book on the forms of the affects, in which she argues that one does not even need to consider spectatorship in order to understand the affective force of cinema, since affects can be found in the “details of specific visual forms and temporal structures” (37) of a given film. 15  Gary Ross, the director of The Hunger Games, describes the filming process as follows: “I wanted [the audience] to be in [Katniss’] shoes, to experience everything through her eyes” (Egan 2012, 138). 16  On the difference between fearing with and fearing for a film character, see for instance Berys Gaut’s (1999) discussion on the opening of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975). First, we fear for the swimmer, as she does not recognize the danger and so feels no fear. But as soon as “the swimmer does recognize the danger and panics, we then share her fear […] we have to place ourselves imaginatively in the swimmer’s situation in order to empathize with her. Thus when I imagine the shark’s attack on the swimmer, I am imagining the shark’s attack on me (since I am imaginarily in her situation), and hence I can share the swimmer’s fear” (208).

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‘detour’ through centered iconic imagination. I argue that the Cornucopia bloodbath scene also embodies affect independent from the protagonist. Insofar as the aesthetic organization itself can be considered fear-ridden, it immerses the spectator in the cinematic event. The entrance into the arena is conveyed through blinding white light and the jarring, piercing sound of a synthesizer, which embodies the mood of terror. The framing of the bloodbath sequence is highly mobile, with sweeping, circular movements, but it is strangely silent except for the piercing, hasty, non-diegetic music played on strings. The fast cutting that switches rapidly from extreme long shots to (extreme) close-ups conveys violence and chaos, while the quick-­ paced staccato of the non-diegetic violins tangibly loads the sequence with adrenaline. All the elements of fear are there, conveying the sense of the intense bodily experience that anticipates hurt, injury, or death, accompanied by the racing of the heart, increase in muscular blood flow, and a deeper and faster respiration. This is an instinctual experience that happens very fast, and in which the “whole body becomes a space of unpleasant intensity” (Ahmed 2004, 65) characterized by tingling sensations and nervous attention to the visually and audibly perceived danger in the surrounding world. It is a violent, overwhelming experience that triggers an emergency reaction: fight, flight, or paralysis. The Cornucopia bloodbath scene has a raw immediacy to it, capturing the affective intentionality of the event organically, and thereby eliciting the spectators’ emotions. Such affective immersion defines the cinematic world as an event rather than a representation, producing participatory rather than ocular-specular spectatorship. This participatory element would seem to enhance the ethical project of the film insofar as it enables the spectators to contemplate its moral dilemmas from within their own embodied experience, beyond mere intellectual thought experiments.

But Is It (Film) Philosophy? Methodologically the argument presented in this book is based on an investigation of the aesthetic qualities of The Hunger Games trilogy, the multiple emotions embodied in these qualities, and the philosophical-­ ethical insights, which are in turn embedded in these emotions. I argue that there is an intrinsic connection between emotion and ethics, which can be expressed and communicated through cinematic means, in a way that confronts us with complex moral dilemmas, and also enriches our

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aesthetic experience. As Berys Gaut writes in his Art, Emotion and Ethics (2007): That our response to art centrally involves emotions is a commonplace, albeit a true and very important one. [Art] deploys cognitive-affective perspective on its represented events, a perspective that invites the audience to react emotionally to the scenes and characters it describes. And, given the importance of emotions to ethical education as well, emotional responses to represented events form a powerful means of ethical illumination in art. (203)

But if ethical education through the agency of cinematic emotion is commonplace, can cinema still be seen as a specific form of philosophical enquiry? Given that most films compel us to feel emotions—albeit often in a manipulative or banal fashion—and that many of them contain ethical dilemmas of sorts, the question arises as to what extent cinema in general and The Hunger Games trilogy in particular can be seen as philosophically relevant. The conjunction between film and philosophy has been a subject of interest within various film theoretical frameworks for at least the last twenty years. Examples are found in cognitivism/analytical philosophy of film as well as in continental, European film-philosophy, where the hyphen functions to designate that film is an ‘and’ to philosophy rather than a plus sign (Stuber 2001). In this introductory chapter it is not possible to go into detail about all the existing arguments, or even to summarize the debate as it stands.17 Instead, I would like to approach the question of what film-philosophy is in terms of conditions that apply to The Hunger Games trilogy, which would allow one to determine its emotional qualities, aesthetic merits, and ethical insights. My intention is not to provide a normative film-philosophical category, which would exclude those definitions that do not fit within its constraints. My view is that a film is philosophical when its aesthetic specificity embodies a thoughtful insight, which can be felt and understood organically from within the cinematic experience, and which can be described and assessed, as well as shared and 17  For an overview of Anglo-American analytic/cognitive philosophy of film, see for instance Film Theory and Philosophy, edited by Richard Allen and Murray Smith (1997). For an overview of the key thinkers in continental film-philosophy, see Film, Theory, and Philosophy, edited by Felicity Colman (2009). For an overview of ongoing debates on the relationship between film and philosophy, see New Takes in Film-Philosophy, edited by Havi Carel and Greg Tuck (2011).

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substantiated by others. As Robert Sinnerbrink (2011) puts it, this ‘type’ of film-philosophy avoids assuming that there is a readymade conceptual framework or theoretical approach that should be applied to a film to reveal its meaning or, alternatively, which the film is supposed to illustrate. [Instead, it sustains a] receptiveness to what film aesthetically discloses; an engagement with the aesthetic elements of the film, the reflection it inspires, and to the way film resists immediate translation into theoretical argument. This kind of responsiveness to film’s forms of aesthetic disclosure [involves] consideration not only of its narrative aspects but its audiovisual rhythms, hermeneutic ambiguities, and capacity to both enact and evoke affective forms of thought. (38, italics added)

Emotions play a central role in the context of cinematic ethics, since moral evaluations regularly arise from one affectively sensing one’s own possibilities for suffering and pain, as well as one’s own capacity of hurting others, while responding affectively to others’ distress. It is on this self-­ other relation that our ethical disposition is grounded, and understanding moral values requires sensitivity to feel both self-directed and other-­ directed emotions (Prinz 2014, 102; Sobchack 2004, 178). As such the Victory Tour scenes in Catching Fire present a conflict between self-­ directed and other-directed concern. This is conveyed by the visual juxtaposition between Katniss and Peeta acting out Capitol propaganda as if they were reciting ‘drilling manuals’ on the one hand, and the angry District audiences forced to witness the phoney spectacle on the other. Katniss and Peeta’s fabricated performance is designed to demonstrate to the people of Panem that their motives behind the suicide pact were out of love, and not defiance against the Capitol. It even includes a proposal of marriage, which can be seen as epitomizing self-directed concern, executed to protect themselves and their loved ones. Furthermore, their performance is designed to prevent rebellious escalation and more civilian causalities in the Districts, emanating other-directed concern. Problematically, their strategy only further enrages the Districts’ audiences, who feel that Katniss and Peeta’s ethical concern aimed at maintaining the status quo is in conflict with another ethico-political concern, namely change in the Districts. This is why Katniss and Peeta’s Victory Tour fails in its function to support, to confirm, and to celebrate the totalitarian power of the Capitol.

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Emotional Ethics The proper place of emotions within moral philosophy has been subject of debate for a very long time.18 Emotions are more often than not seen as obstacles to ethical thinking, leading us astray, producing motives that conflict with moral reasoning and which undermine our ethical integrity and good character (Bagnoli 2015, 26). This is why some emotions, such as contempt, resentment, envy, jealousy, and pride, are vices rather than virtues (1). That emotions cannot function as a source of moral knowledge is related to the concept of emotion as interfering with logical thinking. Emotions undermine our rational agency due to the intrusive, random, unruly, and unstable nature of the affective experience. Since emotions are not “outcomes of logical sequence and information processing” (Lupton 1998, 14) one may feel that one is not in control of one’s emotions but is ‘possessed’ by them as it were, which is a reason why the role of emotion in ethical life has been discounted. On the other hand, emotions such as love and compassion lie at the very heart of ethical thinking insofar as they embody a perception of the value of others, sensitizing us toward the other’s needs (Bagnoli 2015b, 68). For instance, in the moral philosophy of Iris Murdoch (1970), love plays a crucial role, and emotions are placed at the center of a person’s inner moral life. For Murdoch, love is more than a personal, private relationship of intimacy. It is the most fundamental form of moral awareness, which defines our relationships with others, “the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real” (Murdoch 1999, 215).19 Her standpoint involves a view of emotions as mostly rational and insightful into the human condition, including its ethical dimension. Even negative emotions such as guilt, shame, and pride could be grounded in ethical consciousness, insofar as they are modes of self-assessment that play a significant role in the development of moral integrity (Taylor 1985). Furthermore, emotions which are often considered ‘immoral’, such as anger, contempt, and resentment, can actually fulfill an ethical purpose by alerting us to social injustices, presenting moral problems, and demanding solutions, thus not only functioning as evaluative judgments, but also as sources of ethical claims (Stocker 1996, 291). 18  For a very useful and comprehensive overview of the debate, see for instance Carla Bagnoli (ed.), Morality & the Emotions (2015). 19  On Murdoch’s moral philosophy and cinema, see Lucy Bolton’s Contemporary Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch (2019).

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The retrieval of emotion as an important dimension in rational thinking and ethical action owes to the work of philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum (2001) and Robert Solomon (2003), who argue that emotions are rational and purposive rather than irrational and disruptive, and often even more insightful than “the calm deliberations we call ‘reason’” (1). Social theorist Jon Elster (1999) considers emotions rational in the sense that they may actually promote logical decision-making, and cognitive psychologist Nico Frijda (1986) argues that emotions occur when a situation triggers concern, consisting of rational appraisal of the situation’s significance. In the context of neurobiology Antonio Damasio (1999, 2005) has shown that emotion assists reasoning, activating that decision-making sector in our brain, where the intellect can operate most efficiently. The argument that emotions are rational, importantly linked to individual agency and decision-making, facilitated the restoration of emotion in ethical philosophy (Bagnoli 2015a, 5). As emotions allow us to understand different situations by highlighting salience, they can also function in perceiving and judging ethical value (i.e. de Sousa 1987; Rorty, 1988). In addition, emotions can reinforce such perceptions, for instance supplying motivational force to one’s ethical value judgment so that one feels compelled to undertake moral action against wrongful treatment of others, instead of merely reflecting on the perceived injustice (Greenspan 2015).20 Thus, when in Catching Fire Katniss throws herself in front of a Peacekeeper’s whip to save Gale from further scourging, she does not intellectually contemplate the situation first, only then to decide it would be morally appropriate to intervene. Instead, her emotions function as “higher-order reasons” (40), which pressure her to act immediately, with feet flying. Similarly, in the cinematic experience we do not first become aware of the relevant, non-emotional ethical standards of right and wrong and then feel the appropriate emotion. By contrast, our emotions alert us to these ethical standards by immediately registering the affective valence of the cinematic event, 20  Of course, there is also a possibility that rationally appropriate emotions sometimes reinforce immoral action, for instance when there is a conflict between self-interested and ethically correct causes. In this case, a stronger emotion “on the side of self-interest [could] manage to tip the balance in its favor, when moral emotion otherwise would have been decisive” (Greenspan 2015, 56). So even if emotions reinforce our ethical judgments, they can become the wrong sort of reasons for moral action: [An individual may] have mixed motives, some of them moral and morally worthy, but compromised by others that bring in self-interest” (ibidem).

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thereby building awareness of the appropriate moral reasons in our experience of the event.21 Emotions can be considered an appeal to ethical reasoning which motivates moral action. However, within the context of emotional ethics one important question concerns the role of emotions when moral reasons are authoritative. Even though this question lies outside the scope of this introduction, a brief recapitulation of the two positions in the debate seems relevant. On the one hand, the rationalist position holds that moral reasons bind us with authority because they are intrinsically and universally normative. Since moral reasons are independent from ‘external’ factors, such as emotions and beliefs, they can sovereignly override other rational deliberations. However, the problem with the rationalist model is that it fails to explain how individuals are driven by moral reasons (Bagnoli 2015b, 62–64). On the other hand, the position of moral sentimentalism understands moral evaluation purely in emotional terms beyond the rationalist view, and considers “affective disclosure of value” to be the beginning of ethical life and the source of moral judgment (Johnston 2001, 183). Since moral reasons originate in emotions, they have direct motivational power. Yet, this argument fails to explain adequately how moral reason commands with genuine authority beyond subjective feelings and individual preferences (Bagnoli 2015b, 62). Regardless of whether emotions provide moral reasons with authority, or form a mere contributory motivation for ethical action, for the purposes of this book I offer as my ‘hybrid’ argument that an emotion is not an external factor in ethical deliberation, but neither are emotions the primary source of moral knowledge. Rather, emotions are constitutive of moral thinking and vice versa, insofar as in the subjective experience affective appraisals and ethical judgments constantly and reciprocally modify each other by folding over in negotiation. In the cinematic experience, too, our emotional and our ethical faculties both play a role as we evaluate the salience of filmic events aesthetically, somatically, and semantically, in a way that bypasses the actions of fictional characters facing these events.

21  This means that our emotions ground, rather than merely reflect, our moral evaluations, which also explains the ideological power of emotion to inspire political justice, or to reinforce political prejudice (i.e., Ahmed 2004; Nussbaum 2013, 2016). See also Carl Plantinga’s (2019) reading of ‘fascist affect’ in Zack Snyder’s 300 (2006).

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Emotions and Structure of This Book Even though the chapters in this book are interrelated, they can be read independently and not necessarily in the given order that moves from ‘basic’ emotions such as fear and anger through more social emotions like love, guilt, and shame, to the ethically complicated and ambiguous emotions of contempt and dignity. Chapter 2, “Between Fear and Hope”, explores the functions of fear in The Hunger Games trilogy with an argument that moves on three planes. First, I shall demonstrate that its many scenes immerse the spectator in first-person videogame-like aesthetics that capture the self-directed, subjective experience of fear in situations that are driven by survival motives. Second, I argue that the trilogy demonstrates a development or shift from self-directed fear to other-directed fear, at which point the ethical dimension of this emotion starts to emerge. Third, I shall analyze the way in which the trilogy communicates vision of fear as a form of cultural and spatial politics, functioning to safeguard the dictatorial power of the Capitol. In this context, fear also becomes an appropriate reaction to ethical conundrums, and is transformed into a political motive for resistance. The ethical dimension of fear is not about doing the right thing for fear of the consequences following immoral actions, but about acting righteously in relation to fearful things in accordance with the right stance toward an ethically worthwhile goal. In The Hunger Games trilogy, this means participating in the resistance against power constellations and pathological authoritarianism in such a way that it will result in hope to overcome the governmental practices of fearmongering. Chapter 3, “Anger and Generosity”, is inspired by Martha Nussbaum, who in her Anger and Forgiveness (2016) argues that there are at least two ways in which anger can be normatively problematic. First there is what she calls the “road of payback”, which is rationally false and incoherent, because it is derived from the fallacy of “cosmic balance”. This road leads to pain for the offender to compensate for one’s own pain, even though such a strategy is rarely, if ever, successful. This chapter explores the different forms of anger in The Hunger Games trilogy. These are based either on attempts to restore a wrongdoing by means of payback or on seeking to downrank the wrongdoer in order to reestablish injured dignity. Both alternatives appear to be inadequate strategies to deal with (un)justified anger. The question is whether in The Hunger Games trilogy there is also room for ethically appropriate responses to anger, based on forward-­ looking generosity that would productively contribute to social welfare in

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Panem. Finally, the chapter concludes that even though the trilogy hints at the possibility of revolutionary politics free of anger, its resolve in the ending does not entirely fulfill this narrative promise. By contrast, its final scenes noticeably lack any of the moral complexity that we have witnessed throughout the trilogy, which creates an ethical-emotional imbalance. The happy ending is too detached from the rest of the trilogy in its affective orientation. Chapter 4, “The Many Forms of Love”, argues that, even though The Hunger Games trilogy cannot be labeled as ‘romance cinema’, love and romance lie at the heart of its narrative trajectory all the same. There is sisterly love between Prim and Katniss, which functions as a leitmotif throughout the trilogy and eventually leads to Katniss becoming the iconic Mockingjay. There is the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale, which both challenges and confirms the heteronormative ideals of romantic love. And there is a form of ‘theatrical love’, which is related to ludus, that is, a game-playing love style, which in The Hunger Games trilogy is staged for an audience as a strategic move. Love also functions as a system of social control, regulated by the Capitol that subjects its citizens to forced relationships. But there is also a notion of authentic love as a form of resistance, that is not merely reactive to power relations, but a positive action in and of itself. For instance, by inventing the ‘real or not real’ game, Katniss and Peeta are able to resist both the Capitol and Alma Coin, the President of District 13 and the leader of the Second Rebellion, thereby opening a vista for love that carries possibilities for self-­ determination outside the existing systems of power. This chapter argues that the ‘real or not real’ game transforms the love between Katniss and Peeta into an ethical attitude that enables them to recognize the truth about each other, which renders the romantic story in The Hunger Games trilogy into a meaningful and complex reflection on the nature of love. Chapter 5, “Survivor Shame and Guilt”, argues that even though The Hunger Games trilogy does not inevitably elicit self-conscious spectatorship that is necessary for the spectators to feel shame and guilt themselves, both emotions function as important aesthetic themes and narrative impulses throughout. The spectators can feel the presence of these emotions as embodied in the aesthetic organization of the films through the spectatorial logic of shame on the one hand, and the identificatory logic of guilt on the other. I argue that the sensory qualities of a film scene themselves correspond to the affective structures of these complex emotions in a way that resonates directly with our affective faculties. This is what makes

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The Hunger Games trilogy ethically forceful, insofar as its aesthetic logic is affectively congruent with shame and guilt as moral emotions. Furthermore, I argue that in the trilogy guilt supersedes shame as a trigger for ethical action. This shift from shame to guilt changes the ethical insight from moral appreciation of who Katniss is (a resilient victim of circumstances) to what Katniss does (as an active agent for an ethical cause). This shift is also closely connected with progress from psychological guilt to something positive, the transmutation of traumatic guilt of survival into ethical action. Finally, Chap. 6 on “The Dynamics of Contempt and Dignity” argues that one of the most important emotional conflicts in The Hunger Games trilogy is the contrast between contempt and its negative counterpart, the sense of emotional dignity. These two emotions are related to the extent that contempt functions as an active, affective force to undermine dignity, while dignity resists practices that violate human decency and integrity for economic, social, and political goals. Panem is a dystopian society largely because it is based on the arbitrary supremacy of one privileged group, whose leader uses his influence to set vanquished, underprivileged groups against each other. Panem, extremely hierarchical in its organization, is a society of totalitarian contempt. I argue that one central concept through which the totalitarian contempt in The Hunger Games trilogy gets its expression is the notion of masquerade. The Games themselves function as a spectacular masquerade, seemingly celebrating individualism as a ‘pageant of bravery’. At the same time, masquerade can also be understood as a form of resistance against the dominant social codes in contrast to submission. Therefore, the final part of the chapter explores the way in which masquerade in The Hunger Games trilogy is harnessed in the service of resistance, when dignity is reclaimed by means of fashion as an assertion of personal and collective self-esteem. During the period in which this book was written, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest surged under President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, a referendum was held to reform the Constitution of Russia, allowing President Vladimir Putin to run for two more six-year presidential terms, and President Donald Trump sent federal paramilitary forces to Portland, Oregon, to end the Black Lives Matter protests he described as anarchy. In addition, in Belarus thousands of people were arrested for demonstrating against alleged ballot rigging in favor of sitting President Alexander Lukashenko, whom the media named the last European dictator. It is not surprising that recent texts abound in which the dystopian world of The

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Hunger Games is associated with the real-world events (e.g., Fisher 2012; Grady 2016; Flynn 2017; Goldberg, 2019).22 In my understanding, The Hunger Games remains a most relevant dystopia for the contemporary world. The Hunger Games background was actually used in the struggle against an authoritarian regime in Hong Kong in 2019, when a proposed extradition bill sparked unrest.23 This protest escalated into a long-lasting confrontation with the authorities, in which demonstrators insisted on democratic rights and independence from Beijing rule. In response to these conflicts between civilians and police, two Hong Kong activists, Joshua Wong and Alex Chow (2019), published an opinion piece in The New York Times about the unrest, which started with the famous slogan from Mockingjay Part I: “If we burn, you burn with us”, representing “the spirit unleashed by hundreds of thousands of protesters”.24 The fact that the symbols and gestures from The Hunger Games trilogy have been actively taken up by protesters demonstrates that it embodies more complex meanings than is expected from ‘young adult’ fiction in more ‘elitist’ views of literature and moving image culture, in which this genre is often trivialized and dismissed. This book was written out of conviction that the 22  See also Rebecca Hill’s (2018) study into the readers of The Hunger Games trilogy, in which she shows that the Capitol-districts divide in the trilogy can be read as an allegory either for the economic inequality (by left-wing readers) or for the rift between red states and decadent coastal elites (by the right-wing readers) in the United States. This observation leads her to argue that the way in which fans connect the series to real-life politics “could be helpful for understanding the rise of Trump, who used populist rhetoric while advocating neoliberal policies in a way that continues to flummox commentators who see neoliberalism and populism as fundamentally incompatible” (8). 23  Even before the events in Hong Kong, in May 2014, during the military coup in Thailand, the three-finger salute of resistance from The Hunger Games trilogy became an unofficial symbol of opposition, a creative response to the junta’s bans on freedom of expression. One protester, raising his arm in salute, shared a photo of this gesture via Twitter with the caption “Dear #HungerGames. We’ve taken your sign as our own. Our struggle is nonfiction. Thanks. #ThaiCoup #Thailand.” Similarly to The Hunger Games, in Thailand the salute showed solidarity between and toward the protestors that were fighting against what they considered to be an unlawful, military-led government. As a result, the military junta in Thailand threatened to arrest anyone who used The Hunger Games salute, in striking similarity to President Snow, who as the leader of Panem prohibited all images referring to the Mockingjay in Mockingjay Part I (Chandler 2014). 24  This is the line with which Katniss addresses the Squad 451 cameras as a message to President Snow in Mockingjay Part I. This happens after she has witnessed Capitol hovercrafts destroying a makeshift hospital at his direct orders, filled with wounded civilians from District 8.

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trilogy is indeed worthwhile subject matter in the context of ethical film-­ philosophy. In the end I hope to have demonstrated that dealing with emotions is necessary to fashion an evaluation of ethical value, not only in The Hunger Games trilogy in particular, but also in the more general cinematic experience.

References Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge. Allen, Richard. 1995. Projecting Illusion: Film Spectatorship and the Impression of Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Allen, Richard, and Murray Smith, eds. 1997. Film Theory and Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1968. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt. Artaud, Antonin. 1958. The Theater and Its Double. Translated by Mary Caroline Richards. New York: Grove. ———. 2001. On Suicide. Translated by David Rattray. In Artaud Anthology, edited by Jack Hirschman, 56–58. San Francisco: City Lights. Atwood, Margaret. 1985. The Handmaid’s Tale. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Bagnoli, Carla, ed. 2015. Morality & the Emotions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2015a. Introduction. In Morality & the Emotions, ed. Carla Bagnoli, 1–36. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2015b. Emotions and the Categorical Authority of Moral Reasons. In Morality & the Emotions, ed. Carla Bagnoli, 62–81. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Balkind, Nicola. 2014. Fan Phenomena: The Hunger Games. Bristol: Intellect. Barkman, Adam. 2012. ‘All of This is Wrong’: Why One of Rome’s Greatest Thinkers Would Despise the Capitol. In The Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason, ed. George A. Dunn and Nicolas Michaud, 265–276. Hoboken: John Wiley. Bolton, Lucy. 2019. Contemporary Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Brewster, Hilary. 2014. ‘She Has No Idea. The Effect She Can Have’: A Rhetorical Reading of The Hunger Games. In The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres, ed. Sean P. Connors, 169–188. Rotterdam: Sense. Brinkema, Eugenie. 2014. The Forms of the Affects. Durham. Duke University Press. Carel, Havi, and Greg Tuck, eds. 2011. New Takes in Film-Philosophy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Carroll, Noël. 1999. Film, Emotion, and Genre. In Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion, ed. Carl Plantinga and Greg M.  Smith, 21–47. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Cartwright, Lisa. 2008. Moral Spectatorship: Technologies of Voice and Affect in Postwar Representations of the Child. Durham. Duke University Press. Chandler, Adam. 2014. When Life Imitates The Hunger Games in Thailand. The Atlantic, November 21. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/ archive/2014/11/five-­a rrested-­t he-­h unger-­g ames-­t hree-­f inger-­s alute-­ thailand/383020. Choi, Jinhee. 2014. In Cine-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Film Theory, Practice, and Spectatorship, ed. Mattias Frey. London: Routledge. Claeys, Gregory. 2018. Dystopia: A Natural History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Collins, Suzanne. 2011. The Hunger Games. London: Scholastic. Colman, Felicity, ed. 2009. Film, Theory and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers. Durham: Acumen. Connors, Sean P. 2014. ‘I Was Watching You, Mockingjay’: Surveillance, Tactics, and the Limits of Panopticism. In The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres, ed. Sean P. Connors, 85–102. Rotterdam: Sense. Cooper, Sarah. 2006. Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French Documentary. London: Legenda. Damasio, Antonio. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. San Diego: Harcourt. ———. 2005. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. London: Penguin. Debord, Guy. 1994. The Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Donald Nicholson-­ Smith. New York: Zone Books. Dominus, Susan. 2011. Suzanne Collins’s War Stories for Kids. The New  York Times Magazine, April 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/magazine/mag-­10collins-­t.html. Downing, Lisa, and Libby Saxton. 2010. Film and Ethics: Foreclosed Encounters. London: Routledge. Egan, Kate. 2012. The Hunger Games: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion. New York: Scholastic Press. ———. 2013. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion. New York: Scholastic Press. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2012. The Persistence of Hollywood. New York: Routledge. Elsaesser, Thomas, and Malte Hagener. 2010. Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses. New York: Routledge. Elster, Jon. 1999. Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fisher, Mark. 2012. Precarious Dystopias: The Hunger Games, In Time, and Never Let Me Go. Film Quarterly 65 (4): 27–33.

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Flynn, Caitlin. 2017. Why The Hunger Games Still Resonates in 2017. Bustle, March 23. https://www.bustle.com/p/why-­the-­hunger-­games-­still-­ resonates-­in-­2017-­46121. Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality Vol I: The Will to Knowledge. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin. ———. 1982. The Subject and Power. In Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, ed. Hubert L.  Dreyfus and Paul Rabinov, 208–226. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alain Sheridan. New York: Vintage. Frijda, Nico. 1986. The Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garcia, Antero, and Marcelle Haddix. 2014. The Revolution Starts With Rue: Online Fandom and the Racial Politics of The Hunger Games. In The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres, ed. Sean P. Connors, 203–217. Rotterdam: Sense. Gaut, Berys. 1999. Identification and Emotion in Narrative Film. In Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion, ed. Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith, 200–216. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———. 2007. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Girgus, Sam B. 2010. Levinas and the Cinema of Redemption: Time, Ethics, and the Feminine. New York: Columbia University Press. Goldberg, Michelle. 2019. Margaret Atwood’s Dystopia, And Ours. The New York Times, September 14. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/opinion/ sunday/margaret-­atwood-­the-­testaments-­handmaids-­tale.html. Grady, Constance. 2016. How The Hunger Games Anticipated Donald Trump’s Rise. Vox, November 9. https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/9/ 13571526/hunger-­games-­anticipated-­donald-­trump-­rise. Greenspan, Patricia. 2015. Craving the Right: Emotions and Moral Reasons. In Morality & the Emotions, ed. Carla Bagnoli, 39–61. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gunning, Thomas. 1990. The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-garde. In Early Cinema: Space Frame Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser, 56–62. London: British Film Institute. Hill, Rebecca. 2018. Capital or the Capitol? The Hunger Games Fandom and Neoliberal Populism. American Studies 57 (1/2): 5–28. Issow Averill, Lindsey. 2012. Sometimes the World Is Hungry for People Who Care: Katniss and the Feminist Care Ethic. In The Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason, ed. George A.  Dunn and Nicolas Michaud, 162–176. Hoboken: John Wiley. Johnston, Mark. 2001. The Authority of Affect. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (1): 181–214. Kanai, Akane. 2015. Jennifer Lawrence, Remixed: Approaching Celebrity through DIY Digital Culture. Celebrity Studies 6 (3): 322–340.

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Klevan, Andrew. 2018. Aesthetic Evaluation and Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Laine, Tarja. 2018. Moves And Countermoves: Visual Technologies of Fear and Counter-Technologies of Hope in The Hunger Games Quadrilogy. Cinephile 12 (1) http://cinephile.ca/wp-­content/uploads/Cinephile-­12.1.pdf. Lupton, Deborah. 1998. The Emotional Self. London: Sage. Macaluso, Michael, and Cori Mckenzie. 2014. Exploiting the Gaps in the Fence: Power, Agency, and Rebellion in The Hunger Games. In The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres, ed. Sean P. Connors, 103–121. Rotterdam: Sense. Mbembe, Achile. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press. Murdoch, Iris. 1970. The Sovereignty of Good. London: Routledge. ———. 1999. Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature. New York: Penguin. Murty, Govindini. 2012. Decoding the Influences in Hunger Games, from Spartacus to Survivor. The Atlantic, March 26. https://www.theatlantic.com/ entertainment/archive/2012/03/decoding-­the-­influences-­in-­hunger-­games-­ from-­spartacus-­to-­survivor/255043. Ngai, Sianne. 2005. Ugly Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2001. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2013. Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press. ———. 2016. Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Orr, Christopher. 2015. Mockingjay Part II: A Dull Slog to the Bitter End. The Atlantic, November 20. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/ archive/2015/11/mockingjay-­part-­2-­is-­a-­dull-­slog-­hunger-­games/416874/. Orwell, George. (1949) 2001. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New  York: Harper Perennial Classics. Plantinga, Carl. 2018. Screen Stories: Emotion and the Ethics of Engagement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2019. Fascist Affect in 300. Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind 13 (2): 20–37. Prinz, Jesse J. 2014. Where Do Morals Come From? A Plea for a Cultural Approach. In Empirically Informed Ethics: Morality Between Facts and Norms, ed. Markus Christen, Carel van Schaik, Johannes Fischer, Markus Huppenbauer, and Carmen Tanner, 99–118. London: Springer. Rainbolt, Martha. 2014. Katniss Everdeen’s Emerging Moral Consciousness in The Hunger Games. In Ethics and Children’s Literature, ed. Claudia Mills, 222–232. Surrey: Ashgate. Recuber, Tim. 2007. Immersion Cinema: The Rationalization and Reenchantment of Cinematic Space. Space and Culture 10 (1): 315–330.

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Rorty, Amélie O. 1988. The Mind in Action. Boston: Beacon Press. Rottenberg, Catherine. 2013. The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism. Cultural Studies 28 (3): 418–437. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1978. Existentialism & Humanism. Translated by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Haskell House. Seelinger Trites, Roberta. 2014. ‘Some Walks You Have to Take Alone’: Ideology, Intertextuality, and the Fall of the Empire in The Hunger Games Trilogy. In The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres, ed. Sean P.  Connors, 15–28. Rotterdam: Sense. Sinnerbrink, Robert. 2011. Re-enfranchising Film: Towards a Romantic Film-­ philosophy. In New Takes in Film-Philosophy, ed. Havi Carel and Greg Tuck, 25–45. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2012. Stimmung: Exploring the Aesthetics of Mood. Screen 52 (1): 148–163. ———. 2015. Cinematic Ethics: Exploring Ethical Experience through Film. London: Routledge. Smith, Murray. 1995. Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sobchack, Vivian. 2004. Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Solomon, Robert C. 2003. Introduction. In What Is an Emotion? Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Robert C.  Solomon, 1–2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New  York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Sousa, Ronald de. 1987. The Rationality of Emotions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Stadler, Jane. 2005. Pulling Focus: Intersubjective Experience, Narrative Film, and Ethics. New York: Continuum. Stocker, Michael with Elizabeth Hegeman. 1996. Valuing Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strauven, Wanda. 2006. Introduction to an Attractive Concept. In The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded, ed. Wanda Strauven, 11–27. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Stuber, Dorian. 2001. Art Objects. Film-Philosophy 5 (28). http://www.film-­ philosophy.com/vol5-­2001/n28stuber. Taylor, Gabrielle. 1985. Pride, Shame, and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thaller, Sarah. 2016. Feminist Bait-and-Switch: The Hunger Games and the Illusion of Empowerment. Parlour: A Journal of Literary Criticism and Analysis. https://www.ohio.edu/parlour/news-­story.cfm?newsItem= 04A7BBE4-­5056-­A874-­1D563D477E575CA0.

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Thomas, Mark. 2013. Panem et Circenses: Law, Law and Power in The Hunger Games. Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 1: 211–219. Wilson, Nicole L. 2016. The World Will Be Watching: The Panoptic Nature of Reality Television in Young Adult Fiction. The Journal of Popular Culture 49 (4): 917–933. Wong, Joshua, and Alex Chow. 2019. The People of Hong Kong Will Not Be Cowed by China. The New  York Times, August 31. https://www.nytimes. com/2019/08/31/opinion/hong-­kong-­protest-­joshua-­wong.html. Yacavone, Daniel. 2015. Film Worlds: A Philosophical Aesthetics of Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Between Fear and Hope

The Politics of Fear Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. (President Snow in The Hunger Games)

“Fear”, writes Robert Solomon (2007), “is perhaps the most important emotion” (29). As unpleasant and intense as fear can be, it is a vital emotion that directs our attention to relevant details of a dangerous situation, alerts us to be on the lookout for more details that are imperative to our assessment of that situation, and encourages us to form expectations about how we should respond to its possible evolvement. However, fear is not always simply a question of being afraid of something that is potentially endangering. Fear can also be at the core of cultural politics that “works to shape the surfaces of individual and collective bodies … through othering” (1), in the words of Sara Ahmed (2004). Ahmed speaks of the spatial politics of fear that work to restrict some bodies through privileging others and to align bodily and social space by enabling “some bodies to inhabit and move in public space through restricting the mobility of other bodies to spaces that are enclosed or contained” (70). Fear in this sense is anything but an immediate, affective response to objective danger. In this context it functions to conserve power, and having subordinates to

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consent to power, as a possibility for is linked to pain, torture, and death. In this technology of fear, publicizing visible suffering is central. This chapter explores the functions of fear in The Hunger Games trilogy with an argument that moves on three planes. First, I shall demonstrate that its many scenes immerse the spectator in first-person videogame-like aesthetics that capture the self-directed, subjective experience of fear in situations that are driven by survival motives. In this context, Solomon defines fear not as a self-contained feeling, but as an intentional engagement with the world: in fear one feels frightened about something dangerous in the world, even when one is not reflectively aware of what that danger is. The structures of fear are pre-reflective and instinctive, they direct our attention to be on the lookout for salient details in a dangerous situation, which trigger a flight or a fight response. Fear can be a violent physiological response, a highly complex engagement with one’s surroundings, but too much fear can generate paralysis or a freeze reaction (Solomon 2007, 29–30; see also Prinz 2004, 34). All these structural aspects of fear can be found independently of the protagonists throughout The Hunger Games trilogy, insofar as the aesthetic organization of many central sequences can be considered ridden by fear. This means that, as spectators, we do not merely recognize or identify with the protagonists’ fear, we also feel in our own bodies the fearful tension evoked by the effective creation of suspense and threat by means of the trilogy’s mere cinematic style. Second, I argue that the trilogy demonstrates a development or shift from self-directed fear to other-directed fear at which point the ethical dimension of this ‘basic’ emotion starts to emerge. For Emmanuel Levinas (1984), fear for the other is “the foundation of sociality and of love without eros. The fear for the death of the other is certainly at the basis of responsibility for him” (202), as Levinas explains in an interview with Philippe Nemo. This means that in fearing for the other, concern for the other surpasses concern for one’s own being. Following Levinas, Zlatan Filipovic (2011) defines this fear for the other as a gravitational force that is stronger than the fear for one’s own death. What “pulls” one is the vulnerability of the other that becomes a “visceral concern” and responsibility for the other without pathos, reward, or even recompense in the end (72). This is why in Catching Fire Katniss insists that Peeta be saved in the second reaping while the film never provides an explicit motivation for this action. Katniss simply acquires responsibility for Peeta’s physical and

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emotional well-being just for the sake of it as it were, putting herself in harm’s way as she does. In the final part of this chapter I shall analyze the way in which the trilogy communicates vision of fear as a form of cultural and spatial politics, functioning to safeguard the dictatorial power of the Capitol. In this context, fear also becomes an appropriate reaction to ethical conundrums, and is transformed into a political motive for resistance. The ethical dimension of fear is not about doing the right thing for fear of the consequences following immoral actions, but about acting righteously in relation to fearful things in accordance with the right stance toward an ethically worthwhile goal. However, it must be noted that such ethics of acting righteously is in conflict with Levinasian philosophy of alterity, in which passivity is a form of heroism; an idea which is radically different to the notion of courage as actively overcoming anxiety before (the possibility of) death (Cohen 2006, 30). For instance, in Aristotle’s definition courage involves struggling with and overcoming fear, a courageous person being one who fears “even the things that are not beyond human strength […] facing them as he ought to and as the rule directs, for honor’s sake; for this is the end of virtue” (cited in Leighton 1988, 11–12). Such struggle of overcoming fear of things not beyond human strength is there toward the end of Catching Fire for instance, when Katniss almost kills Finnick after having been knocked down by Johanna. The scene is intercut with shots of President Snow keenly observing the development on multiple screens, encouraging her from afar with the phrase “Let it fly, Miss Everdeen, let it fly”. Yet all it takes for Finnick to change Katniss’ mind is to recall Haymitch’s earlier statement to remember who the real enemy is, and she shoots her bow at the weak point of the game arena dome instead, thereby conducting lightning electricity into its force field. The scene is a defining moment, as epitomized by the dramatic music that abruptly changes in tension from suspenseful to serene before the sound of thunder directs Katniss’ attention to the force field above her. The scene is also a moment when Katniss, overcoming her own fear of death, transforms it into ethical action that involves risking her own life, as the explosion resulting from her shooting destroys the arena and almost kills her. Her courage is thus borne out by her refusal to let fear dictate her actions, embracing a valuable purpose beyond her own self-interests as she does. Many philosophers agree that such a felt sense of purpose is related to the level of commitment characteristic of a courageous act that enables one to affirm oneself as part of a community (Goud 2005, 113). In The Hunger

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Games trilogy, this means participating in the resistance against power constellations and pathological authoritarianism in such a way that it will result in hope to overcome the governmental practices of fearmongering.

Fear for Oneself As I have argued elsewhere (Laine 2011), all films have an operational, intentional structure that is often analogous to, although not identical with, human emotional states. This is why films not only express emotions, but they also embody emotions, insofar as the affective quality of cinema is not a feature that is attached to a film externally, but an organic attribute. For instance, with its unpleasant intensity and tense energy, the Cornucopia bloodbath scene in The Hunger Games resonates the affective properties of fear, powerfully conveying this emotion as Katniss’ body engages with a dangerous environment. The sequence starts out gradually building a fearful mood, by means of reaction shots of Katniss’ face showing fear, the emotion which before this moment she had mostly hidden. These facial close-ups are affective beyond identification, since we are hard-wired to perceive fear on a face quickly and effectively so that we too might direct our attention to the source of danger. Many brain-imaging studies have indeed confirmed that most humans respond more to faces expressing fear than to faces expressing other emotions (Vuilleumier 2005, 22). Our emotional reaction to close-ups of Katniss in fear are therefore much more direct than a sympathetic response to any other psychological state of mind. However, as soon as Katniss enters the capsule through which the tributes arrive at the game arena and the bloodbath begins in earnest, shots that imitate her perceptual point of view become equally important in immersing us aesthetically in the sensation of fear. They convey the sense of confusion and terror experienced by a player thrown into the game, by means of a blinding white screen and the jarring, piercing sound of a synthesizer,1 while the sweeping camera embodies panic in the new, hostile surroundings. The frame of the bloodbath scene is highly mobile, circling around Katniss and the other tributes competing for weapons and supplies, but it is strangely silent except for the piercing, hasty, non-­ diegetic music played on strings. The fast cutting of the scene, switching 1  This piece of electronic music is entitled “Sediment” by composer Laurie Spiegel from 1972.

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rapidly between extreme long shots and (extreme) close-ups, reaction shots and POV shots, as well as between shots following different tributes, conveys violence and chaos. At the same time, the quick-paced staccato of the violins implies Katniss’ hesitation while she is considering her options, which are essentially reduced to two: either fight or flight. The scene is tangibly laden with adrenaline, and this comes to an end only when Katniss escapes into the woods, only to be knocked over by a frightened female tribute, after which for one frozen moment the two of them stare at each other like deer caught in the headlights of a speedily approaching car. All elements of a subjective experience of fear are there in this scene: it is an intense, violent bodily experience that anticipates hurt, injury, or death, accompanied by a racing heart, increase in muscular blood flow, and deeper and faster respiration. Like fear itself, the scene conveys an instinctual experience that happens very fast, in which “whole body becomes a space of unpleasant intensity” (Ahmed 2004, 65) characterized by tingling sensations and nervous attention to visually and audibly perceived danger in the outside world. Fear can be a violent, overwhelming, embodied experience that triggers an emergency reaction: fight, flight, or paralysis (Frijda 1986; Ahmed 2004; Solomon 2007). I argue that the cinematic style in the Cornucopia bloodbath scene constitutes corporeal aesthetics that embody affective similarity to a lived-body in fear, especially by means of perceptual subjectivity. By perceptual subjectivity I refer to either optically or aurally subjective techniques, such as a POV shot or an aural point of view. Especially the POV shot has often been associated with ‘identification’ between the looking character and the spectator, but as Murray Smith has argued, more often it functions to convey certain aspects of emotional experience (Smith 1999, 417). Similarly, in the Cornucopia bloodbath scene the techniques of perceptual subjectivity do not necessarily invite identification with Katniss. Instead, these techniques render the gestural and postural experience of her lived-body in fear, which we too feel organically from the inside. Furthermore, different types of fear would seem to have different affective qualities: claustrophobia, an anxiety disorder that is triggered by a confined space, includes feeling closed-in, loss of control, and inability to breathe properly. Although not cramped, the game arenas in The Hunger Games trilogy are spaces from which escape is considered impossible, and as such they might be considered essentially claustrophobic. Stings of claustrophobic panic are explicitly embodied in Mockingjay Part I, in a sequence in which the Capitol attacks District 13, starting out with the

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sound of an air-raid warning signal in a darkened setting. A long shot shows Katniss ‘framed’ by a hexagon shape as she makes her way toward safety through a narrow corridor. Here the Capitol logo with its vivid red and yellow colors in the background conveying the sense of aggressive enclosure (Fig. 2.1). The sound of siren continues in the background as we follow Katniss through the narrow, darkened corridors lit by stroboscopic lamps, and jam-packed with frightened people rushing toward the air-raid shelter. The sound of Katniss’ heavy breathing is layered on top of the chaotic sounds, while the camera assumes the position in an extreme low angle to capture the sense of rush as the inhabitants of District 13 descend the triangular-shaped stairs. Another shot from an opposite, bird’s-eye view emphasizes the depth of the confined space, before the camera starts gyrating vertically, mimicking the swirl of people in panic. Immediately after this the bombardment pounds the District, shaking the whole image as it does. At this point, Plutarch Heavensbee summarizes the situation as follows: “They’ll seal us here, like a tomb.” An even more claustrophobic scene might be the tracker jacker scene in the first instalment of the trilogy, since it concerns a situation in which one’s own mind is rendered into a prison from which there is no escape. Like the Cornucopia bloodbath sequence, the tracker jacker scene is dominated by techniques of perceptual and mental subjectivity that convey the sense of being drugged by a powerful venom, which generates fear by terrifying hallucinations, capable of driving a person to insanity. The scene is highly mobile, shaky even due to the instable handheld camera, while the combination of a fish-eye lens and the use of dolly zoom distorts

Fig. 2.1  Mockingjay Part I: Fear closes in on Katniss. (Screen capture)

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everything in the view. The aural POV consists of industrial, hollow throbbing sounds and buzzing noises, epitomizing confusion of the senses. The image is blurry due to the quick, sweeping camera movement and a form of editing called ‘hip hop montage’, a technique famously employed by director Darren Aronofsky in his first two feature films Pi (1998) and Requiem for a Dream (2001). It is a technique that features visual ruptures, fractures, and repetitions inspired by backspinning, punch phrasing, and scratching employed in hip-hop music (Kulezic-Wilson 2008, 19). At times the image is superimposed so as to mimic the condition of diplopia that causes a person to perceive two or even three images of a single object adjacent to or overlapping each other, while the light filtered by the trees increases in luminosity to blinding. All techniques available for distorted vision are being used in the sequence. In addition, these are combined with images of mental subjectivity, since at some point in the confusion Caesar Flickerman appears in the forest, addressing the camera directly as he does, telling the (non) diegetic audience about the effects of the tracker jacker venom. After this the image goes white. The tracker jacker sequence has claustrophobic qualities since it is directed inwardly, ‘in here’, unlike regular fear that is directed outwardly, the source of danger being “perceived as ‘out there’, in the world” (Solomon 2007, 32). As a result the scene involves being prisoner in one’s own embodied mind, while this has been taken over by an alien being. For Solomon, this is the most horrendous fear, because it is the most intimate, “effecting our most basic abilities to cope […] no longer being able to trust one’s own mind, one’s own judgment, or one’s memory” (33). Later, in Mockingjay Part I, the tracker jacker venom is used very effectively in state-controlled torture. An individual is subjugated to the venom and its effects so thoroughly that he or she is immersed in fear, a process that is referred to as emotional ‘hijacking’. To emulate Elaine Scarry (1985), in extreme fear the self becomes fear itself, so that the individual experiences the contents of his or her consciousness as absent, while the fear expands to fill the individual’s entire existence. In such cases, his or her whole consciousness is nothing but fear—physically, emotionally, psychosomatically—while both the self and the world ‘disappear’. In contrast to claustrophobia, kenophobia is a fear of voids and empty spaces, triggering a feeling of losing the boundaries of self, of being consumed by a vacuum. In visual art this phenomenon is referred to as ‘horror vacui’, and paintings expressing such affective emptiness include “Untitled (Black on Grey)” by Mark Rothko (1970) and “Black Square” by Kazimir

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Malevich. The POV shots from Katniss’ perspective staring into empty space while lying on the ground in the end of Catching Fire might be interpreted in terms of kenophobia. The scene evokes an association with ‘near death experience’ that involves a sense of moving up into a void and/or a sudden immersion in a powerful light. In the first POV the image is mostly dark, with one bright ‘star’ suggesting infinite space until this ‘star’ explodes and changes into crack in the roof of the dome that covers the Game arena, through which a blinding, engulfing white light transpires as a metaphor of death. Next we witness Katniss being lifted into this stream of white light, while in a helpless and catatonic state. It is interesting that Mockingjay Part I—which starts off directly where Catching Fire left off—opens with dark imagery of Katniss audibly comforting herself in a cramped space, as if reclaiming the boundaries of her own self after the earlier experience of kenophobic immersion.

Video Game Aesthetics These examples of ‘cinematic phobia’ as conveyed by film aesthetics rely heavily on perceptual and mental subjectivity, which not only brings about a sense of fear, but also formally links these scenes with first-person shooter gaming. In a first-person view a player moves through the videogame seeing everything as if through the eyes of an avatar, including the peripheral vision of that avatar holding weapons for instance, which enables the player’s more complete immersion in the game world (Isbister 2017, 140). I argue that in addition to inviting narrative identification with Katniss in a ‘traditional’ sense, the use of perceptual subjectivity in The Hunger Games trilogy can equally well be understood in terms of first-person game aesthetics, in which an avatar’s graphical perspective is an integral component of the gameplay. Obviously, objective shots and reaction shots are likewise important in conveying a sense of urgency in the films. But especially the game arena sequences The Hunger Games trilogy have what videogame designers call ‘game feel’ that consists of compelling, immersive visuals, stimulating storyline, and a narrative structure with a right balance of tension and relief (Anable 2018, 44). In these sequences the films noticeably and appropriately take on game-like qualities, which trigger for us the sensation of being ourselves immersed in the dangers of the arena. Such ‘cinema of immersion’ relies on the elicitation of physical, kinaesthetic, and affective responses, so that the spectator “becomes one with the spectacle” experiencing it viscerally as much as visually, as Tim Recuber (2007)

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has argued. According to Recuber, even though immersive, game-like cinema makes the spectators feel as if they are interacting with the film, their only “real choice is to sit back and enjoy, to plug in, and hang on tight”. As a result of the overemphasis on physical experience in immersive cinema the spectators are rendered into passive consumers of visual thrills, preventing any meaningful reflection about the film (324–325). By contrast, I do not think that immersive cinema categorically excludes reflection, insofar as compared to more distancing, less absorbing cinematic forms; it may stimulate imagination, emotions, and thinking. Certain scenes in The Hunger Games immerse us in Katniss’ fear beyond sympathetic identification, which not only enhances the intensity of our cinematic experience, but also strikes us with affect in such a way that it allows us to sense the meaning of her violent ordeal. For instance, the Cornucopia bloodbath sequence in The Hunger Games described above not only embodies the subjective experience of fear, but more generally the horror of being in a killing-or-be-killed situation for the benefit of entertainment of the other. The scene also conveys a novice player’s sense of disorientation, attempting navigation in a first-person shooter game. Like an avatar stuck in place because the player cannot yet coordinate its movements, Katniss too stumbles and falls several times while running in a random direction without coherent perspective (see also Anable 2018, 103). It seems that The Hunger Games is emotionally engaging partly because at times it immerses us in its world so effectively, that we feel as if we were playing the game ourselves. This sense of presence is highly affective and tangible, involving sensory immersion, the experience of flow, and the resulting physiological tension that manifests itself among other things in increased heart rate and electrodermal activity (Drachen et al. 2010, 50). As an example of this I propose the scene in which as part of the game strategy a forest fire is set afire that nearly consumes Katniss, at the moment when she has almost reached the edge of the arena, effectively distancing her by over two kilometers from the nearest other tribute. At the decision of the Gamemakers fireballs are being launched at her, and burning trees drop in front of her in hectic scenes full of explosions and smoke. We experience these game strategies from the first-person perspective, almost as if the fire bursts through the ‘fourth wall’ and emerges on ‘our side’ of the cinema screen. We also share Katniss’ point of view, who has literally become the ‘girl on fire’, as badly injured she stumbles towards safety in the river, where she is immediately discovered by the Career Tributes led by Cato. The sensorial qualities of this scene, starting out with the

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amplified sounds of wildfire even before there are any vision of flames, evoke a synaesthetic experience. The crackling of minor explosions and the hissing noise of flames as they attack nearby trees alert both Katniss and ourselves to the impending danger. At times the extent of the fire consumes the image in its entirety, allowing us to observe its blinding colors and undulating changing shapes in the form of a seeing-feeling experience. Consequently by means of sensory imagination this even results in our smelling the smoke, feeling the heat, and tasting the smoldering ashes in a life-threatening situation, which intensifies the fearful quality of the scene. Another feature of first-person gaming is a sense of flow, which Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) has described as a particularly successful balance between the perceived level of challenge and the skills of the person. Flow is an intensive state, in which one is fully absorbed by an activity, and digital games generally provide excellent opportunity for the experience of flow, since the challenges they present become gradually more demanding, inviting the players to act at the limits of their skills. Furthermore, the experience of flow would seem to be linked to immersion, insofar as the phenomenon of immersion includes the sensation of surrender to a different reality that demands all of one’s attention (Ermi and Mäyrä 2005, 16–19). According to Laura Ermi and Frans Mäyrä, the form of immersion that includes both flow and the sensation of surrender is at the core of digital games. They term this form of immersion “challenge-based” and maintain that it is related to motor skills, such as fast reaction, as well as mental skills, such as strategic thinking (23). An important theme in The Hunger Games trilogy is how Katniss becomes more skillful after facing different challenges that all include overcoming fear, such as the sequence in which she destroys the Career Tributes’ camp in the first instalment of the trilogy. The scene starts with a mobile frame shot with handheld camera, panning and tilting back and forth in a way that is meant to mimic Katniss’ POV, partly obscured by vegetation, as she observes the booby-trapped setting. The movement of the camera embodies cautiousness in a dangerous situation, but also determination to face, instead of to flee, fear. This is why, as soon as the Career Tributes leave the camp lured by a decoy bonfire, Katniss stays put in her observation post, envisioning her strategic options instead of taking direct action. As a result of her keen observation of the setting, her gaze lands on a burlap bag of apples on top of a pile of supplies, which she promptly attempts to slice open with one of her arrows. A close-up of Katniss taking

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a deep breath as she prepares to launch her first arrow demonstrates her overt concentration. Her first attempt is a miss though, and the shot is reminiscent of an earlier scene in which Katniss misses a target in front of the Gamemakers during the skill demonstration session. In order to regain the Gamemakers’ attention, she then fires an arrow directly into their party through an apple in the mouth of a roasted pig. The reference to the Swiss folk hero William Tell is obvious, who according to a fourteenth-century legend was commanded by Albrecht Gessler, the Habsburg bailiff of Altdorf, to shoot an apple off his son’s head with a single arrow from his crossbow. But here apples can also be seen as common objects that link one level of game playing to another. Marsha Kinder (2002) calls such common objects “hot spots” that serve as interface elements, providing entry points from one narrative realm to another (10). The apples function as such hot spots, for not only do they link the demonstration session scene with the destruction of the Career Tributes’ camp, but they also mark Katniss’ development in skill, self-­ control, and concentration. Indeed, the way in which her second attempt at piercing the bag of apples is shot conveys even more intensely a sense of focused attention than the first scene. This is achieved by means of the camera lingering along the length of the arrow to an extreme close-up of her fingers drawing the bowstring. Then the camera gets even closer to her unblinking eyes and to her mouth exhaling deeply. This extreme proximity to Katniss’ facial expression does not only register but magnifies the level of her concentration in a way that directly and immediately impacts the spectator’s emotion, after which the arrow slices open the bag, the apples fall down in slow motion, hitting landmines that blow up the camp in a chain reaction. Katniss gets blown backward through the air and we stay in perceptual subjectivity with her, not only sharing her visual POV of debris flying towards her, but also her aural POV while suffering a momentary noise-induced loss of hearing from exposure to the blast of intense explosions. On the level of sound the scene is reminiscent of the opening of Saving Private Ryan (1998), in which we share the aural POV of Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), consisting of distorted bits and pieces of outside sound, drowned by the ocean roar as from a seashell pressed to one’s ear and resulting in a sense of being enclosed in one’s own self, one’s own fear, within a combat stress situation. In addition, the scene is similar to the earlier dream sequence depicting the mine explosion in which Katniss’ father lost his life, which links her experience in the game arena to her earlier trauma. The whole sequence at the Career Tributes’ camp is

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shot almost exclusively from Katniss’ POV, complemented by reaction shots of her. As a result of this POV/reaction shot structure the scene feels as if we were participating in her strategic game, which involves motor skills, such as strength, coordination, and stability, as well as mental skills of intense concentration and clarity of mind in a fearful situation. The third building block in the notion of game presence is physiological tension, observable by increased heart rate and electrodermal activity among others. Similarly, the physiological dimension of fear is often a clearly localizable bodily sensation and includes a restrictive feeling in the throat, tension on the chest, sweating, as well as heart palpitations. These sensations are instilled by awareness of danger (Garfinkel and Critchley 2014, 111), and can be labeled as ‘visceral’. Or, in the words of Jennifer Barker (2009), they are part of “the murky and mysterious” connection between “the viscera of the spectator and the cinema, whose vital organs share a remarkable capacity for [emotional] expression and perception” (120). Within Film Studies the notion of ‘cinematic body’ has gained ever-increasing recognition in recent decades. Pioneered by Vivian Sobchack (2004), this notion considers cinema as an expression of experience by experience, a signifying, intentional structure that engages the spectators from within its own embodied presence. According to Sobchack, this means that films make themselves affectively felt and reflectively known through a reciprocal ground where the cinematic expression and the spectator encounter each other as lived bodies: Reciprocating the figurally literal representations of bodies and worldly things in the cinema, the spectator’s lived body in the film experience engages in the form of sensual catachresis. That is, it fills in the gap in its sensual grasp of the figural world onscreen by turning back on itself to reciprocally (albeit not sufficiently) ‘flesh it out’ into literal physicalized sense. It is this same reciprocal relationship between the figural and literal that emerges also in our linguistic descriptions of the film experience. (82)

Barker (2009) complements this view by arguing that, if cinema can be said to have a body, it can be said to have viscera too (126). Different cinematic elements can be seen as corresponding with distinctive bodily functions such as heartbeat (rhythm), breathing (tension), and shaking (movement), which in turn are sources for physiological symptoms of emotions such as tense breathing, increased heart rate, and trembling of the body in fear. Already in 1960, Siegfried Kracauer (1997) wrote about

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a “resonance effect” between the spectator and cinema, which provokes visceral bodily responses such as “muscular reflexes, motor impulses or the like” and causes “a stir in deep bodily layers”. He concluded that in cinema, “it is our sense organs which are called into play” (158). In the cinematic experience, our body attunes to resonant aesthetic elements. This increases the sense of presence in the cinematic world in a way that is similar to the experience of submitting to a videogame, to its norms, permitted movements and actions, as well as spatial and temporal boundaries (Yacavone 2015, 232). We find an example of such visceral aesthetic resonance in the Cornucopia feast scene, when it stirs our bodily layers by means of jarring music, rapidly shifting camera angles, shaky cinematography, dynamic editing, and abrupt, violent action. The narrative motivation of this sequence is to induce another bloodbath in the game arena by providing the tributes with items that they desperately need. Its opening is similar to the earlier scene with Katniss destroying the Career Tributes’ camp, with POV shots scanning the situation, while she lies in the wait. However, this time she puts aside caution and swiftly makes her way toward the backpacks containing the precious items. The music in the sequence is deeply layered, consisting of the basic metric sound of a drum that is coated by other sounds—clinging, whirring—the rhythmic progression of which is irregular and dynamic. At some point when a dagger is thrown at Katniss, there is a loud bang of the drum, enacting the feeling of one’s heart skipping a beat when startled. A rapidly edited fighting scene follows with highly mobile handheld camera footage constantly changing angles, paced by fast-beating drums, pronounced grunting sounds of the fighters, and the sound of blades stabbing into the ground. The fighting ends abruptly as if the fighters have run out of breath, and the rhythm of the sequence slows down, even though its affective intensity remains the same. This sequence undeniably forces upon its spectators physiological reactions regarding pulse, respiratory rate, and muscular action, as a form of fight-or-flight response. Our emotional reaction to the scenes as described above could be explained through the process of character engagement, as put forward by Richard Allen (1995), starting from Richard Wollheim’s notions of centered and a-centered imagination. In the distinction between these two modes of spectatorship, a-centered imagination is defined as feeling sympathy toward an admirable character without adopting the emotions of this character as one’s own (128). In the Cornucopia bloodbath scene for example, an a-centered spectator might feel concern for Katniss without

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necessarily sharing her fear in the life-threatening situation. By contrast, in centered imagination the emotion of the spectator is analogous to the character’s emotion, so that they actually fear with Katniss as she barely escapes the bloodbath scene alive. However, our sense of presence in these scenes causes us to feel fear much more directly than would be explained through character engagement only. Our fear emerges as an immediate visceral response to being immersed in the film world by means of cinematic aesthetics. As I hope to have shown in the above examples, not only do these aesthetic elements allow us to inhabit a point of view in the story, but they also enable, and to some extent force us to be immersed in the world created by the film, in contrast to our merely undergoing a watching experience from a relative emotional distance. In this connection, Thomas Elsaesser (2012) writes that cinematic experiences like these are typified quite differently, with metaphors centered on space, on embodiment, on sensation rather than visual perception, all guided by variables other than those rigid Euclidean categories of the cinematic apparatus. […] Rather than as singular spectator being seated ‘in front’ of a picture window screen, [cinema] manifests itself as a space to inhabit rather than to be scanned, scrutinized or looked at; it is experienced as a […] total perceptual surface. (313)

Similarly, Daniel Yacavone (2015) describes cinema as a world that possesses pronounced sensory, symbolic, and affective dimensions. It provides ‘virtual’ and actual experiences that are at once cognitive and immersive and ‘sensuous’. Both the creation and experiencing film worlds are marked by complex and world-constitutive dynamics of transformation and immersion [that are] mutually reinforcing. (xiv)

This means that, in contrast to films that invite spectator engagement through centered and a-centered imagination, The Hunger Games trilogy allows the spectators to experience the fearful scenes without a safe distance, immersing them in a deeper sense of presence within action that is experienced as drawing closer. Furthermore, in addition to its world-­ constitutive aesthetics, The Hunger Games also shares strategies with first-­ person shooter games. It provides immersive experiences through perceptual subjectivity by which the spectator seemingly participates in the game arena. The way in which certain scenes combine the abundance of

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visual and aural POVs with sensory excess, feeling of flow, and physiological tension enhances the sense of presence. This enables us to feel Katniss’ fear beyond sympathetic identification, which calls forth the intensity of the experience. Potentially this also enhances our ethical involvement with the film insofar as a lived sense of “significant affection” lies at the heart of any moral stance, as Sobchack (2004) has argued (178). The sheer brutality of an experience can render fear traumatic though, and by consequence an individual’s mind “gets locked into a certain kind of response, given even the most minimal stimulus” (Solomon 2007, 34). According to Solomon, too much fear seems to take everything as its object, gaining in scope and spreading over all aspects of experience until it affects all things that a person does (42). This is why, as a response to Gale’s question of whether she loves him, Katniss replies: “All I can think about every day since the reaping is how afraid I am; there is no room for anything else.” There is also the ‘eternal return’ of the original traumatic event as the third Quarter Quell is being announced in Catching Fire. Katniss initial reaction to this announcement is pure, naked horror. Yet a significant shift or a change of affective orientation seems to take place in the scene. Before this moment, Katniss’ fear has mostly been self-directed, her main concern being her own survival, but now it is Peeta’s survival that matters most. This means that even though the quality of Katniss’ fear does not change, its intentionality or ‘directedness’ shifts from self-­ directed to other-directed, which is fundamental to her ethical responsibility for him.

Fear for the Other The striking use of perceptual subjectivity in The Hunger Games increases our emotional involvement, directing our attention to the importance of fear for personal survival. But in Catching Fire there is a shift toward fear for the other as a motivation for ethical action. The second Cornucopia bloodbath scene in Catching Fire is a case in point. Its immersive qualities evoked by means of perceptual subjectivity are similar to the Cornucopia scene in The Hunger Games, but the intentionality or the aboutness of fear that the scene embodies is different. Whereas the first Cornucopia scene revolved around self-directed survival, the second one pivots around survival of the other. As in The Hunger Games, the Cornucopia scene in Catching Fire starts off with a blinding light that conveys a sense of terror, but the circular panning shots that rapidly scan the hostile environment

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mimic Katniss’ concern for Peeta instead of for herself. The circularity of the camera movement might even be interpreted in terms of Katniss’ circle of concern that has expanded to include Peeta (and to a certain extent Mags, Beetee, and Wiress as well). Then a racking focus forcefully draws our attention to a bow and arrow at the other end of the watery wedge that Katniss needs to cross, signifying the necessity of this item for their mutual survival. In this scene water functions as an element of immersion that becomes an “enveloping and breathtaking experience”, in Adriano D’Aloia’s description (2012). He discusses the function of water in cinema as an element that “enwaters” the spectators in an immersive and fluid experience (88). The underwater scenes in the second Cornucopia sequence are indeed breathtaking, cutting hastily between stable shots looking up from underneath the water and unstable shots from a swimmer’s perspective, with water drowning the image as it were. At some point an unidentified drowned body pops up and floats on water for a few moments before Peeta surfaces and forcefully gasps for breath to Katniss’ relief. Therefore, in the second Cornucopia bloodbath scene not only does water function as an element that increases suspense, but it also immerses the spectator into a sensorial space that encapsulates tension between subjective fear of drowning (for oneself) and an objective equivalent (for the other). Peeta’s television broadcasting is also a case in point, demonstrating how forcefully one can fear for the other in the sense of having unsolicited responsibility for the other in Levinasian spirit. Thus, one’s concern and fear for the other person becomes one’s responsibility for the vulnerability of the other. For Emmanuel Levinas, this ethical demand of each individual’s responsibility for the other is expressed in and through encountering the human face, by which one is uniquely summoned. However, as Sarah Cooper (2006) points out, the Levinasian transcendental face or visage should not be confused with an actual, phenomenological face even though such confusion can be helpful in understanding the ethical dimension in a ‘face-to-face’ encounter with the other. Cooper speaks of tension between face and visage through which a “space of responsibility” emerges between facial perception and ethical demand (23). I argue that such conflict is present in the broadcasts with Peeta, which only Katniss seems to be able to detect, and which actually prompts her to fulfill her responsibility as the Mockingjay. In the broadcasts, the tightly framed face of Peeta becomes an intersection between deceptive face and authentic visage. This

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evokes Katniss’ fear for the death of other, which in turn becomes the source of her ethical responsibility. In the first broadcast Peeta is neatly dressed in white, symbolizing both death and innocence, in addition to evoking the association with President Snow, whose white roses are prominently in the picture on a side table. A soft shadow is cast on the right side of his face when he calmly reminisces about the events of the Quarter Quell, an expression of nonchalance in his half-closed eyes. With a trace of condescension, Peeta then addresses the camera directly and severely, provoking outrage in District 13. Somehow his authentic visage cuts through this masquerade though, prompting Katniss to extend her responsibility for Peeta to others in the rebellion. In the second broadcast, the earlier condescension is replaced by vulnerability that is conveyed by the stiffness of Peeta’s body, the trembling of his lower lip, and the desperate look in his teary eyes. The lighting of the second broadcast is harsher, mercilessly revealing the dark circles under his eyes and the worry wrinkles in his pale forehead. The shiny, metallic tie that Peeta is sporting has the shape of a spearhead, literally and metaphorically held at his throat. In the third broadcast we see an extreme close-up of Peeta’s face that appears heavily pixelated on screen, and it is as if his authentic visage bursts through the gaps between the pixels to give District 13 a warning of the approaching hovercrafts. Mockingjay Part I ends with fear-conditioned Peeta attacking Katniss after being rescued from the Capitol. In this scene, the circular camera movement brings Katniss face-to-face with Peeta, seen with his back toward the camera at first. Camera continues its circular movement, while badly beaten Peeta slowly turns his head into profile to the right across the field of view. An over-the-shoulder shot reveals Peeta’s expression as he is facing Katniss. His face expresses hatred , but an unsuspecting spectator might interpret it as some other emotion, just like Katniss does. The soft piano music on the soundtrack functions as an unreliable narrator in this scene, enhancing the narrative expectation of the lovers’ encounter, so that the ensuing violent attack from Katniss’ POV might be experienced as Peeta directly attacking the spectator within the cinematic event. The following two-shot further reinforces the violent effect of the scene, demonstrating the force by which Peeta grasps Katniss’ throat, ferociously dragging her along onto the floor and strangling her, until Boggs knocks Peeta unconscious and the image goes black. The final shot of Mockingjay Part I shows Peeta tied down to a hospital bed in a clinical, futuristic setting, fiercely struggling against some invisible enemies, with horrified

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Katniss witnessing the scene reflected in a window, as if her face were superimposed on the image (Fig. 2.2). This final shot is simultaneously a close-up of Katniss and a POV from her perspective, perhaps conveying her being torn between fear for the other and fear for oneself. Levinas (1989) stresses that these two forms of fear are strictly separated: “Fear for the other, fear for the death of the other man is my fear, but it is in no way a fear for oneself, [it] does not turn back into anguish for my death, but extends beyond [myself]; there is ethical awareness and vigilance in this emotional unease” (84). The final shot of Mockingjay Part I can thus be interpreted as such emotional unease, but it is also an extreme example of the Capitol’s biopower that has ‘hijacked’ Peeta emotionally with a combination of torture and tracker jacker venom, which has put him in a dissociative state and stripped down his identity.

Technologies of Fear What happens to Peeta can be seen as an allegory for state governance that uses fear as the technology of its power. In his book Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault (1995) used this concept to illustrate the way in which disciplinary societies exercise control by subjugating their citizens to asymmetrical surveillance and by consequently provoking citizens to monitor and police themselves for fear of punishment. In Mockingjay Part I there is a scene in which President Snow addresses the people of Panem through

Fig. 2.2  Mockingjay Part I: A reflection superimposes Katniss’ face on her POV of Peeta. (Screen capture)

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public screens, referring to the Districts as bodily organs that supply the Capitol before ordering the Peacekeepers to shoot the Districts’ rebels to death in a public execution: “Each District supplies the Capitol, like blood to a heart. In return, the Capitol provides order and security.” Snow’s ‘contract’ with the Districts faithfully echoes the Hobbesian argument that fear effectively motivates the citizens to cede their public freedoms in exchange of security and order imposed by a strong sovereign. In this system, the sovereign has to convince the citizens of the proper object of fear (the rebels) in order to justify their political agenda by staging events that magnify certain phenomena and diminishes others (Svendsen 2008, 107). The execution scene starts with an extreme long shot of the ceremonial space that shows striking similarity to the interior of the Oval Office, shot with a fish-eye lens. The ornamental decoration that includes marble walls, classical paintings, and a majestic chandelier evoke a sense of grandeur, but there are also visual nods to Nazi aesthetics such as the silhouetted golden eagle surrounded by a wreath against the red background that clearly refers to the Parteiadler of the National Socialist Party. The other people in the room—the family and Snow’s adjutants—stand near the walls, framing Snow as a center of power in a space where all perspectival lines point directly toward him. The interior shots are crosscut with exterior shots from the Districts, where the Peacekeepers gather people in front of an enormous screen mounted on the façade of the Hall of Justice in each District. The image composition from low angle centralizes Snow’s face in a way that enables him to address the spectators directly from the diegetic world as it were. Other shots are from within the crowds with all eyes directed toward the screen, while the Peacekeepers, standing on runways surrounding the town square, keep guard. At the exact moment when Snow’s address gets more menacing in tone the sound of thunder can be heard, and the scene is cut to an extreme long shot facing the crowd from a stage where some rebels, heads covered by cloth sacks, wait their execution. A graphic match with two Peacekeepers from different Districts lifting their weapons at the exact same moment emphasizes the efficiency of the operation, while the scene of the execution itself is only shown through a reflection on a Peacekeeper’s visor, a futuristic equivalent of the executioner’s black hood. Essential to Snow’s fearmongering is the way in which it is displayed to Panem’s citizens, and the trilogy constantly foregrounds in the mise-enscène Snow’s acts of state terrorism through their dissemination via public

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screens. These enormous screens, prominent in and as the films’ setting, function as what Hannah Arendt (1958) termed the “public realm”, which does not need to be tied to physical locations but to “spaces of appearance” (198), which are vulnerable to censorship, power, and tyrannical control. Following Arendt, Dave Colangelo (2020) argues that through the proliferation of media in public space via monumental displays, such forms of control can become embedded in spaces of appearance, shaping the public sphere (20–22). This visual technology of fear encompassing both private and public spaces was already imagined by George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) as the operational technology of a totalitarian regime headed by ‘Big Brother’. Foucault called this technology panopticism. Panopticism creates the illusion of constant external surveillance, thereby enabling effective fearmongering, as well as disciplining and punishing of human bodies in a normalizing discourse. In The Hunger Games trilogy, the Games themselves are designed according to this panoptic logic, not only providing entertainment for the Capitol but also functioning as visual technology of fear. In this sense The Hunger Games trilogy offers a ‘reboot’ of Foucault’s panopticism, regardless of the apparent incompatibility of this notion with current technologies of digital surveillance, insofar as the trilogy presents its essence as a structural, omnipresent, and harmful modality of power.

From Fear to Hope The above shows that the world of Panem is a world in which the Capitol’s power is visibly omnipresent, and there is no way that its inhabitants can act free of its constraints. The Peacekeepers’ apparel for instance, including shining white armor and black leather accessories, does not only symbolize authority, but it also functions as a highly noticeable reminder of the Capitol’s totalitarian power. The pervasive and constant, but anonymous visibility of the Peacekeepers suggests that Panem’s inhabitants are being scrutinized at all times. While the omnipresent, enormous public screens suggest a situation designed to ensure surveillance that is both wide-ranging and selective, the Peacekeepers also function as a visible reminder of an all-pervading, panoptic gaze. In the scene of the reaping the Peacekeepers stand guard on a footbridge, while people respond to the call of the sirens that orders them to gather in the town square. The image composition that centralizes one booted foot resting on the paving above people’s heads powerfully conveys the conditions of life under the

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yoke of tyranny and oppression. A bird’s-eye view of the reaping, as well as the shots of the omnipresent, enormous screens and monitors do not only suggest a situation that is designed to ensure surveillance that is both wide-ranging and selective, but they also function as visible reminders of all-pervading, Panoptic gaze. As mentioned above, screens are omnipresent in Panem, and function as important props throughout The Hunger Games trilogy as media for sowing fear by broadcasting public executions and other acts of state terrorism to the whole population. Even their physical bodies are shaped for controlling and observing purposes, as one drop of blood contains an individual’s entire personal file. The blood samples are taken by anonymous Peacekeepers—it is only their black gloves that we see in the frame—and the whole reaping scene, complete with a propaganda film in the style of Leni Riefenstahl, is reminiscent of the registering of Jews for deportation in Nazi Germany. In addition to the Peacemakers, the figure of Snow himself is an epitome of panoptic power, his towering televisual presence powerfully captured in the two teasers for Mockingjay Part I. These teasers take the form of propaganda videos in which Snow smoothly addresses Panem while seated on a gleaming white throne, as words like ‘unity’ and ‘prosperity’ appear on an all-white background. The teasers start similarly to the opening credits of a classic film studio, with a sweeping camera ride on top of some architectural construction with a majestic mountain range on the background. Accompanied by bombastic music, the camera spirals upward and the construction transforms into the golden eagle logo, which precedes all the propaganda announcements of the Capitol. In the first teaser President Snow is brought into the picture in profile to the melody of an upbeat country song, while the camera makes a slow circular movement, revealing a figure dressed in white beside him. As the camera tracks backward, we witness that the figure next to Snow is the brainwashed Peeta, looking off into the distance as Snow issues a warning to all rebels. The effect of this teaser is chilling insofar as it is designed to render both the diegetic and the non-diegetic spectators preoccupied with the safety and well-being of the other. John Thornton Caldwell calls “televisuality” of this kind “epic” and links it to authority and power. By exploiting its ability to distort truth through an excessive visual style and imposing, persuasive utterances, epic televisuality is an instrument that programs real-world authority and cultural hegemony (Caldwell 1995, 191). In The Hunger Games trilogy, epic televisuality functions as a visual technology of fear that

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extends into people’s homes, blurring the line between private and public through its mandatory newsflashes. The setting of the second teaser is similarly all-white, but it starts with an extreme long shot of scenery organized in a perspectival manner, with President Snow centrally positioned as the ‘vanishing point’. Four rows of armed Peacekeepers stand in diagonal lines that function as orthogonals receding toward this vanishing point, while camera is drawn toward Snow as if pulled by a gravitational force. Not only Peeta but also Johanna stand next to Snow as bound together in ‘solidarity’. However, before long this very broadcast is hacked, its visuals and sounds distorted and turned into a pirate transmission, which announces The Mockingjay’s survival before the image goes black. This meddling with the second teaser shows that technologies of fear can be harnessed as practices of hope, which opens up possibilities of freedom and ethical sharing of meaning. John Downing (2001) calls this form of technology “rebellious communication”, which not only confronts established political institutions, but also challenges the way in which information is produced (99). Rebellious communication operates collectively, not hierarchically, forming networks of groups that become a social movement, such as the rebellious Districts in The Hunger Games trilogy. They produce ‘propos’ (propaganda messages) as part of the Airtime Assault on the Capitol, which they transmit after hacking the signal defense that protects the Capitol’s broadcasting system. Some of these propos are produced by a crew known as Squad 451, filming highly emotional Katniss as she visits Districts that have been destroyed in the Capitol’s bombings. It is interesting that the members of the Squad, its name being a direct reference to the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury, have cameras built into their body armor as prosthetic, physical media extensions of the self. This idea of prosthesis was already part of Marshall McLuhan’s seminal text Understanding Media (1964), in which he used the concept to explain media’s function as an extension of oneself (7). That Squad 451’s cameras can be seen as extensions of the self is significant, as it demonstrates how the body and its emotions facilitate both media production and political activism. Thus, the body itself becomes the site for political struggle both within (cameras as body armor) and without (the visible, affective body of Katniss). One shooting session with Squad 451 takes place in the destroyed District 12, after Katniss’ realization that nobody has seen it after the Capitol’s bombings. In this sequence Katniss visits the ruins of the District while Gale narrates what had happened at the exact same locations on the

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last night of the Quarter Quells. Accompanied by a lonely violin, Gale continues his narration while the camera cranes all the way up to an extreme long shot revealing the destruction in its entirety. The juxtaposition between Gale’s narration and the scenery with the ruins creates a “dialogue between the said and the shown” (386) in Michel Chion’s (2009) definition. On the one hand, the sequence is an example of what Chion calls “counterpoint”, which occurs when something is shown (the ruins) while something else—neither the opposite nor in conflict with what is shown—is on the soundtrack. The sequence in the ruins of District 12 narrated by Gale confronts the said with the shown, the past with the present, exposing their incommensurability while allowing a current to pass between them (391–393). On the other hand, the sequence is an example of ‘contradiction’ between the said and the shown, in which the image is called forth by the voice, while the screen does not explicitly show what the words evoke. Such contradiction can be found in Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985) for instance, where it “gives a particular density and gravity to what is spoken; it creates a specific real time, that of the storytelling accompanied only by our own individual mental imagery” (401). In the scene in which Gale narrates the destruction of District 12, the camera captures the visible present while the voice brings this present into contact with the invisible past that cannot be represented. The contradiction between the image and the voice thus performs the function of recollection, which encourages the diegetic as well as the non-diegetic spectators to ‘remember’ the past of District 12, in a way that provides a basis for political uprising. At the same time the scene is an example of terror (in the past) seen from afar (in the present), which in the words of Susan Sontag (2003), “destroys what identifies people as individuals, even as human beings” (41). Sontag puts the question of what it means to represent and to look at images of real horror, arguing that the only people with a right to witness suffering of an extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate it (42). Even though Mockingjay Part I is a work of popular fiction with no authentic historical context, in its own way it poses the same questions that Sontag, Lanzmann, and many others have asked with regard to the (un)representability of atrocities. By having Gale recount in words the horrors of the destruction without flashbacks for instance, the scene aims at counteracting time and seeks to resurrect the event without reducing it into a spectacle of suffering.

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Practices of Hacking The footage that is garnered in this way by Squad 451 is then intertwined with and superimposed on the Capitol’s newsflashes, after its mass communication medium has been hacked into. This involves Beetee trying to find a weakness in the signal defense mechanism, which he himself had designed. On his computer screen this defense mechanism has a panoptic form, with a circle in the middle surrounded by wedges, closely resembling the symbol of an all-seeing eye surrounded by rays of light, observing everything. At the same time, the rebels of District 5 physically attack and disable a huge hydroelectric dam, thereby limiting the range of frequencies available for the Capitol broadcasting. The juxtaposition between Beetee’s ‘virtual’ and the rebels’ ‘actual’ endeavors lends the hacking scene a heroic aspect. Accompanied by the “Hanging Tree” ballad, which transforms from a diegetic, univocal song to a non-diegetic, multivocal cry for rebellion, the rebels are shown emerging as if from below the image horizon, marching in a unified front to the rhythm of the song toward the lights of the fortress-like dam, glowing in the darkness. The launch of the offensive is shot from the perspective of the Peacekeepers, prepared to fire on the rebels, who swiftly and with determination emerge from behind the watery wall. After a short scene of violence in which the Peacekeepers are defeated, explosives are planted, and the dam gets blown up in a spectacular explosion, followed by total darkness in the Capitol. The destruction of the dam and the ensuing blackout enables Beetee to interrupt the Capitol’s broadcasting with a propo that functions as noise to both literally and figuratively jam the Capitol’s signal defense. As a sonic phenomenon, noise is typically conceived as a communication system’s residue, a disorderly, chaotic sound in comparison to more orderly and meaningful modes of expression, such as language or music (Goddard et al. 2012, 2). However, it is precisely that residual aspect of noise that renders it a productive, subversive, and potentially ethical means of creating and sharing alternative experiences. In comparison, even though Foucault is suspicious of individuals as agents of resistance against the constellations of power, he nevertheless acknowledges within them a “residual power” that allows them the possibility to resist the consolidation of power in systems of governance (Conway 1999, 68). In The Hunger Games trilogy, hacking is portrayed as an ethical act of resistance precisely because hackers have residual power to interrupt and interfere with formal governing politics. Within this context, Gabriella Coleman

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(2015) writes of hackers as significant technological users operating as political actors, who use hacking as legitimate dissent tactics against state power. Instead of conceiving of hacking as the transgressive practice of malicious computer geeks and trolls, she approaches the phenomenon as a demonstration of dissent toward the establishment by “reordering the technologies and infrastructures that have become part of the fabric of everyday life” in order to politicize “actors to engage in actions outside of the technological realm” (515). In The Hunger Games trilogy, the practice of hacking functions as a defiant interference against the pathological fearmongering of authoritarianism and gives the citizens of Panem hope. In this process, the dividing line between ‘objects of information’ and ‘subjects in communication’ in the panoptic system becomes increasingly blurred, giving rise to hope for potential change. This central theme, the opposition of fear and hope, is already established in the first instalment of the trilogy, in the scene with Snow explaining the purpose of the Games to Seneca Crane while tending his emblematic white roses: Hope, it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained. (President Snow in The Hunger Games)

This thematic opposition is also represented in the technological ‘moves and countermoves’ that manifest themselves as the game unfolds, both on the micro level of the game arena, and the macro level of the battle between the Capitol and the Districts. This is evident in the scene in which the third mandatory newsflash with physically and emotionally tortured Peeta addresses Katniss directly: How will this end? What will be left? No one can survive this. No one is safe now. Not here in the Capitol. Not in any of the Districts. (Peeta in Mockingjay Part I)

But this discourse is hijacked and mixed with subversive footage of Katniss in the ruins of District 12, singing the “Hanging Tree” song as an emotional rallying cry for rebellion. Aesthetically, this hijacking is represented by pixelated dissolves between the Capitol’s footage and the rebels’ footage, elucidating visually the way in which the rebellion literally takes place on the airwaves by means of counter-technologies that enable unruly

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interaction with hegemonic technologies. The pixels ‘pollinate’ the image with the rebel message as it were, thereby making visible the normally invisible computational practices of hacking (Fig.  2.3). Furthermore, while the newsflash with Peeta is saturated with fear, his body visibly shriveled and confined within itself by (anticipation of more) pain, the “Hanging Tree” footage is imbued with hope that is directed toward the outside world, toward what is possible. For Sara Ahmed (2004), hope as an expression of transformative politics is crucial to the act of protest, since it allows one to feel that unjust state of affairs is not inevitable even though transformation may seem impossible (184–187). The hacking scene shows that in all systems of transmission, the flow of communication can run both ways and political resistance can be enacted. Political resistance of this kind has been attributed to the rise of new communication technologies, but as John Michael Roberts (2014) points out, these technologies also run the risk of re-transforming the subjects into objects of communication as soon as they become established (7). Indeed, the ending of The Hunger Games trilogy suggests that as soon as resistance becomes the new establishment, the media conforms, and the only means of defiance that can be realized is through individual action, such as by Katniss from outside of the establishment. Hers is a strategy of angrily reasserting her idiosyncrasy, doing what is least expected of her in the panoptic system, despite still residing within that system. The ending of the trilogy corresponds with the Foucauldian insight that subjective agency’s individualist paradigm remains subservient to collective, normalizing

Fig. 2.3  Mockingjay Part I: The hackers’ signal pollinates Capitol propaganda. (Screen capture)

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disciplines, as in the end Katniss is exiled to District 12, separated from the panoptic gaze, but also separated from the means to resist its power. Of course, her anonymity from that gaze is possible within a very limited space, and as soon as she leaves that space, she re-appears in the panoptic matrix. In this context, Kevin Haggerty and Richard Ericson (2000) speak of the “disappearance of disappearance”, the current impossibility of anonymous existence outside technologies of surveillance (620). Thus, the final, happy scenes of Mockingjay Part II that show Katniss serenely enjoying her family in the middle of nature are strangely disappointing, pessimistic even, since they imply that individual resistance to mechanisms of panoptic power is but an illusory ideal. Nevertheless, it is still the one ideal ethically worth striving for.

References Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge. Allen, Richard. 1995. Projecting Illusion: Film Spectatorship and the Impression of Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anable, Aubrey. 2018. Playing with Feelings: Video Games and Affect. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Barker, Jennifer M. 2009. The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bradbury, Ray. 1953. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine Books. Caldwell, John Thornton. 1995. Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Chion, Michel. 2009. Film, a Sound Art. Trans. Claudia Gorbman. New  York: Columbia University Press. Cohen, Richard A. 2006. Levinas: Thinking Least About Death: Contra Heidegger. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 60 (1–3): 21–39. Colangelo, Dave. 2020. The Building as Screen: A History, Theory, and Practice of Massive Media. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Coleman, Gabriella. 2015. Hacker Politics and Publics. Public Culture 23 (3): 511–516. Conway, Daniel W. 1999. Pas de deux: Habermas and Foucault in Genealogical Communication. In Foucault Contra Habermas: Recasting the Dialogue between Genealogy and Critical Theory, ed. Samantha Ashenden and David Owen, 60–89. Newbury Park: Sage. Cooper, Sarah. 2006. Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French Documentary. London: Legenda.

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Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial. D’Aloia, Adriano. 2012. Film in Depth. Water and Immersivity in the Contemporary Film Experience. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae: Film and Media Studies: 87–106. Downing, John D.H. 2001. Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Newbury Park: Sage. Drachen, Anders, Lennart E. Nacke, Georgios Yannakakis, and Anja Lee Pedersen. 2010. Correlation Between Heart Rate, Electrodermal Activity and Player Experience in First-Person Shooter Games. Association for Computing Machinery: 49–54. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2012. The Persistence of Hollywood. New York: Routledge. Ermi, Laura, and Frans Mäyrä. 2005. Fundamental Components of the Gameplay Experience: Analysing Immersion. In Changing Views: Worlds in Play. Selected Papers of the 2005 Digital Games Research Association’s Second International Conference, ed. Suzanne de Castell and Jennifer Jenson, 15–27. Digra: Vancouver. Filipovic, Zlatan. 2011. Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas: ‘After You, Sir!’. Moderna Språk 105 (1): 58–73. Frijda, Nico. 1986. The Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garfinkel, Sarah N., and Hugo D.  Critchley. 2014. Neural Correlates of Fear: Insights from Neuroimaging. Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics 3: 111–125. Goddard, Michael, Benjamin Halligan, and Paul Hegarty. 2012. Introduction. In Reverberations; The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Politics of Noise, ed. Michael Goddard, Benjamin Halligan, and Paul Hegarty, 1–11. New York: Continuum. Goud, Nelson G. 2005. Courage: Its Nature and Development. Journal of Humanistic Counselling, Education, and Development 44: 102–116. Haggerty, Kevin D., and Richard Ericson. 2000. The Surveillant Assemblage. British Journal of Sociology 51 (4): 605–622. Isbister, Katherine. 2017. How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. Cambridge: MIT Press. Kinder, Marsha M. 2002. Hot Spots, Avatars, and Narrative Fields Forever: Buñuel’s Legacy for New Digital Media and Interactive Database Narrative. Film Quarterly 55 (4): 2–15. Kracauer, Siegfried. 1997. The Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kulezic-Wilson, Danijela. 2008. A Musical Approach to Filmmaking: Hip-hop and Techno Composing Techniques and Models of Structuring in Darren Aronofsky’s π. Music and the Moving Image 1 (1): 19–34. Laine, Tarja. 2011. Feeling Cinema: Emotional Dynamics in Film Studies. New York: Continuum. Leighton, Stephen. 1988. Aristotle’s Courageous Passions. Phronesis 33 (1): 76–99.

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Levinas, Emmanuel. 1984. Ethics and Infinity. Cross Currents 34 (2): 191–203. ———. 1989. Ethics as First Philosophy. Trans. Sean Hand and Michael Temple. In The Levinas Reader. Ed. Sean Hand, 75–87. Oxford: Blackwell. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press. Orwell, George. 2001/1949. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New  York: Harper Perennial Classics. Prinz, Jesse J. 2004. Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Recuber, Tim. 2007. Immersion Cinema: The Rationalization and Reenchantment of Cinematic Space. Space and Culture 10 (1): 315–330. Roberts, John Michael. 2014. New Media and Public Activism. In Neoliberalism, the State, and Radical Protest in the Public Sphere. Bristol: Policy Press. Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain: The Making and the Unmaking of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, Murray. 1999. Imagining from the Inside. In Film Theory and Philosophy, ed. Richard Allen and Murray Smith, 412–430. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sobchack, Vivian. 2004. Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Solomon, Robert C. 2007. True to Our Feelings: What Our Emotions Are Really Telling Us. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New  York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Svendsen, Lars. 2008. A Philosophy of Fear. London: Reaktion Books. Vuilleumier, Patrik. 2005. Staring Fear in the Face. Nature 433: 22–23. Yacavone, Daniel. 2015. Film Worlds: A Philosophical Aesthetics of Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Anger and Generosity

The Ethics of Anger But that anger, that anger-driven defiance, that’s what we want. (Plutarch Heavensbee in Mockingjay Part I)

With the above quotation from Mockingjay Part I, Plutarch Heavensbee illustrates the idea that emotional energy can be expressed and communicated by means of direct engagement with affect embodied in a film. For the rebels’ propaganda films ‘anger-driven defiance’ as an aesthetic force is necessary, without which their so-called propos would be hollow and lifeless. This is evident from the first propo, shot in the safety of a studio setting, as it lacks the intensity of anger, which would otherwise include an urgent, explosive, and forceful outward impulse, as well as the experience of being ‘taken by’ this ‘hot’ emotion. By contrast, the second propo, shot on location in the midst of the burning flames of the destroyed makeshift hospital in District 8, produces anger within and through the work, with the heat of the scene drawing the spectator in through a process of what Jill Bennett (2005) describes as “affect contagion” (36). As contagious as this emotion can be, from an ethical point of view anger is more often than not seen as an obstacle to moral thinking and as one of the seven deadly sins on the one hand. As Robert Solomon (2007) writes, anger

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is demonized by the ancient Stoics, rejected by the Buddhists as among the worst ‘agitations’, and has an awkward place at best in the Christian tradition. […] Thus it is against anger that the entire army of historical wisdom, from the Buddha and the Stoics to the latest book on ‘emotional intelligence’, is arrayed. (13)

On the other hand, in his Ethics Aristotle himself insists that the inability to get angry in an appropriate situation is a vice as well. In the thinking of Aristotle, a virtuous person must be capable of getting angry at the wrong things and with the wrong people, which means that anger must be understood in moral terms. Anger will be more than an individual’s reaction against, say, an insult, insofar as it turns into a collectively shared sentiment that serves to bind people together in a communal feeling directed against wrongdoing, for instance discrimination. This is why, in her Upheavals of Thought, Martha Nussbaum (2001) tells us that “anger is sometimes justified and right. It is an appropriate response to injustice and serious wrongdoing. Indeed, extirpating anger would extirpate a major force for social justice and the defense of the oppressed” (394). In her later book Anger and Forgiveness (2016), Nussbaum modifies her position though, arguing that anger is always normatively problematic, since conceptually it not only includes the notion of injustice and serious wrongdoing, but also “the idea that it would be a good thing if the wrongdoer suffered some bad consequences somehow” (5). For Nussbaum, anger is normatively problematic, as it always contains an element of payback, which renders anger into an ambivalent emotion, involving both pain from the wrongdoing and pleasure from the suffering of the perpetrator (17; 35). This implies that payback, imagined or not, somehow cancels out (emotional) pain and compensates for the wrongdoing, which explains why we sometimes experience “intense aesthetic pleasure [in fictional] narratives in which the [wrongdoer] suffers, purportedly balancing the horrible act that occurred” (25). However, it is titillating that in many instances of The Hunger Games trilogy there is a noticeable lack of justified anger against social injustice and misfortunes that the main characters suffer. The dialogue between Katniss and Gale for instance, just before the 74th reaping, does not express anger, but rather sadness and acceptance of the political system in which they live. This is possibly because hostility as part of the emotional repertoire is discouraged in District 12, in contrast to other Districts such as numbers 1 and 2. In these ‘career’ districts, youngsters are taught that

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their task in life is to beat down and kill the others in order to survive the Games. The only character who is genuinely and thoroughly angry throughout the trilogy is Johanna Mason. Her complete family has been murdered by order of President Snow, as a punishment for her refusal to become a prostitute after winning the 71st Games. Earlier, in Catching Fire, she performs a provocative strip-tease in an elevator in front of Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch. This is an angry protest against her ‘idiot stylist’, who has been dressing up tributes from her District as trees for the past four decades. Later she furiously shouts obscenities straight into the camera during her interview with Caesar Flickerman, and she repeats this act in the Game Arena, after having been caught with Wiress and Beetee in the choking, blinding blood rain. In Mockingjay Part II Johanna is angry at Katniss for her “tacky romantic drama” and her “defender-of-the-­ helpless act”, and her anger does not ease off even after the events of the rebellion, as she votes ‘yes’ at the victors’ roundtable for the special Hunger Games edition with the Capitol’s children as participants. Even though Johanna’s anger is not shown as irrational, inappropriate, or unreasonable, it surely cannot be defined as ethically justifiable. Her emotion is too self-contained, too much saturated by her personal trauma and motivated by revenge. For Nussbaum, revenge is an “especially unsatisfactory, costly way to effect the punishment of offenders, one that usually simply ensures that the exchange of damages will perpetuate itself without limit” (396). Inspired by Nussbaum’s thinking, this chapter explores the different forms of anger in The Hunger Games trilogy. These are based either on attempts to restore a wrongdoing by means of payback or on seeking to down-rank the wrongdoer in order to reestablish injured dignity. Both alternatives appear to be inadequate strategies to deal with (un) justified anger. The question is whether in The Hunger Games trilogy there is also room for ethically appropriate responses to anger, based on forward-­ looking generosity that would productively contribute to social welfare in Panem. Finally, the chapter concludes that even though the trilogy hints at the possibility of revolutionary politics free of anger, its resolve in the ending does not entirely fulfill this narrative promise. By contrast, its final scenes noticeably lack any of the moral complexity that we have witnessed throughout the trilogy, which creates an ethical-emotional imbalance. The ending is too detached from the rest of the trilogy in its affective orientation.

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Road of Payback and Road of Status Nussbaum (2016) argues that there are at least two ways in which anger can be normatively problematic. First there is what she calls the “road of payback”, which is rationally false and incoherent, because it is derived from the fallacy of “cosmic balance”. This road leads to pain for the offender to compensate for one’s own pain, even though such a strategy is rarely, if ever, successful (24). With her decision to vote ‘yes’ for the special Hunger Games, Johanna clearly takes the road of payback, cherishing a false belief (intentionally or not) that inflicting pain, suffering, and death on Capitol’s children will remove the suffering experienced by the past tributes, which makes no sense whatsoever. The other way in which anger is normatively problematic is what Nussbaum calls the “road of status”, which functions to restore the dignity and self-respect of the person who has been done wrong. In contrast to the road of payback, the road of status makes much more sense, insofar as the anger is focused on a wrongful act against somebody’s social status. In this case payback may successfully instigate reversal of status. Putting down the offender somehow proves that his or her insult toward the social standing of the offended person was wrongful in the first place (26). The individual assessment scene, in which Katniss’ arrow startles the Gamemakers who are ignoring her archery skills, is undoubtedly an example of road of status. The scene starts with Katniss nervously waiting her turn to be called into the gymnasium, where a state-of-the-art bow and arrow awaits her. A close-up of her hand caressing the bow indicates her developing a feel for this weapon, which is made of a different sort of material than she is used to in District 12. Then she directs her gaze to the gallery at the top of the gymnasium where the Gamemakers celebrate with a banquet buffet, not paying attention to Katniss’ presence at first. Her first attempt misses the target and is met with condescending laughter by the Gamemakers, who then completely ignore her second attempt, which is a perfect bullseye in the middle of the target dummy’s chest. The Gamemakers’ laughter functions as what Henri Bergson (2014) characterized as a social punishment of those who breach community standards: “Laughter punishes certain failings […] striking down some who are innocent and sparing some who are guilty […] its function to intimidate by humiliating” (70). Angered and bewildered Katniss refuses to be struck down though, and her gaze focuses on the apple in the mouth of a roast pig, which she swiftly pierces with her next arrow to the bewilderment of

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the Gamemakers. In this scene, Katniss’ anger is triggered by her being down-ranked and humiliated by the Gamemakers not only due to her missing the target, but also because of her low social standing as an inhabitant of District 12. The scene is particularly illustrative of Nussbaum’s definition of anger, which includes a “target”, typically a person, and a “focus”, which is the wrongful act (17). Therefore, the ‘target’ in the assessment scene is then not only the physical target in the form of a dummy. There is also a (symbolic) target of Katniss’ anger, namely the contemptuous Gamemakers, who unjustifiably injure her social dignity by their disdain, which then becomes the ‘focus’. Thus, her anger starts with the Gamemakers’ intentional disdain that damages her status, and ends with the arrow aimed at the target as symbolic payback. This payback is intended to revise the ‘status injury’ or humiliating snub: Katniss’ ‘retaliatory hit’ removes the humiliation and the disdain displayed by the Gamemakers. At the same time, there is the possibility that her payback will result in a low score assessment of her training by the very same Gamemakers, which would cost her sponsors and diminish her chances of survival. The opposite happens through, as Katniss receives the highest training score of all tributes in the 74th Games. I argue that throughout The Hunger Games trilogy there is a conflict between the road of payback and the road of status as two alternatives for coping with anger motivated by social injustice. For even though Nussbaum (2016) argues that anger is always normatively problematic, because it always involves a thought of payback, anger is nevertheless morally useful, since it may serve as a signal that something is amiss: Anger embodies the idea of significant wrongdoing targeting a person or thing that is of deep concern to the self. While one could have the idea of significant injury without anger—with, and through, grief and compassion—those two emotions do not contain the idea of wrongfulness, which is anger’s specific focus. […] Nor, importantly, do those two emotions contain the thought that something needs to be done, which […] is a conceptual part of anger, though usually in the defective form of the payback thought. (37–38)

In Catching Fire, upon returning from the Victory Tour in the Capitol train, Katniss accidentally witnesses extracts of surveillance footage of angry mobs rioting in District 8, which are watched by the Peacekeepers guarding the train. The incident is crosscut to President Snow watching

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the very same footage, showing the mob holding up banners with the Mockingjay symbol, on which he comments as follows: “[Katniss Everdeen] is not who they think she is. She’s not a leader. She just wants to save her own skin. It’s as simple as that.” The next scene in District 12 would seem to confirm Snow’s judgment. Here Katniss proposes to Gale that they run away in order to be safe from the Capitol, to which Gale angrily responds: “Safe for what? To starve? Work like slaves, send their kids to the reaping? […] You can do what you want. I’m staying here.” The angry mobs of District 8 signal that a ‘significant wrongdoing’ is going on in Panem that is of deep concern both to Katniss and for Gale. Yet only Gale embraces his anger from the thought that something needs to be done, while Katniss denies her emotion. In this scene our moral allegiance is clearly with Gale, whose anger motivates him to address wrongdoing in a way that extends beyond his personal circle of concern. Cinematic allegiance is a concept that is central in Murray Smith’s (1995) structure of sympathy model, and it is formed when the spectator evaluates a film character as representing morally desirable traits (188). In the scene under discussion, Gale as character is indeed integral in establishing a moral perspective in the situation; yet the moral anger embodied in the scene is not necessarily dependent on our evaluation of this character, since the ‘moral structure’ of the film at large also indicates that it is high time something is done to curb the totalitarianism that is wreaking havoc in Panem. By contrast, Katniss’ concern is apparently limited to saving her own skin and her loved ones, which corroborates Snow’s contemptuous remark in the preceding scene. In this context, Nussbaum (2001) asks us to imagine living within three concentric circles of concern. The closest circle consists of oneself and one’s nearest and dearest (the personal realm). The halfway circle is formed by social groups that are neither close friends nor agents of social systems (the middle realm), and the outer circle is filled with political and legal institutions (the political realm). Within this context the task of moral development would imply narrowing the circles progressively toward the center, so that the closest circle of concern would not only include one’s nearest and dearest but also strangers, and so forth, since according to Nussbaum “to demand from the start equal concern, or any other normatively good type of properly ranked concern, is unrealistic; no human mind can achieve this. One has to build on the meanings one understands” (388). In the scene where Katniss and Gale argue, it is Gale’s anger that signals wrongdoing. This anger does not only concern his personal circle, but also the middle as well

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as the political circle, which motivates him to help the oppressed assert themselves and pursue justice. Toward the end of The Hunger Games trilogy he chooses the morally corrupt road of payback to correct social injustice though, and in doing so, he not only betrays Katniss but also the narrative expectations of the spectator. By contrast, Katniss’ moral development in The Hunger Games trilogy includes a struggle with what Nussbaum calls “garden-variety anger” (37). This fluctuates between an irrational desire for cosmic balance (road of payback) and an inappropriate and narcissistic desire for honor-related punishment (road of status). The desire for cosmic balance is irrational, insofar as causing the offender pain can rarely undo the pain felt by the offended person: “Killing a killer does not bring the dead to life” (25). The road of payback is the reason why Katniss violently attacks Haymitch with a syringe in the end of Catching Fire for instance, targeting her anger at him for what she sees as the wrongful act of not protecting Peeta in the game arena, as he was left to be captured and tortured by the Capitol instead. The attack is irrational, both because it does nothing to ameliorate either Peeta or Katniss’ situation and because Haymitch is not intentionally involved in Peeta’s imprisonment, so that blaming him is unwarranted. Instead, his ‘wrongdoing’ is imagined, appropriate only from angry Katniss’ point of view, but inappropriate from an objective viewpoint. In its affective quality the scene with the syringe is remarkably different from the scene that soon follows the final battle between the Capitol and the rebels, culminating in the bombing of Capitol children barricaded in front of Presidential mansion in Mockingjay Part II. This is also the scene in which Katniss finds out about Gale’s involvement in the rebels’ strategy to create more causalities in their war against the Capitol by means of a second wave of explosions following the first bombing. This kills a number of civilians as well as rebel medics attempting to help the injured—among them Katniss’ sister Primrose. The silence and the deliberate avoidance of showing Katniss and Gale within the same frame yield a chilling affective mood, epitomizing Katniss’ cool anger that purposely does not seek retribution for Gale’s betrayal. The reason for this could be that Katniss knows that punishing Gale does not bring Primrose back. But her reaction can also be explained by her grief, which according to Nussbaum is closely connected to anger. Like anger, grief concerns painful damage to one’s circle of concern, but unlike anger here the focus is on loss itself, instead of on the act or the

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event that caused the loss. Unlike where anger is concerned, in grief the target of emotion is the person who has died or departed, instead of the existent or nonexistent wrongdoer. Nussbaum acknowledges that grief and anger may occur together, for instance when “a grieving person tries to blame someone for the loss […] as a way of regaining control or asserting dignity in a situation of helplessness” (47). But in this scene with Gale, Katniss does no such thing. It is only in a later scene in District 12, when her sister’s cat Buttercup returns home in search for Primrose, that Katniss starts shouting and throwing objects at the cat, angrily telling the poor animal to get out. Katniss’ emotion in this scene is a ‘source of excess’ that turns the affective energy of grief into anger. In fact, this signifies her reluctance to mourn and to acknowledge helplessness before loss. However, this fit of anger dissolves Katniss’ emotional blockage, so that she accepts her vulnerability and breaks into tears, while hugging the cat that she hitherto had disliked.1 While desire for cosmic balance is irrational, desire for honor-related punishment is inappropriate insofar as it is in conflict with equal dignity [which] belongs to all, inherently and inalienably, and is not a relative or competitive matter […] we should not wish [the offender’s] equal human dignity to be violated any more than we approve his violation of the victim’s dignity. And it is most important to see that pushing his dignity down does not push the victim’s up. (Nussbaum 2016, 27)

Nussbaum argues that such desire to degrade the offender is particularly prominent in cultures that encourage people to rank themselves against one another, thus inspiring status-based anger in many situations (19–21). Nowhere is such ranking as clear as in Panem, where the Capitol represents the highest position as the center of power, wealth, and luxury, while the poverty-stricken District 12 with its dirty coal-mining industry has the lowest position. In Panem each District is dedicated to a single industry, which determines its ranking. The Districts with a low number are relatively wealthy and comfortable, as for example the affluent, jewelry-­ producing District 1, and District 2 which is the home of most Peacekeepers. 1  Tom Henthorne (2012) makes a similar argument when he writes that Buttercup functions as a mirror image for Katniss, her emotional outburst at the cat being a way of addressing herself. This act of confronting herself with the fact that Prim is dead, functions as a therapeutic acknowledgment of Katniss’ trauma for losing her sister, which enables a healing process to start (136).

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In addition, the tributes from these wealthier Districts have been trained for the Games since they were born, and thus they have an inequitable mental and physical advantage over the tributes from poorer Districts. Consequently, these Career Tributes often also receive the highest ranking on the morning line odds board as well. For instance, in the 74th Hunger Games Cato from District 2 received the odds of 3–1 against the odds of 23–1 for Peeta from District 12. Peeta experiences this evidence of low ranking as a sense of personal diminution. This is the reason why he reacts angrily to Katniss’ suggestion that he might have a chance of winning purely by strength. Peeta’s anger is focused on the situation that is completely unfair, but it is targeted at Katniss and others who deny him the necessary support for both his personal survival and his human dignity. Status-focused anger is also the reason why Katniss angrily attacks Peeta after his calculated confession of love during the live interview with Caesar Flickerman, which she believes to make her look weak in the eyes of the stronger tributes. Katniss’ reaction demonstrates that status-related anger is not necessarily about the wrongfulness of the act as such. Peeta’s love confession is neither wrongful nor an intentionally inflicted injury. The focus of her anger is on the possibility that her social standing in comparison to others might influence her chance of survival. The double suicide pact scene toward the end of The Hunger Games can also be defined as a moment of status-focused anger, even though the wrongful act in this situation is the unfair annulation of the rule change, after which two victors from the same District are no longer allowed. At first, Katniss and Peeta face each other in disbelief, Peeta willing to sacrifice himself so that Katniss may win. But Katniss furiously shakes her head, throwing her bow and arrow onto the ground in an angry gesture, then produces some deadly nightlock berries from her pocket, and declares that the Capitol need not have their victor. The crosscut between Katniss looking straight into the camera in contempt, and Seneca Crane staring at the monitors in sheer panic, demonstrates that Katniss and Peeta’s payback with the berries functions successfully as an act of status-reversal. This is precisely the reason why Snow considers it an act of defiance. For if the status hierarchy, in which District 12 is at the bottom and the Capitol on top, is no longer intact, “what is to prevent an uprising?” However, the question is to what extent is the double suicide pact an ethical act. In the chapter on love I propose that Katniss demonstrates ethical virtue in this scene, insofar as it concerns the righteous cause of claiming her own free will in the face of unjust detention. From the perspective of anger the act

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has no ethical value though, since it focuses too narrowly on personal status in contrast to altruistic motivation to correct social injustice. This means that even though Katniss’ anger in the double suicide pact scene is appropriate and morally justified—Nussbaum would use the word “well-grounded” in this context—it does not sufficiently establish her as an ethical agent, since its focus does not reach beyond the circle of (status) concern that is closest to her. By contrast, young Rue’s death in The Hunger Games is an example of focus on a wrongful act that does damage Katniss’ more removed circle of concern. Again, the event of death is unfair in itself, Rue’s odds of survival having been very low in the first place. Katniss’ initial reaction to this event is grief, but that quickly gives way to anger in a muted scene that shows, but does not audibly represent Katniss’ screaming in ‘silent’ rage. This epitomizes her apparent lack of agency in preventing Rue’s death. Next Katniss alleviates the damage done to her circle of concern by holding a funeral for Rue. Katniss’ pain caused by the Capitol’s wrongdoing leads her to hold the funeral in order to make the Capitol suffer. This succeeds through the angry mob that starts violent riots in District 11, thus actually taking the road of payback after having virtually returned Katniss’ three-finger salute. Furthermore, the funeral is intended as a sign of humiliation or down-ranking of the Capitol, a way of confronting the Capitol with its own image and an appeal to its inhabitants to recognize the wrongful act. Katniss experiences the death of her young friend as a wound to her ego that affects her status. In this sense Rue’s death is a form of down-ranking that causes anger. Thus Rue’s funeral expresses Katniss’ motivation to downgrade the Capitol in order to balance her own loss of status, even though it will not take away the injury altogether. In a similar protest aimed at righting the status balance, an enraged Katniss puts up a dummy with Seneca Crane’s name and face in front of the Gamemakers during the tributes’ individual assessment in Catching Fire. This assessment scene is a quick-paced montage sequence, ending in an extreme long shot of perspectival space, where the dummy is suspended in the center of the image, facing the camera as a kind of memento mori (Fig.  3.1). Here Katniss’ anger is triggered by Rue’s picture covered in white flowers, which Peeta had painted with camouflage dyes as a demonstration of his survival skills. In the first assessment scene Katniss’ anger was triggered by her being denied social recognition and respect out of human dignity. By contrast in the second assessment scene her anger is caused by a more general honor-related injury. By symbolically hanging

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Fig. 3.1  Catching Fire: The symbolic hanging of Seneca Crane. (Screen capture)

Seneca Crane she takes a road of status that focuses less on ego-injury than on political injustice at large. Thus she demonstrates that everybody is vulnerable in the political system of Panem, based as it is on discrimination and denial of equality.

Noble Anger From the absolute perspective favored by Martha Nussbaum in her more recent work, anger is always normatively problematic since this emotion inherently contains the notion of payback. Both Rue’s funeral and the hanging of ‘Seneca Crane’ are ethically inappropriate actions from this point of view. The riots in District 11 neither bring Rue back to life nor do they create control for the inhabitants in their unjust situation of helplessness. The humiliation of the Capitol or the Gamemakers may relatively enhance Katniss’ status, but this is a strategy too narcissistic to be really efficient. Nevertheless, I argue that there is at least some ethical dimension to these acts, since not only do they reveal the political injustice that takes place, but they also function as a source of motivation to take action against it. This double entendre accurately reflects the function of the Mockingjay as a political figure for the rebels. And it is in this vein of double ethical purpose that toward the end of Catching Fire Katniss shoots an arrow into the force field of the Quarter Quell game arena. In this scene, Katniss finds herself in the darkened jungle after having been knocked unconscious by Johanna. She hears the cannon go off and, as a consequence, mistakenly concludes that Finnick has betrayed her by

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killing Peeta. Therefore, when she hides behind the vegetation and takes aim at Finnick, her actions are motivated by anger, as resolutely targeted at Finnick as her arrow is. After Finnick urges her to remember who the real enemy is, Katniss lowers her bow though, and quickly attaches Beetee’s wire to her arrow. Then she shoots the arrow into the force field just as a thunderbolt strikes lightning tree to which the other end of the wire is attached. The scene is intercut with Snow observing the situation through the surveillance screens in such a way that, when Katniss directs her arrow toward the force field, there is the ocular-metaphorical suggestion that her arrow is directed straight at President Snow himself, which is also a visual premonition of events that will follow in Mockingjay Part II. The scene is a defining moment in The Hunger Games trilogy and as such can be seen as an example of garden-variety anger, which contains both the road of payback and the road of status. The explosion that follows Katniss hitting the force field actually damages the Capitol, but contributes neither to welfare of the Districts, nor to general justice in Panem. The way in which the editing is organized in the scene also seems to suggest that Katniss reasserts her self-respect by metaphorically aiming her arrow at Snow. In this way she demands acknowledgment for the misfortunes she has suffered both within and beyond the game arena. This argument is often used to present anger as helpful in restoring one’s sense of worth. Here anger supports the fundamental claim to human dignity, which by the way Philip Fisher (2001) describes as follows: In anger an outward-streaming energy, active, fully engaging the will and demonstrating the most explosive self-centered claims on the world and on others, makes clear the relation of the passions to spiritedness or to high-­ spiritedness, to motion, to confidence, and to self-expression in the world. (13)

The explosion that sends Katniss flying through the air can be seen as an affective metaphor for her ‘outward-streaming energy’, expressing itself in the unjust world. It enables her to break free from that world, both symbolically and in reality. Furthermore, the explosion and the debris falling down from the collapsing dome above the arena almost kill Katniss. Therefore, the scene is also about self-sacrifice motivated by the desire to attain a sense of self-worth (on this phenomenon, see Dugas et al. 2016). This theme of self-sacrifice is again repeated in the following scene that

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conveys the idea of death and resurrection. Katniss first watches the highly symbolic light filtering through the collapsing dome in a POV shot, while in the reaction shot this same light creates a golden halo that illuminates her face as in a religious icon. Next, accompanied by an angelic score, the heavens break open, and slowly down the ride of light a hovercraft descends, which rescues Katniss from the wreckage by means of a mechanical claw. The reaction shot of the saintly illuminated Katniss, her arms in an unmistakable passion-of-the-Christ pose, is an obvious metaphor, outlandish even, for Katniss being the savior in the narrative (Fig. 3.2). We find similar metaphoric images in the ending of Alien3 (1992), for instance, where Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) Christlike pose suggests that she is sacrificing herself for the human race. Other examples are found throughout The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003), which establish Neo (Keanu Reeves) as the Messiah in the story. Laura Copier (2012) has analyzed scenes like these in Hollywood sci-fi as “preposterous templates” that are nevertheless more than mere visual counterparts to the biblical narrative. This is why, in the beginning of Mockingjay Part I, we witness a reluctant Katniss, unwilling to become the Mockingjay that would serve as a savior to Panem and an inspiration for the revolution. Her reluctance originates from a not-so-noble resentment toward the leaders of the rebellion whom she considers responsible for leaving Peeta at the mercy of the Capitol. It is only after she sees Peeta calling for a ceasefire in a Capitol broadcast that she agrees to be the Mockingjay. It is remarkable that in this scene of Peeta’s first broadcast Katniss is noticeably void of anger, directed neither at Peeta nor at the Capitol, even though every single inhabitant of District

Fig. 3.2  Catching Fire: Katniss in a Christ-pose, arms held out. (Screen capture)

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13 around her reacts with fury, calling Peeta a traitor. This could signify Katniss’ transition from anger toward more constructive thinking about future good, while everyone else remains in the payback mode, demanding Peeta to be punished. Katniss’ lack of anger renders her first ‘propos’ unsuccessful though, because initially she fails miserably to ‘perform anger’ in a way that is appropriate in relation to the social injustice that prevails in Panem. The inefficiency of the propos suggests that all considered, anger is necessary to create and express solidarity with others who have suffered serious wrongdoings. This is why a propo is shot in District 8, while Katniss is visiting a makeshift hospital; an event which is immediately caught by one of the Capitol’s surveillance cameras though. In a countermove, Snow orders to “kill the wounded”, which is followed by a brutal spectacle in which hovercrafts destroy the warehouses in which the hospital was located. Amid the burning ruins of District 8, pursued by Squad 451, Katniss then addresses the camera on Pollux’s helmet directly with an angry, heartfelt speech while pointing to the burning hospital: I want the rebels to know that I’m alive! That I’m in District 8 where the Capitol just bombed a hospital filled with unarmed men, women and children! And there will be no survivors! […] You can torture us and bomb us and burn our Districts to the ground. But do you see that? Fire is catching. And if we burn, you burn with us! (Katniss in Mockingjay Part I)

The anger that is expressed in this scene is extremely contagious, the slogan “if we burn, you burn with us” will be used as a rallying cry by the rebels in lumber District 7, immediately after the distribution of the propo with Katniss in District 8. The scene starts with a sweeping camera ride above the lush forest that covers most of the District, as if demonstrating the speed with which Katniss’ message is spreading. The camera lands at the edge of the forest where logs are gathered for transport, and we witness Peacekeepers escorting a group of lumberjacks into the woods for their shift. The lumberjacks are shown walking in a united front straight toward the centrally positioned camera, epitomizing the newly found empowerment of the crowd. Once inside the forest, one logger directs his gaze at a Mockingjay symbol burnt into a tree trunk and then whistles the four-note Mockingjay tune. This is the signal for the entire group to start running and climbing the trees, even though the Peacekeepers gunfire kills several of them in a violent scene accentuated by low camera position.

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Once the surviving lumberjacks are hidden from sight in the lavish foliage of the tall trees, the gunfire ceases, and a man shouts the slogan “If we burn, you burn with us”. The scene climaxes with the detonation of hidden landmines, which kill the entire team of Peacekeepers, and its last shot is from an extreme low angle, showing the cheering woodcutters on their tree branches, with daylight filtering through the treetops above them. The propos and the ensuing actions they inspire can be seen as a forceful and uncompromising demand for freedom, as a deliberate and courageous refusal to cooperate with unjust authority in order to enforce social change. The propos have motivational power, because the anger they embody is organically attached to Katniss as a heroic individual. She is a locus of identification in a narrative of struggle that involves suffering and hope, similar to the way in which The Hunger Games films themselves are meant to function for the non-diegetic audiences. Furthermore, these scenes contain the concept of ‘noble anger’. According to some authors such as Germaine Greer (1999) and Kathleen Woodward (2003), this kind of anger is essential for the oppressed to defend their rights and to fight against injustice directed at them. Therefore, the lumberjack scene is less focused on payback for past wrongdoings by means of retributive violence, than on the creation of cooperative good in future Panem.

The Trolley Problem At first view such “ethics of anger” as embodied in the lumberjack scene seems to conflict with Nussbaum’s claim that anger is “not necessary for the pursuit of justice, but also a large impediment to the generosity and empathy that help to construct a future of justice” (Nussbaum 2016, 8). But on the other hand, she nevertheless acknowledges that armed resistance is sometimes strategically necessary in the defense of decent political institutions (219; 230). Furthermore, Nussbaum also recognizes that sometimes circumstances are such that, no matter what a person chooses to do, the act is not free of serious wrongdoing (134). The ethical dilemma that involves a conflict between less or more morally wrong alternatives abounds in cinema of course. This renders many films educationally valuable. Carl Plantinga (2018) has analyzed The Hunger Games along these lines, as an example of the so-called trolley problem, which was first introduced by Philippa Foot in 1967. This dilemma is about the driver of a runaway tram who is faced with the choice of steering away from one track on which five men are working, onto another track that is occupied with

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only one man. For Plantinga, dilemmas like the trolley problem can lead to the spectators imagining what they would do in a morally tricky Catch-22 situation, starting from their own ethical intuitions. Examples of such dilemmas in The Hunger Games include the situation where Katniss has to decide whether she should volunteer to take her sister’s place in a deadly game, whereas she knows that her victory means death to all the other participants (36–39). Of all the ethical dilemmas in The Hunger Games trilogy, the one toward the end of Mockingjay Part II must be the most problematic. It is presented to us in the roundtable scene and in the events that follow. Affectively, these scenes are about justified anger and the way in which this emotion motivates Katniss’ actions, after she finds out that the bombing of the Capitol’s children had been ordered by President Coin. All the remaining victors are invited to attend a roundtable discussion by Coin, now the interim leader of Panem, to discuss whether final Hunger Games should be held as a form of revenge for the suffering of the Districts, with only Capitol children participating as tributes. The scene starts off with an extreme long shot from behind Katniss’ back as she enters the room, with all image planes in focus. The room is dominated by a round table that we recognize from earlier scenes with President Snow, when he was discussing strategy with his commanding officers. The lighting of the image is dim, painterly even, with Coin and the remaining victors in a careful arrangement around the table in plain sight. During the vote for or against the symbolic Hunger Games the camera changes its perspective around the table from one victor to another. This includes a noticeably static POV/reaction shot from table-level height of Katniss. Unceasingly, and with a seemingly deadpan facial expression, she stares at Coin who is sitting directly opposite in Snow’s old seat. Seen from Katniss’ perspective, Coin is framed within the frame by several ornamental grids in the image, suggesting how as a result of the revolution, she now firmly resides within the new societal power structure (Fig. 3.3). The affective tone of the scene is remarkably chilling, due to the intensive low-height framing, and the understated, yet suspenseful musical score. This establishes an emotionally cool mood, nevertheless filled with anger, which is particularly effective given Coin’s pretext for the symbolic Hunger Games, which is that Panem people would be too emotional to make rational decisions. This makes the angry roundtable scene philosophically interesting from the perspective of ethics, and also more generally considering the emotions involved in decision-making. Coin’s position

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Fig. 3.3  Mockingjay Part II: Coin in the seat of power. (Screen capture)

is best characterized as Platonian as it is steeped in rational thinking, which is grounded in the belief that emotion is a cause of irrationality in impaired decision-making. By contrast, the Aristotelian view holds that emotions are mostly rational and offer ethical insight into the human condition. More recently, emotion theorists such as Nico Frijda (1986) and Jon Elster (1999) have considered emotions rational, when they embody a reasonable appraisal of a situation, triggering appropriate concerns, which promote logical decision-making. In the context of neurobiology, Antonio Damasio (1999) has shown that emotion assists reasoning, as it activates a decision-making sector in our brain, where intellect can operate most efficiently. And philosophers such as Nussbaum (2001) and Robert Solomon (2007) have argued that emotions are rational and purposive rather than irrational and disruptive. Often they offer more insight than “the calm deliberations we call ‘reason’” (1). At the same time there is an obvious element of ‘intrusiveness’ in emotional experience. Emotions cannot always be rationalized, even when they motivate beneficial human action and sensible decision-making. Emotions are not “outcomes of a logical sequence of information processing such as is performed by computers” (Lupton 1998, 14). Instead, emotions can be many sided, contradictory, irrational, and inexplicable. Therefore, the question that the roundtable scene poses concerns the extent to which Katniss’ choice, based on her justified anger, can be considered both rational and ethical. For Katniss chooses to vote in favor of the symbolic Hunger Games, while we are not immediately invited to understand the rationale behind her decision. It is only in the next scene

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that we find her whole motivation to be gaining Coin’s trust in a strategic move in the spirit of Sun Tzu, who wrote in the fifth century BC: “All warfare is based on deception” (Giles 2008, 4). From a rational point of view, Coin’s pretext for the symbolic Hunger Games is deceptive though, since it is motivated by a desire to create public emotion to justify her sovereignty. For Nussbaum (2013), public emotion is necessary for a nation insofar as it inspires solidarity, altruism, and support for general welfare, but it needs to be rooted in concrete narratives with heroic individuals and vivid metaphors that involve sacrifice and inspire hope (209). The symbolic Hunger Games would obviously involve sacrifice, but would hardly inspire hope. Instead they would reveal Coin’s true characteristics as a leader and show them to be barely different from Snow’s, who held Panem together by fear and obedience.2 This is why the scene in which Katniss kills Coin instead of executing Snow can be seen as a variation of the classic trolley problem mentioned above. This climactic scene starts out with Katniss being styled into the Mockingjay by Effie, while close-ups reveal that Katniss holds a nightlock capsule in the palm of her hand, which she carefully inserts into her sleeve. To the rhythmic banging of ceremonial drums, Katniss then enters the Avenue of the Tributes, with her back to the camera that follows her from low angle. The perspectival composition of the shot emphasizes the depth in the image framed by the skyline, while the next shot from an opposite perspective shows Katniss as a tiny figure within the City Circle, surrounded by huge stands full of spectators. At the other end of the Avenue President Coin is seen on the balcony of the government building, eagerly observing Katniss’ arrival. At some point a group of rebels from the Districts join Katniss in her march, before the camera flies backward into an aerial establishing shot of the situation. When Katniss finally reaches the place of execution, she and Snow exchange meaningful looks while Coin gives a welcoming speech. Then Katniss points her arrow at Snow, only to unexpectedly shift it upward to shoot Coin instead. In the next few second Coin tumbles down from her podium, Snow bursts out into blood-stained laughter, the angry mob rushes toward the place of execution, Peeta stops Katniss from swallowing the nightlock capsule, and the whole scene ends 2  In his analysis of The Hunger Games novels, Jamey Heit (2015) argues that from the ethical point of view, Coin as a leader of Panem is even worse than Snow, since her motivation to kill the Capitol children is not only to advance her own political ambitions, but also to hide this fact by impugning the characters of others (124).

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in chaos. Before the last shot that shows lifeless Coin with an arrow in her chest, there is a close-up of Plutarch Heavensbee, a subtle smile spreading on his face, which suggests that the killing of Coin was the outcome he had always already expected. Katniss’ choice between killing Coin and executing Snow makes the scene a trolley problem, because if Coin had lived at least twenty-three children of the Capitol and possibly more would have died. Moreover, Coin’s strategic move that involved bombing of the Capitol’s children, as well as installing herself as the interim president of Panem, suggests the eternal continuation of totalitarianism, which characterized Snow’s regime. Therefore, from a utilitarian point of view, Katniss’ act does not pose an ethical problem, since the death of one evil person can be considered less harmful than the deaths of twenty-three innocent children. In addition, she acts after thoughtful reflection based on her own system of moral values and attitudes, the core of her emotional integrity. This validates her stand against the social injustice and political corruption that Coin represents. However, from a deontological point of view, Katniss’ act is still ethically problematic, since killing as such is forbidden. Therefore, the scene invites us to contemplate whether Katniss’ act is morally permissible or not, and our emotions play a critical role in generating such ethical judgment (Navarrete et al. 2012).

Reinventing Panem Nevertheless, a simple utilitarian cost-benefit analysis as described above proves insufficient basis for an ethical judgment of this climatic scene. We have to consider that Katniss’ choice is made under the pressure of such circumstances, as will always cause her to do something seriously wrong, no matter what she does. This is confirmed in a letter she later receives from Heavensbee, which states: “I am sorry so much burden fell on you. I know you’ll never escape it. But if I had to put you through it again for this outcome, I would.” About an ethical conundrum such as Katniss was thus put into, Nussbaum (2016) writes: it is not right to assimilate these conflicts to conflicts of belief, holding that if two obligations collide, at most one of them can be correct. [These ­situations pose] another very important question: “Is any of the available alternatives free of serious wrongdoing?” [In] situations where the answer to the question is “no”, then, even if the agent landed in that terrible situa-

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tion through no fault of his own, and made the best possible choice under the circumstances, he should still feel emotions of something like “remorse”, connected to the fact that, even if under constraint for which he is not to blame, he himself did a morally repugnant act. (134)

At the end of Mockingjay Part II Katniss is not seen to express overt remorse, but the film does not seem to present any alternative lines of action either, which would have been attractive from a cinematic-dramatic point of view. In a sense the trolley problem scene in the film offers what Rick Altman (1999) has termed a “narrative crossroads” of two storyline paths, each representing a different type of pleasure for the spectator: morally sanctioned pleasure and generic pleasure that departs from moral norms (145–152). The neglected but morally sanctioned path of narrative development would have included Katniss overcoming her anger and trying to reason with Coin for instance, but it is safe to assume that such an anticlimax would have left the spectators with feelings of disappointment. Katniss thus remains a morally imperfect heroine, which might nevertheless lead the spectators to speculate what alternatives could have been free of serious wrongdoing. For Nussbaum (2016) one such forward-looking, more ethical action is what she calls “transition-anger”, the focus of which is on establishing accountability for wrongdoing, as crucial ingredient of building public trust, on expressing shared values, and then on moving beyond the whole drama of anger and forgiveness to forge attitudes that actually support trust and reconciliation. (13)

One scene in which transition-anger seems to play a role is the sequence in Mockingjay Part II that shows District 2 divided between workers rebelling against the Capitol, and militant forces supporting the current regime. It appears that not all the Districts are equally receptive to the rebellious pathos represented by the Mockingjay, because some of them harbor mixed feelings about the uprising. In this scene, after the bombing of the District’s main military installation called the Nut, survivors flee through a tunnel to the center of the District, where Katniss prepares to persuade the Capitol supporters to join the rebellion. When next the rebels open fire on the loyalist survivors, Katniss intervenes, but she is captured by a wounded loyalist holding her at a gunpoint. In an answer to the loyalist’s question as to why he would not kill her right away, Katniss

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acknowledges that they seem to have every reason to kill one another, but that in reality they “have no fight except the one that the Capitol gave us”. The scene is tightly framed, alternating close-ups of Katniss with close-ups of the loyalist, both faces bathing in the warm light of floodlights in the nightly darkness. The scene is filled with tension and anger, but it also creates a mood of strange intimacy between Katniss and the loyalist. The loyalist puts his gun down and Katniss improvises a rallying speech, which abruptly ends when another loyalist from inside the crowd shoots her in the chest. Nevertheless, the sentiment expressed in the exchange between Katniss and the loyalist is forward-looking instead of reactive, concerned with eschewing the angry attitudes cultivated by the Capitol. In Nussbaum’s thinking, (public) acknowledgment is important for such forward-looking spirit, because it functions to preserve, strengthen, or restore communal trust (178). Rue’s funeral, which was discussed above in terms of balancing status after an ego-injuring wrongdoing, is also an expression of what right Katniss seems to demand for Rue by proxy: public acknowledgment that the young girl’s death was morally wrong, not merely unfortunate. Calling upon shared understanding of what is wrongful and what is not, as well as acknowledging the importance of recognizing and facing wrongdoing in public, serves to strengthen trust and mend the broken solidarity between Districts. The bright white flowers that Katniss arranges around Rue’s body in the form of a religious icon suggest that this is an image intended to be seen. This is confirmed when Katniss looks up at the surveillance cameras, as if to make sure that the world is watching—like the tagline of the film goes. Her directly addressing of the cameras with her steadfast gaze and her three-finger salute constitute a further demand for the acknowledgment of suffering. This renders the event into a political statement, communicated from within and through a highly visible representation of injustice. Similarly, Mike Miley (2019) writes that in the funeral scene, “Katniss creates a media event, an image, an act that has heretofore been the sole privilege of the Capitol […] making visible to viewers what the Capitol has been using the Hunger Games to hide for seventy-four years: the state is killing people and packaging that murder as entertainment” (175). For Nussbaum (2016), such acknowledgment is essential in the creation of future good, since one cannot go forward into a regime of justice, establishing trust, without insisting on the seriousness of the human interests that were damaged in the prior time: that insistence is a way of dignifying those interests and commit-

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ting the nation to not repeating the wrongs. It gives weight and reality to fundamental political principles. (238)

Trials by tribunals are often intended to create such acknowledgment by which a nation can take a stand against continued injustice and express (re)commitment to decent values for society. President Coin too intended to have justice take its course after the revolution. But instead of ensuring fair trials, Coin offers two alternative actions to establish public trust, both of which would merely repeat the wrongs of the previous government. It is either the symbolic Hunger Games or the public execution of Snow, his accomplices, Capitol officials, Peacekeepers, and Gamemakers. Not only would such retributive non-justice be harmful to forward-looking, restorative social reform, but it would also prevent the promotion of social welfare. In this context, Nussbaum (2016) talks about ex post attitude that seeks the perpetrators’ suffering to restore a balance disrupted by wrongdoing in the past. By contrast, an ex ante attitude is directed at the larger issues of protecting human well-being in the future (178–207). The roundtable scene discussed above can be seen as epitomizing a conflict between ex post and ex ante attitude. President Coin, accompanied by Johanna and Enobaria, clearly take the ex post route with their preference for the symbolic Hunger Games with Capitol children, to “let them have a taste of their own medicine”. By contrast Peeta, Beetee, and Annie, who vote against retribution, demonstrate ex ante attitude, which requires that the rebels and the Capitol “stop seeing each other as enemies”. From a purely logical perspective free of all moral considerations one might say that Katniss assassinating Coin is an ex ante action, insofar as it is intended to prevent future suffering. Executing Snow on the other hand would have been ex post punishment leading to rededication of past wrongdoings. Yet killing Coin can hardly be considered a reformative act, since it lacks compassion and a constructive attitude toward future good, being committed in a spirit of pre-emptive payback for prospective actions. The ethical paradox that Katniss’ action here entails is therefore similar to the one that drives Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002), in which people are arrested and imprisoned in the present before they have committed a crime in the future.3 3  Brian McDonald (2014) offers a less ethically ambiguous interpretation of the scene in the novel, when he writes that Katniss’ “courageous and morally-directed assassination of Coin (as well as her subsequent decision to live, to marry, and to have children instead of kill

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Probably the most important factor that Nussbaum distinguishes for the creation of future good, based on common trust and shared cooperation, is generosity and a compassionate disposition. Generosity as an ethical virtue challenges the logic of forgiveness, which for Nussbaum (2016) “often impedes reconciliation by producing humiliation rather than mutual respect, and it frequently acts as a covert form of punishment, discharging a hidden (or, often, not so hidden) resentment” (238). In his discussion of generosity, Stanley Raffel (2001) identifies a tension between “spontaneous generosity” and “generosity that is a product of communally produced and identified standards” (112). Katniss volunteering for Prim at the reaping can be seen as a moment of spontaneous generosity, since it is a decision taken under pressure of ‘hot’ emotion, as I argue elsewhere in this book. Katniss caring for Rue in the game arena could also be seen as a form of spontaneous generosity as she does not treat Rue kindly in the hope of reward, even though Thresh later spares her life out of obligation to give in return, saying “Just this time, twelve. For Rue.” This is the inherent paradox contained at the core of generosity. It may create limitation to the gift-receiver’s freedom, as Simone de Beauvoir (1989) has argued, among others. The ambiguity of generosity resides within the potential obligation to give in return, which renders generosity a self-­ contradictory notion that needs to be re-thought every time it is put into practice (158). This ambiguity is central in Jennifer Culver’s (2012) analysis of The Hunger Games novels, in which she argues that Peeta’s continuous gift-giving transforms Katniss, so that she learns to resent the obligation to give in return, and to value the bond of reciprocity forged by mutual acts of generosity (94–100). This kind of spontaneous gift-giving originating from some natural harmony of interests is different from generosity based on reflective judgment of matters that one finds ethically important and valuable. Seen from this perspective, even though the whole situation is ethically multifaceted, the killing of Coin can be seen as an act of generosity, perhaps even as an act of “perverse generosity” to emulate Murray Smith’s (1999) concept of “perverse allegiance”. For in the assassination scene at the end of herself) is the culmination of a developing process of philosophical and moral examination that at long last have led her to a life truly worth living” (83). For Tom Henthorne (2012), Katniss killing President Coin is cool pragmatism, by which she demonstrates “having learned through experience that acting out of revenge only continues the cycle of violence. Katniss sets aside her emotion and acts intelligently […] her pragmatism ends the conflict and division that has long dominated Panem, thus making a new beginning possible” (81).

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Mockingjay Part II, we witness Katniss committing the one act against which she has fought throughout the whole trilogy: killing someone deliberately and in cold blood, without a trial, thereby fully embracing the ethos of the Games. Therefore, by shooting Coin Katniss simultaneously follows up on and abandons her ethical values for what she believes to be the greater good for Panem. In addition, her being prepared to swallow a nightlock capsule immediately after the killing, could also be seen as an act of generosity instead of self-sacrifice. She is prepared to give what Jacques Derrida (1996) refers to as the “gift of death”, which deprives the person of his or her singularity and in this case enables plural identity that belongs to the whole of Panem, and is therefore a source of ethical responsibility for the other: Once it is established that I cannot die for another (in his place) although I can die for him (by sacrificing myself for him or dying before his eyes), my own death becomes this irreplaceability that I must assume if I wish to have access to what is absolutely mine. My first and last responsibility, my first and last desire, is that responsibility of responsibility that relates me to what no one else can do in my place. (44)

But then again, this claim might seem to conflict wildly with another one, namely that her ‘gift’ is void of any compassion. That it undermines the public trust in Panem to go forward, and it triggers even more anger and outrageous deeds by the rebels. Nevertheless, at the same time the ending of Mockingjay Part II also comprises generosity toward Katniss, which is more than the endowment of her personal amnesty, since it is motivated by a will to advance the common good. After Peeta has given Katniss (yet another) ‘gift of life’ by preventing her ingesting the suicide pill, Katniss is imprisoned and expects to be executed by the new government of Panem. Against her expectations she is exiled to District 12 and assured by Plutarch Heavensbee that she will be pardoned “when the time is right”. Katniss’ amnesty should not be taken at face value since, by executing Coin and ‘pardoning’ Snow, she could be suspected of having formed an allegiance of sorts with the latter, in addition to her failing to acknowledge the suffering of the rebels. Her action might then even revictimize the victims, which is why she cannot be pardoned immediately. But the promise of amnesty is there nevertheless, free from the extraction of apology and remorse on Katniss’ part.

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The romantic-pastoral epilogue with which Mockingjay Part II ends could be seen in allegorical terms, with shots of Katniss, Peeta, and their children in a sunny meadow as a condensed, privileged image (Fig. 3.4). It captures the emotional-metaphorical idea that all is well now in the new Panem, its children playing happily and freely in the sun, while watched over by loving, caring parents. Their future is free from the grim reality that awaited the Districts’ children under totalitarian Panem. This ending could be seen as what Nussbaum (2016) calls a “sentiment map”, oriented “toward a future of enormous beauty, and one that is shown as possible and shortly available, by being rooted to concrete features of real American landscape, all of which are now seen as sites of freedom” (222–223). At the same time, this sentimental ending is so completely cut off from the rest of the trilogy that it strikes one as insincere, as if the film has given up triggering ethical engagement in the spectator. The epilogue seems to originate “from the golden pastures of another genre and another era” as Susan Tan (2014, 37) describes it, thereby re-­ establishing the binaries between utopia and dystopia which the trilogy hitherto has destabilized. The question as to what extent the rift between the Districts and the Capitol can be mended is peremptorily overridden by Katniss and Peeta’s personal love story masquerading as a parade for the new spirit of Panem.4 This is why the ethical complexity of the trilogy

Fig. 3.4  Mockingjay Part II: Pastoral happiness. (Screen capture) 4  Gregory Frame (2020) makes a similar argument about the ending when he writes that its pastoral idyll “embodies a wider response to the crisis of neoliberalism” by which anger with the way things are is followed by “a desire to turn inward and perhaps escape these anxi-

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would seem to be undermined by the homogenous harmony of its happy ending, incongruent in its affective-aesthetic tone with the rest of The Hunger Games films.

References Altman, Rick. 1999. Film/Genre. London: British Film Institute. Beauvoir, Simone de. 1989. The Second Sex. Translated by H.M.  Parshley. New York: Vintage. Bennett, Jill. 2005. Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bergson, Henri. 2014. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Translated by Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. Mansfield: Martino. Copier, Laura. 2012. Preposterous Revelations: Visions of Apocalypse and Martyrdom in Hollywood Cinema 1980–2000. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. Culver, Jennifer. 2012. ‘So Here I Am in His Debt Again’: Katniss, Gifts, and Invisible Strings. In The Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason, ed. George A.  Dunn and Nicolas Michaud, 90–101. Hoboken: John Wiley. Damasio, Antonio. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. San Diego: Harcourt. Derrida, Jacques. 1996. The Gift of Death. Translated by David Willis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dugas, Michelle, Jocelyn J. Belanger, Manuel Moyano, Birga M. Schumpe, Arie W.  Kruglanski, Michele J.  Gelfand, Kate Touchton-Leonard, and Noëmie Nociti. 2016. The Quest for Significance Motivates Self-Sacrifice. Motivation Science 2 (1): 15–32. Elster, Jon. 1999. Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fisher, Philip. 2001. The Vehement Passions. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Foot, Philippa. 1967. The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect. Oxford Review 5: 5–15. Frame, Gregory. 2020. The Cultural Politics of Jennifer Lawrence as Star, Actor, Celebrity. New Review of Film and Television Studies 18 (3): 345–368. Frijda, Nico. 1986. The Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giles, Lionel. 2008. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Tokyo: Tuttle. Greer, Germaine. 1999. The Whole Woman. London: Doubleday. eties altogether, rather than imagining how a society founded on principles alternative to neoliberalism might work. […] Katniss Everdeen ultimately reinforces fundamental tenets of neoliberal ideology: the dream of ‘the good life’ is contingent on looking after oneself and retreating from the struggle for structural change” (360).

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Heit, Jamey. 2015. The Politics of The Hunger Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Henthorne, Tom. 2012. Approaching the Hunger Games Trilogy: A Literary and Cultural Analysis. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Lupton, Deborah. 1998. The Emotional Self. London: Sage. McDonald, Brian. 2014. The Three Faces of Evil: A Philosophical Reading of The Hunger Games. In The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres, ed. Sean P. Connors, 65–84. Rotterdam: Sense. Miley, Mike. 2019. Truth and Consequences: Game Shows in Fiction and Film. Oxford: University of Mississippi Press. Navarrete, C.  David, Melissa M.  McDonald, Michael L.  Mott, and Benjamin Asher. 2012. Virtual Morality: Emotion and Action in a Simulated Three-­ Dimensional ‘Trolley Problem’. Emotion 12 (2): 364–370. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2001. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2013. Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press. ———. 2016. Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Plantinga, Carl. 2018. Screen Stories: Emotion and the Ethics of Engagement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Raffel, Stanley. 2001. On Generosity. History of the Human Sciences 14 (4): 111–128. Smith, Murray. 1995. Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1999. Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, or Apparently Perverse Allegiances. In Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion, ed. Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith, 217–238. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Solomon, Robert C. 2007. True to Our Feelings: What Our Emotions Are Really Telling Us. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tan, Susan S.M. 2014. Worse Games to Play? Deconstruction Resolution in The Hunger Games. In The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres, ed. Sean P. Connors, 29–44. Rotterdam: Sense. Woodward, Kathleen. 2003. Against Wisdom: The Social Politics of Anger and Aging. Journal of Aging Studies 17 (1): 55–67.

CHAPTER 4

The Many Forms of Love

A Romantic Spectacle But, above all, you need to be madly, prepared-to-end-it-all in love. (President Snow in Catching Fire)

There is a lack of abundance in romantic scenes in The Hunger Games trilogy, which would otherwise invite the spectators to identify with the central characters in search for an ideal partner—and besides, do we really care whether Katniss chooses Gale or Peeta in the end? Nevertheless, love and romance lie at the heart of its narrative trajectory all the same. But the trilogy is less concerned with love as an emotion, as in ‘being in love’. Rather, it embodies love as an affective attitude, as a formative fabric of interpersonal relationships on a scale that runs from ‘romance’ through ‘performance’ to ‘authentic’ love. It is this formative, interpersonal fabric, rather than the inherent, emotional logic of love, that is embodied in the aesthetic organization of The Hunger Games trilogy. The theme of the film is survival in a panoptic, dystopian society, but here survival is connected to different forms of love that will be explored in this chapter. Obviously, there is sisterly love between Prim and Katniss, which functions as a leitmotif throughout the trilogy and eventually leads to Katniss becoming the iconic Mockingjay. The mockingjay pin that starts off as a prop to ‘protect’ Prim during the reaping in The Hunger Games soon becomes a motif © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Laine, Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games, Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67334-5_4

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for Levinasian responsibility and sisterly love before it gets adopted as a symbol for the revolution. This is why the trailer for Mockingjay Part II celebrates love between the two sisters, and is entitled “For Prim”. It consists of defining moments between the two that seamlessly fade over by means of dissolves and superimpositions, ranging from the very opening of the trilogy in which Katniss comforts Prim, through the attack of the Jabberjays mimicking Prim’s cries for help in Catching Fire, to the scene in Mockingjay Part I in which Prim comforts Katniss in her turn. The trailer ends with the shots of Katniss and Prim together in the whirl of dance, the camera circling around them while the diegetic, celebratory music fades out and is replaced by a melancholy, non-diegetic tune. Both the trailer and the dance scene from Mockingjay Part II function as premonitions for what is to come, highlighting that this dance is the last moment that the sisters will ever spend together. Furthermore, the circularity of the camera movement may indicate circularity in the narrative trajectory that starts off with Katniss’ act of self-sacrifice in The Hunger Games, but ends with Prim’s sacrifice in Mockingjay Part II. Yet apart from sisterly love between Katniss and Primrose, at the narrative center there is the romantic love triangle Katniss, Peeta, and Gale. From the perspective of gender, it could be argued that this love triangle both challenges and confirms the heteronormative ideals of romantic love. First of all, Katniss herself can be seen as defying stereotypical gender roles in cinema, insofar as she displays traditional ‘masculine’ traits (physical strength, fighting), while cultivating her ‘feminine’ side as well (caring, nurturing). Second, the role of ‘damsel in distress’ in the trilogy is reserved for the artistic Peeta, a baker’s son, who is coded as a nurturing character constantly in need of rescue. But there is also the ‘ever-so-masculine’ Gale, a hunter and a mineworker who is introduced early in the trilogy as Katniss’ true love interest. More often than not the love scenes performed by Katniss and Peeta in the game arena are crosscut to Gale watching these scenes with acute fits of jealousy, not necessarily because of the staged love affair itself, but perhaps more because he is not playing a role in Katniss’ survival. If we regard love as a “system of intimacy” (Luhmann 1988) that tells us who to love, what to love, and when to love, there are at least three notions of romantic love in The Hunger Games trilogy. One is Ronald de Sousa’s (1991) concept of “theatrical love”, which consists of staging the gestures of love as a form of play by mutual consent. This requires willing suspension of disbelief, as well as a strict separation between the embodied

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self-experiencing emotion, and the impersonated self-performing emotion. To perform love is to “play at love” by means of representations or simulations of love based on mutual consent (479), which in The Hunger Games trilogy not only involves Katniss and Peeta’s mutual consent, but also consent of the Capitol audience witnessing their loving performance. For de Sousa the theater of love is an ironic attitude that mixes sensual pleasure with aesthetic imagination in a way that allows one to feel emotions that are not “immediately real” (477). Obviously, in The Hunger Games the theater of love does not involve luxuriously indulging in romantic emotions without ‘paying the prize’, but a matter of survival. Therefore, it is also related to ludus, that is, a game-playing love style staged for an audience as a strategic move. Essentially, Katniss and Peeta do not win the 74th Hunger Games because they are more skillful than the other tributes, but because they have a romantic narrative, which wins over not only the audience but also the Gamemakers. Psychologists define ludic love as instrumental toward some end, a game to be played, a contest that is excessively focused on self-interests without true commitment and care for the other (Lee 1977; Lester and Philbrick 1988; Le 2005). In addition, in the context of romance and intimacy the notion of game often implies deceitful maneuvers geared toward the manipulation by means of staged and scripted “theatre of seduction” where the lucid lover wins and the loved one is defeated (Paasonen 2018, 1; 32). Similarly, Katniss and Peeta’s theater of love is designed to gain the upper hand, not of one another, but of the Capitol. In The Hunger Games their love functions as just another game within a game with specific rules, roles, and stakes, which leave no room for the autotelic playfulness of love that involves experimentation with what lovers may imagine themselves doing, liking, and preferring. Furthermore, in Catching Fire the second round of their game of courtship reverses the stakes, with Katniss and Peeta now finding themselves on the losing end. In The Hunger Games there is an instance of theatrically staged ludic love in Peeta’s interview with Caesar Flickerman before a live audience. It establishes Katniss and Peeta as “star-crossed lovers”, destined to have fallen in love by fate, which allows them to manipulate the game to their own advantage. The theatrical nature of the interview is emphasized by its setting. This takes us backstage, where we witness the conversation between Peeta and Caesar from across Katniss’ shoulder, while she is watching the scene on a large television monitor. On the interview stage Peeta and Caesar are seated in the foreground, while in the background

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Peeta and Katniss’ faces recede toward a vanishing point on two rows of digital screens, seemingly infinite in number, like some ever-elusive theatrical masks. The conversation itself starts off in a humorous tone, despite the morbid topic, which further highlights its staged nature. It is only when Caesar enquires about a “special girl back home” that the mood of the interview changes. The camera zooms in on Peeta’s instantly serious face as he discloses that “she came here with me” and the scene is cut to a close-up of Katniss’ face expressing disbelief. Peeta’s public confession on stage and Katniss’ personal disbelief backstage suggest that the declaration of love was a theatrical performance in which roles could easily be swapped, a strategic game intended to manipulate the situation for personal advantage. An even more brilliant strategic move takes place during the second interview with Caesar in Catching Fire, in which Peeta first ‘confesses’ that Katniss and he have secretly married—like Romeo and Juliet—and then expresses his concern for their ‘unborn baby’, noticeably conveying grief in his trembling voice and facial expression. In contrast to Peeta’s first interview, the one preceding the Quarter Quells does regularly cut away from the stage to the audience, in order to show their emotional reactions as diegetic spectators. These range from romantic sentimentality through bewilderment to downright outrage. Only one subtle smirk with just one corner of his mouth in reaction to Haymitch’s congratulatory salute from the audience reveals that Peeta’s emotion was a performance, calculated simulation of love with shed tears and sought-out phrases. The second form of love in The Hunger Games trilogy is not really an emotion, but rather a system of social control, regulated by the Capitol that subjects its citizens to forced relationships. Here love functions as a mechanism of power that draws individuals in and leads them to modify their ways of being. Thus, the love story that Katniss and Peeta manufactured for survival in The Hunger Games imprisons them in a romantic narrative that becomes part of the authoritarian discourse in Catching Fire. This is evident in the scene in which Snow appears on the balcony of the Presidential Palace, addressing the cheering elite of Panem with a carefully scripted welcome speech: Tonight, on this the last day of their tour, I want to welcome our two victors. Two young people who embody our ideals of strength and valor. And I personally want to congratulate them on the announcement of their engagement. Your

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love has inspired us. And I know it will go on inspiring us, every day, for as long as you may live. (President Snow in Catching Fire)

After the speech, Snow looks down on Katniss and Peeta, toasting them with his glass of champagne before spectacular fireworks go off. Yet Katniss does not look at the fireworks but she gazes at Snow, who returns her gaze by shaking his head. This exchange of looks and Snow’s gesture communicate a situation in which external social power is internalized, since it is linked to an intimate, albeit forced, relationship between two individuals. Following Michel Foucault, Laura Kipnis (2003) argues that love is an institutional type of enclosure that subjects individuals to regulation and surveillance of both body and mind (93). This means that, in contrast to the customary view of love as the opposite of oppression, power asymmetries are intimately connected to love, not as an emotion of as ‘being in love with’, but as a structure in the dynamics of social order. Anna Jónasdóttir (1994) has developed a notion of love that functions within a system of exploitation. Here the dominant exploiter extracts something of value from the exploited subordinate. In the context of patriarchy, this becomes a question of men exploiting women’s love in such a way that it diminishes their possibilities to operate in society effectively as fully legitimate subjects (225). Such a patriarchal structure is present in The Hunger Games trilogy, where President Snow asserts his dominance by claiming ownership of Katniss’ body out of fear for her resisting submission to the Capitol’s power. Love plays an important role in this system of dominance, insofar as it forces Katniss to choose courses of actions that are in conflict with her personal needs. In this sense, The Hunger Games trilogy can be seen as an allegorical resistance against patriarchy, even though its ending effectively reinforces the same patriarchal, heteronormative systems that it supposedly challenges (i.e., Thaller 2016). Nevertheless, I strongly suggest that there is also a notion of authentic love as a form of resistance, that is not merely reactive to power relations, but a positive action in its own terms. This is epitomized in the wedding gown that Katniss would have worn for her performative matrimony with Peeta in Catching Fire, for instance. Upon President Snow’s request, Katniss wears the gown during her interview with Caesar Flickerman as a ‘star-crossed lover’, only to trigger its eruption into flames as she twirls, performing her anticipated ‘Girl on Fire’ routine. However, from the ashes of the wedding gown arises a magnificent ‘mockingjay’ dress, complete with spectacular wings, transforming a symbol of love into a symbol

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of resistance. A similar event occurs when President Coin wants to include Peeta in Squad 451 while his emotional hijacking has not yet ended and he still intends to kill Katniss. Despite his being a liability he is seemingly included because of his indispensable propaganda value in the spirit of ‘love conquers all’. But in the exchange between Boggs and Katniss we find out that there is also an implicit political motive that is much more sinister in nature. Namely, that for Coin the sweet-natured Peeta would have been a preferable rallying cry symbol than Katniss, and that the best thing Katniss could do to further the rebellion would be to die, whether killed by Peeta’s hand or not. Yet, by inventing the ‘real or not real’ game, Katniss and Peeta are able to resist both the Capitol and Coin, thereby opening a vista for love that carries possibilities for self-determination outside the existing systems of power. According to Irving Singer (1991), this kind of love is founded on bestowal of value, as it “generates a new society by sheer force of emotional attachment, a society that enables the lovers to discard many of the conventions that would ordinarily have separated them” (269). Peeta’s return to District 12 where Katniss has been exiled seems to signify that he appreciates what Katniss values, “announcing that what is real for her is real for him too” (270). This means that the affirmation of accuracy in the ‘real or not real’ game flows both ways, transforming the love between Katniss and Peeta into an ethical attitude that enables them to “recognize the truth about [each other’s] character and act appropriately” (271). This renders the romantic story in The Hunger Games trilogy into a meaningful and complex reflection on the nature of love beyond the popular fan discussion as to whether in the end Katniss made the right ‘love choice’ or not.

Performing Ludic Love After Rue’s death and the ensuing riot in District 11 triggered by Katniss’ performance of mourning in front of the camera in The Hunger Games, Haymitch convinces Seneca Crane to spare Katniss’ life, and to give the audiences “young love” to root for instead. This leads to the announcement of a “rule change” that permits crowning two victors if they originate from the same District. This allows Katniss and Peeta to perform the star-crossed lovers theme. Immediately after the announcement, Katniss starts looking for Peeta and finds him badly injured by the river. This situation gives Katniss an opportunity to nurture Peeta back to life. First, she discovers a cave—the symbolic womb of Mother Earth—for them to stay

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protected in the game arena even though they remain under scrutiny of the surveillance cameras. Therefore, her cautious peck kiss on Peeta’s cheek is immediately broadcast for all Panem to see. Concerned by the possibility that romance-hungry audiences might be frustrated from witnessing such a cold expression of intimacy, Haymitch then sends Katniss a parachute with a can of soup accompanied by a sarcastic note saying “You call that a kiss?”. Despite the sentiment of ‘whatever’ that can be read in Katniss’ face, complete with the rolling of the eyes, she nevertheless understands that the stakes have to go up with her ‘loving performance’ if she and Peeta are to stay alive. This is why the second kiss between them, prompted by Peeta’s question “Why are you doing this?”, is much more passionate, much more convincing than the first one, which is confirmed by a prompt crosscut to Gale’s offended mien, as he watches the performance in District 12. The soup provides a pretext for another act of nurturing as Katniss insists feeding Peeta instead of allowing him to eat for himself. This triggers in Peeta a remorseful confession of guilt for his previously tossing Katniss the burnt loaf of bread instead of going out to her in the rain. In this scene, the foodstuffs—the bowl of soup, the loaf of bread—do not only serve as symbols for survival, but also as symbols for care and affection. In this scene, the affective meaning of the relationship between Katniss and Peeta is performed—if not felt—through food. In addition, it is significant that Katniss deliberately takes on the ‘feminine’ role, which is conform to the patriarchal, traditional norm of what is expected from a woman in love: to care for the well-being and to nurture her loved one through food (Szabo 2014). By feeding Peeta, Katniss stages a gendered version of her own self by following cultural scripts that conceptualize femininity in terms of interpersonal scenarios, just like an actor who submits to a playwright while anticipating the critical responses of the audiences (Simon and Gagnon 1986, 110). But Katniss performs this gendered drama consciously, deliberately, and strategically, as a means to her own ends, simultaneously confirming and resisting the roles of traditional femininity. The third act of nurturing takes place after Katniss has endangered her life at the Cornucopia feast, while collecting medicine for Peeta. In the darkness of the cave they attend to each other’s wounds in a scene that conveys haptic qualities, evoking a sense of intimacy. The intimate mood of the image, accompanied by the score with a lone guitar, is crosscut to reaction shots of Gamemakers in the control room, suggesting that Katniss

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and Peeta’s theater of love is received with willing suspension of disbelief. The cave scenes convey romance for the diegetic audience, as they embody a ‘mood of love’ by tender gestures and postures familiar from other cultural and pictorial traditions associated with affection. One finds an example in Egon Schiele’s The Embrace (1917) for instance, a painting of two lovers locked in a passionate embrace, which is filled with tenderness and intimacy. Fredric Jameson (1984) described this kind of romantic intensity as a mysterious “charge of affect” (28) that stimulates the imagination by contradicting the flat presence of the everyday. Katniss and Peeta’s theater of love climaxes with the double suicide attempt that is in accordance with the theme of star-crossed lovers. In this scene, we recognize the romantic tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1597) and the kind of love represented in this theme: the death of the doomed lovers “celebrating the strength and intensity of their devotion to one another” (Charney 2000, 80). Like Romeo and Juliet, Katniss and Peeta privilege individual desire to the reigning demands of the Gamemakers by threatening to swallow poisonous nightlock berries together. The scene is crosscut to multiple locations with reaction shots of audiences witnessing the prospect on enormous screens: there is a reaction shot of Seneca Crane’s disbelieving face, but also shots of inhabitants of the Capitol desiring a tragic love story. At some point, Katniss directs her gaze directly into the camera in acknowledgment of the world that is watching. It suggests that she is performing the tragic love story consciously, not out of ‘true love’ but out of necessity. She wins the Games by giving the audiences the performance of love’s theater that they desire, a charade of love as a transcendent bliss that is larger than life or death. This is why the film ends with Caesar Flickerman interviewing the “star-crossed lovers from District 12” in front of a live audience eager to satisfy their appetite for more romance, responding with oohs and aahs when Katniss, dressed in pale tulle, declares that she could not imagine a life without Peeta. The interview is the continuation of love as a strategic game that allows Katniss to be both the author and the object-to-be-looked-at of her personal ‘love’ story, while the forced smile on her face suggests that blissful love is more difficult to fake than doomed love. Paul Kottmann (2012) argues that the appeal of a romantic tragedy such as Romeo and Juliet lies in the conflict between social reality and a struggle for freedom and self-realization, conveyed in the notion of ‘star-­ crossed love’. He argues that Romeo and Juliet’s love affair is not about desire to be together, but about desire for autonomy and freedom that the

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lovers can claim through one another (6). Similarly, Katniss ascertaining her life as her own requires that she both risks her life and ‘finds’ it in Peeta (“I could not imagine a life without him”) even though this assertion will only be temporary, and her expression of love merely a performance. This is why the suicide pact is more than an act of rebellion: it is a claim for freedom and self-determination beyond the only official rule of the Games, which is to survive. Katniss and Peeta’s suicide pact belongs to the order of transgressive experience, which involves a rejection of totalitarianism, and which is invoked by Antonin Artaud in his essay “On Suicide” (2001): “If I kill myself it won’t be to destroy myself, but to rebuild myself […] for the first time I would give things the shape of my will” (57). Therefore, from an Artaudian point of view, Katniss and Peeta’s double suicide would not simply have been an act of self-destruction, but a violent re-conquest of the self, a way to give circumstances the shape of one’s own free will, not as a united ‘pair’ but as two separate individuals. The gesture with the berries is therefore more than two innocent tributes playing a game of bluff against a dishonest Gamemaker. It could even be argued that Katniss demonstrates ethical virtue in the double suicide scene, since her decision is grounded on a righteous cause, even when it endangers her and Peeta’s lives while they both clearly desire to stay alive. Her aim is to escape from unjust detention, and to do this, she is willing to risk death.1 Furthermore, unlike her decision to volunteer for the Games, which was taken under pressure of ‘hot’ emotion, the gesture with the berries seems to be based on her emotional ‘cool’, characterized by disenchantment and reason, which is why Katniss strikes us as especially courageous in this scene. In the context of moral emotions, Francis Hutcheson has argued that such cool emotion is indeed more properly an ethical one, since it requires the assistance of thoughtful reflection and free will, while a hot emotion, even when morally appropriate, is driven by 1  See also Mark Fisher’s (2012) analysis of the scene: “In a world where domination is total, where power has unquestioned dominion over life and death, then the last recourse for the oppressed is to die on their own terms, to use their deaths as—symbolic as well as literal— weapons. Thus, in The Hunger Games, it is Katniss and Peta’s [sic] threat of suicide which checkmates the Capitol. In choosing to die, they not only deny the Capitol the captured life of a victor, they also deny it their deaths. Death in the arena ceases to be a reconfirmation of the Capitol’s power, and becomes instead an act of refusal. […] The threat of suicide is the first step in a process of converting fatalism into insurrection. The fantasy of escape is given up, not any more because Katniss sees the Capitol’s power as unbreakable, but because she now sees no alternative but to confront it” (30).

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basic instinct and violent affect. In both cases of ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ emotion, the affect provides the ground intuition for making a moral judgment, but the latter requires more effort to interpret the situation and to respond appropriately to the situation (Hutcheson 2006, 127). This means that emotional cool, as opposed either to hot emotion or to affective insensitivity, “is a state that leaves room for both certain types of feelings and for clear-headed contemplation” (Herron 2016, 434). Yet as soon as the Games are over, both Katniss and Peeta are folded back into the confinements of the Capitol, their tragic romance now harnessed by the third power that becomes the substance of their ‘love’. Indeed, as soon as the cameras are turned off from witnessing Katniss and Peeta’s theater of love, emotional coldness emerges between them. No longer are they depicted within the same frame even when holding hands as part of their theater of love, while a POV shot of Gale and Primrose reveals the real objects of Katniss’ affection. The affective juxtaposition between the perceptual subjectivity and the narrative objectivity in these shots establishes the preceding theater of love as a mere charade that was consciously staged by gestures of affection: fictional, simulated, and separate from reality. But like Baudrillardian simulacrum, Katniss and Peeta’s theater of love substitutes gestures of affection with true affection, acquiring the status of genuine love, and taking on a powerful life of its own.

Love as Imprisonment The final shot of The Hunger Games depicts President Snow cunningly observing Katniss and Peeta’s homecoming at District 12 as ‘star-crossed lovers’ from the control room of the Games, implying that their theater of love will soon be harnessed in the service of the Capitol’s interests. Katniss and Peeta’s fabricated romance in Catching Fire starts off with the emotional coldness by which The Hunger Games ended. The affective distance is suggested by the image composition which shows the two opposing each other from the margins of the frame in a setting that is sparsely illuminated by cold, blue lighting. This emotional coldness is noticed by Haymitch, who comments that Katniss and Peeta “have a lot of warming up to do before the showtime”. But it is also evident for Snow who visits Katniss with a hologram beamer that projects the suicide pact scene from The Hunger Games onto thin air as it were. This suggests that the materiality of love between Katniss and Peeta is as elusive and transparent as the hologram itself, and that it can easily be switched off with one push on a

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button. This is why in Catching Fire the narrative premise of Katniss and Peeta’s theater of love is no longer mere survival. It now functions as a discourse to affirm the Capitol’s power. Its function is that of a spectacle, or “an image of happy harmony surrounded by desolation and horror, at the calm center of misery”, like Guy Debord (1994) famously described this (63). Lena Gunnarsson (2016) writes that in an exploitative social system the Dominant can force the Subordinated to choose courses of action that are disadvantageous to the needs of the latter. This includes courses of action with regard to romantic love. Within patriarchy for instance, “women are compelled to satisfy their need for love [in a way that] deprives them of the personal power and worthiness that their loving and love-seeking is about” (5). Emulating this idea, it could be said that in the totalitarian system of Panem, Katniss’ fabricated love toward Peeta is deemed desirable, while her ‘genuine’ love toward Gale is judged undesirable. Snow, too, makes this clear with a second hologram depicting Katniss and Gale kissing, which somehow appears much more opaque and thereby more solid than the previous one with Katniss, Peeta, and the poisonous berries. Furthermore, Katniss’ ‘love power’ is extracted by Snow in a way that is designed to create the impression that her star-crossed romance with Peeta was facilitated by the Capitol, whereas it now functions to affirm and reproduce its structural power. This is why Katniss and Peeta’s theater of love is incessantly and publicly staged as “the greatest love story of our time”, as Caesar Flickerman describes it in his television studio before the launching of the televised Victory Tour. This starts in District 11, continues in descending numerical order unto District 1, and climaxes at the Presidential party in the Capitol. As a theater performance, ‘love’ between Katniss and Peeta during the Victory Tour might best be described as a form of spectacle, which is established as such in their on-air romantic encounter in the Victors’ Village. In this scene, a reluctant Katniss enters before the cameras from a centralized perspective, filmed from behind like a performer entering a stage. The mood of emotional coolness is the same as in the scene in Haymitch’s house. The darkly lit winter tableau is characterized by fairy tale qualities, dominated by cold, blue hues. The scene is intercut with images of Flickerman’s studio setting, equally dominated by a cold color scheme, which further underscores the artificial nature of performative love between Katniss and Peeta.

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Again, the way in which the two characters are brought together in the scene emphasizes distance rather than proximity, even when they are within the same frame. One shot shows Katniss and Peeta in profile on the left side of the image, while on the right Effie Trinket observes the performance out of focus as a ‘mistress of ceremonies’. The shot is followed by a close-up of the three-lens camera recording the events to be broadcast, reflecting Katniss and Peeta’s distorted faces, before the camera cuts to a shot that mirrors the previous one. Here Katniss is seen facing the camera on the right side of the image, but half of her face is hidden behind Peeta’s profile, a composition that evokes an association with the stock image of two archetypal theater masks (Fig. 4.1). The orchestration of these shots is a clear indication that their love always remains a mere staged spectacle, which follows a carefully prearranged screenplay based on artificial emotions and designed to evoke false impressions. But unlike The Hunger Games, in which Katniss and Peeta’s theater of love was part of a strategic game that could be seen as an act of defiance, in Catching Fire their spectacle of love is bondage, as they are forces to share their identities ad infinitum. This spectacle of love turns out to be a fiasco though, as it fails to convince both Snow and the Districts’ inhabitants. This lack of authenticity is conveyed in the montage sequence of the Victory Tour, as it depicts Katniss and Peeta awkwardly exchanging gestures of affection on stage in different Districts, while a sound bridge ties the scenes together, in which they recite Effie’s palm cars as if they were “drilling manuals”. The

Fig. 4.1  Catching Fire: Katniss and Peeta ‘wearing drama masks’. (Screen capture)

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on-stage shots are cut to reaction shots of an angry audience, disappointed by Katniss not speaking her mind, while elsewhere Snow observes the proceedings on a hologram screen in real time. In an attempt to convince both Snow and the Districts’ inhabitants that their love is genuine, Katniss and Peeta fabricate a marriage proposal that is promptly reproduced as a hologram in Caesar Flickerman’s television studio, with an avatar of Flickerman himself peering over Katniss’ shoulder during the faked intimacy. The televised moment is crosscut to a mining shack in District 12, where Gale overtly ignores the mandatory viewing of this romantic utopia, thus once more implying that he is the real object of Katniss’ affection. Katniss and Peeta’s spectacle of love culminates in a closing party at the Presidential Palace, the abundant theatricality of which provides an appropriate setting for their inauthentic affection. The opening shot of the party scene shows the palace centered in the perspectival space, bathing in pale blue light and framed by two majestic fountains, their water jets brightened up with brilliant magenta. Katniss and Peeta arrive at the party escorted by Effie Trinket, who sports an extravagant lilac silk organza ruffle dress with an enormous flip collar, which was originally designed by the late Alexander McQueen. At first, Katniss and Peeta seem rather out of place in their unassuming elegance. Nevertheless, their arrival is genuinely welcomed by the appreciatingly applauding crowd that, similarly to Effie, is dressed lavishly in luxurious materials, complicated designs, and exaggerated accessories. This arrival is shot from Katniss’ POV, alternated with reaction shots of her delighted face, as the smiling crowds in the background turn their heads to watch her go. There is also a fire eater extinguishing flames, a metaphor symbolizing the function that Katniss and Peeta’s spectacle of love is meant to fulfill. The presidential party is a form of ‘media extravaganza’ (Kellner 2003, 2), an initiating ritual for individuals, which embodies the empty values of the dominant culture, while it distracts them from its weighty problems. The arrival scene suggests that Peeta’s marriage proposal to Katniss is not only a credible, but also a desirable outcome for the star-crossed lovers attending their Victory Tour, at least in the eyes of the Capitol’s public. This is also represented in the luminous promotional poster for the Tour, which depicts Katniss and Peeta dressed in white, serenely gazing in the same direction as white rose petals descend upon them from above. Katniss holds a bouquet of white roses, flowers that are a recurring motif throughout The Hunger Games trilogy, closely associated with President Snow. While a white rose is customarily associated with love and innocence, in

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The Hunger Games trilogy the flower functions both as a metonym for Snow and as a metaphor for death and the internalized panoptic presence of state authority. In the Victory Tour poster, the roses signify that, within the dystopic system of Panem, Katniss and Peeta’s spectacle of love functions as a romantic utopia conditioned by authoritative control, and translated into their constantly sustained ‘lovers’ discourse’ (Fig. 4.2). Romantic utopia is a notion of Eva Illouz (1997) by which she argues that contemporary Western ideas of romantic love are determined by the portrayal of romance in popular culture. According to Illouz, the obsessive representation of romantic utopia in the media has penetrated the fabric of everyday life to such an extent that it has altered our personal experience of love (154). At the same time, genuine romantic love is considered to be part of the private sphere of interpersonal relationships, instead of the public sphere, where the ‘staged self’ is enacted within the framework of labor or political participation, for instance (91–92). However, in Panem the utopian aspect of Katniss and Peeta’s staged romance communicates a vision on love that is free of social equality or hierarchy, as it is brimming with romantic symbols of genuine emotion. In the diegetic world of the film, this romantic utopia seems to affect the fantasies of young girls in particular. One of them is Snow’s granddaughter, and another one is the flower girl from District 4 who declares to Katniss during the Victory Tour, that once she gets older, she will volunteer for the Games just like Katniss did. Thus, while Katniss and Peeta’s love story suppresses the horrors of a dystopian society, its utopian

Fig. 4.2  Catching Fire: White symbolism on the Victory Tour. (Screen capture)

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dimension is celebrated as an ideal romantic experience. It reassures the citizens that true love comes to those who fulfill Panem’s societal expectations, so that it is by means of romantic utopia that its ideology is brought home. Furthermore, this romantic utopia is linked to a dystopian moral system of grounded in totalitarian power (McDonald 2014, 74), which values the “ideals of strength and valor” above ethical virtues directed at human welfare.

Love, Naturally In Freudian thinking, there are two ways for people to fall in love. There is the attachment model, in which the object of love is a parent-substitute, and the narcissistic model, in which the object of love is conceived after the example of one’s own self (the narcissistic object-choice). Love between Katniss and Gale seems to take both routes. When Katniss had lost her father in a mining accident, she was forced to step in as a father figure substitute, single-handedly supporting her depressed mother and a much younger Primrose. When Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Games, Gale promises to protect and provide for her family in her absence, taking over the fatherly duties Katniss normally fulfilled. The shot of Gale carrying Primrose piggyback at the end of The Hunger Games can be seen as an emotion metaphor for fatherly love, bearing the weight of parental responsibility on his shoulders. At the same time, Gale is clearly a narcissistic object-choice for Katniss, a love interest Katniss has fallen for, because she and Gale share the same characteristics. Both Katniss and Gale are independent, courageous, and fierce; they are both skillful hunters who are familiar with the forest, and in their own way they both fight against societal inequality. It is especially significant that the setting for love between Katniss and Gale is nature, a forest, which functions as the backdrop for their shared experience. In the beginning of The Hunger Games a montage sequence of Katniss preparing for a hunt makes clear how she is able to perform in the forest self-supportively, as it is her natural habitat. But before she manages to shoot an arrow at a deer, Gale’s offscreen voice breaks her concentration and chases the animal away. Together they hide in the underbrush as the Capitol’s hovercrafts promptly arrive, and find a spot on a sunny meadow to sit on, with a magnificent forest scenery in the background (Fig. 4.3). Instead of preparing themselves for the upcoming reaping, they first share a piece of scarcely available bread, while making plans to live in

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Fig. 4.3  The Hunger Games: Katniss and Gale in their natural setting. (Screen capture)

the woods, which for them is a sanctuary that is simultaneously available and unavailable. In a later scene, as Katniss is about to be set loose in the Game arena that is noticeably similar to her own trusted forest, the scene is crosscut to Gale sitting in the very same spot, angrily refusing to watch as he believes that if no one watches, the Capitol will have no game.2 Gale’s decision not to watch demonstrates understanding of the ethical responsibility for both the filmmaker and the spectator in the event of depicting death. In this context, Vivian Sobchack (2004) has argued that sometimes witnessing moments of death in cinema is obligatory, for instance when there is an agreed-upon complicity between the filmmaker and the dying subject. This realizes the spectator’s permission to be present, such as in Peter Friedman and Tom Joslin’s documentary The Silverlake Life: The View from Here (1993). But sometimes ethical responsibility with regard to viewing requires not to watch, for instance when there is “the possibility of planned exploitation of human beings, of ghoulishness [or] cold voyeurism” (254). Sobchack refers primarily to nonfiction film, but notes that a fictional event of death also needs “to meet at least a certain minimum set of ethical criteria to gain some level of cultural sanction” (245). In terms of ethical spectatorship, then, The Hunger Games trilogy is a contradictory 2  Although the scene is a break in the narrative logic of The Hunger Games, a noticeable departure from the novel where it is highly likely that the Peacekeepers would easily “identify those who were not watching and punish them accordingly” (Heit 2015, 15).

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cinematic experience, because it is meant to question the use of violence as entertainment to satisfy the appetites of audiences hungry for pain and suffering, but simultaneously the trilogy clearly uses violence as a compelling major narrative element. Leaving this aside, Catching Fire starts off similarly to the hunting sequence in The Hunger Games, except that now the scene in the forest takes place in the middle of the winter, the frosty setting functioning as an emotion metaphor for fear that has chilled Katniss’ heart as it were. Again, Gale enters the scene with an offscreen sound, but this time he is welcomed with an arrow ready to be shot. The relationship between Katniss and Gale, presented as a natural affair in The Hunger Games, is frozen over in Catching Fire, and is only rekindled later when Katniss takes care of Gale after he has been brutally whipped in public. In contrast to the cold setting within the frosty forest, the nursing scene is dominated by soft, warm light and the sound of a crackling fire in the background. The close-­ ups of Katniss’ hand caressing Gale’s skin evoke a sense of intimacy that culminates in Katniss gently kissing Gale as he sleeps. And before Katniss is reaped for the second time to participate in the Quarter Quells, we find Katniss and Gale sitting in their own spot in the forest, exchanging gestures of genuine affection and expressing regret for not having left when there still was a chance. This is a bittersweet scene that expresses simultaneously Katniss and Gale’s mutual love and the always-elusive impossibility of its fulfillment. It would seem that throughout The Hunger Games trilogy the love between Katniss and Gale is defined by what Roland Barthes (2001) called “the lover’s anxiety”, which manifests itself as the fear of mourning for the loss of the lover that has already occurred as it were (30). This is why, when love between Katniss and Gale ends in betrayal and disappointment toward the end of Mockingjay Part II, this narrative ‘twist’ does not really come as a surprise, because one has already foreseen it like an anxious lover, always anticipatorily in mourning. Furthermore, the emphasis on forest and nature as a backdrop for Katniss and Gale’s love suggests that their love is genuine insofar as it was not ignited in the confines of a societal space, but in the natural space of ‘pure’ emotions and ‘true’ selfhood. Illouz (1997) argues that natural landscapes are by far the most widespread tropes for communicating ideas of romantic love. Nature is an ideal setting for romantic love, because it is symbolically cut off from the industrial and urban world of work and domesticity through pictorial conventions that were established by the landscape painting of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romanticism.

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Thomas Cole’s View on the Catskill (1836–1837), which depicts a magnificent landscape consisting of mountains, forest, and water, with just a few people in the foreground enjoying nature, is an example of this. The sublime elements in the painting contain a utopian vision of the romantic self, for which nature functions as an appropriate setting. Such an ideal of nature as articulated by Cole’s painting embodies values and ideals opposed to a dystopia brought about by technology and industrialism. This means that both nature and love are connected to the idea of ‘true’ self, the sense of a hidden but ‘pure’ individual essence found at the core of romance (91–93). I argue that The Hunger Games trilogy deliberately uses these romantic conventions, often willingly accepted as expressions of genuine love, to deceive us in a similar way as Katniss is deceived by Gale. In this sense, nature functions as an unreliable narrative agent because it lends a genuine and benign aura to Katniss and Gale’s relationship. It is this aura that is fractured when the rebel hovercrafts start dropping explosives, causing massive civilian fatalities in a strategic move orchestrated by President Alma Coin together with Gale himself. The last scene that Katniss and Gale share together—even though they are emphatically not seen within the same frame—takes place in the Presidential Palace toward the end of Mockingjay Part II, the diagonal distance of the entire room separating them not only physically, but also emotionally. Gale’s treachery is not merely a breach of Katniss’ trust, but also and more importantly a form of moral betrayal, which makes us doubt the genuineness of his affection from the outset.

From True to Authentic Love While the romantic trajectory between Katniss and Gale originates from sharing experiences but ends in betrayal, the love between Katniss and Peeta starts off on a false footing, but develops into affection that might best be described as authentic. Authentic love does not have the same significance as ‘genuine’ or ‘true’ love. Simone de Beauvoir (1989) defined authentic love as an interrelationship that assumes “the contingence of the other; that is to say, his lacks, his limitations, his basic gratuitousness” (654). Luce Irigaray (1996) considered recognition a condition for authentic love: “I recognize you goes hand in hand with: you are irreducible to me, just as I am to you. We may not be substituted for one another” (103). This is why Irigaray insists on saying “I love to you” rather than “I love you”, as the “to” adds intentionality between “I” and “you” that is

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missing in the traditional phrasing, which sounds as if one’s love can assimilate the other. And Keith Lehrer (1991) defined authentic love as an autonomous preference for what the loved one autonomously prefers, an expression of one’s autonomy that respects the expression of the autonomy of the other (114). However, initially we cannot be sure whether Peeta’s public confession of love might mean more than mere performance designed to distract the non-diegetic audience. His decision to ally with the Career Tributes in the 74th Games further arouses suspicions about his motives. Nevertheless, after the tracker jacker attack, it is Peeta who urges Katniss to run for her life, which indicates that his alliance with the Careers was a misleading strategy, intended to protect Katniss. Throughout The Hunger Games trilogy there are recurring, almost identical scenes, suggesting that love between Katniss and Peeta emerges as mutually enriching self-determination with a dynamic force of its own. One important recurring scene first takes place in Catching Fire, during the Victory Tour. In this scene, Katniss wakes up from a nightmare in her Capitol train sleeping compartment, while Peeta rushing in to her upon hearing her screams. Katniss then asks Peeta to stay with her and he lies down to hold her, saying “Always”. The first recurrence of the scene takes place in Mockingjay Part I, after the first Capitol broadcast with a fear-­ conditioned Peeta. The scene is nearly identical to the Victory Tour scene except for the setting, which is one of the sleeping compartments of District 13, as well as for the depth of story information, as the scene is Katniss’ dream within a dream. The second time the scene is repeated is in Mockingjay Part II, with Peeta wrestling against his implanted memories as Squad 451 escapes into the Capitol subway system. It is only by kissing Peeta energetically on the mouth and repeating “stay with me”, that Katniss is able to trigger Peeta out of his nightmare, to which he responds with “always”. Obviously, these recurring scenes could be explained as symptoms of posttraumatic disorder, related to nightmares through which the trauma is re-enacted. But the motif formed in the dialogue lines “stay with me” and “always” suggests that love between Katniss and Peeta is something to be actively brought into existence, rather than a destiny to which one passively submits. This results in greater responsibility for one another by which Katniss and Peeta enlarge and enhance themselves through the other, in open totality and mutual enrichment. Mockingjay Part II ends with a scene that resembles but does not replicate the nightmare sequence from Catching Fire. In this scene Katniss wakes up from sleep, but this time she gets up from her bed, walks into

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Peeta’s bedroom, and crawls next to him. Peeta then asks whether Katniss’ love for him is “real or not real”, to which Katniss replies: “Real”. Again, the dialogue phrase “real or not real” has to do with the posttraumatic disorder that both Katniss and Peeta suffer. The opening of Mockingjay Part I already witnessed Katniss having a hard time coping with her trauma, attempting to reclaim the boundaries of her own self by repeating the mantra of her identity essentials (“My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old …”). When in the same film we meet Peeta after his rescue from the Capitol, his mind has been ‘hijacked’ by means of tracker jacker venom that infuses his memories with extreme fear and doubt that make him see Katniss as threatening for his life. Peeta’s solution to distinguish between false distortions and actual memories is to have others confirm whether his perceptions are “real or not real”.

Love as Resistance Still, it seems that yet another function of love is apparent, namely as a constituent of self that can penetrate fabricated or traumatic memories and emotions. This is why, toward the end of The Hunger Games, Peeta declares that he does not want to forget. Forgetting would result in passivity in contrast to actively working through his memories, thereby deconstructing fake emotions and enabling him to love Katniss authentically. One example of real emotion bursting through fabricated feelings is Peeta’s third Capitol broadcast in Mockingjay Part I, when it is hacked into by the rebels, showing footage of Katniss in the ruins of District 12, singing “The Hanging Tree” song. The sight of Katniss and the sound of her voice allow Peeta’s real emotion to emerge through the fear-­ conditioned affects, which make him utter a warning against the approaching combat aircraft. Therefore Peeta’s warning could be seen as a declaration of love of some sorts. Similarly, in Mockingjay Part II there is a scene in which Katniss—although against her will—visits Peeta in his hospital room. Even though his emotional hostility, enhanced by the coldness of the hospital setting, is intended to hurt Katniss, nevertheless a genuine recollection of bread and its affective significance emerges through his implanted memories. Finally, in the underground sewers below the Capitol subway system, before the attack of the lizard mutts takes place, Peeta experiences an epiphany that enables him to distinguish between glossy, implanted memories and dim, accurate ones. This leads him to

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realize that throughout their history together, he and Katniss have continuously kept each other alive. Thus, in Katniss and Peeta’s relationship multiple layers of love are to be distinguished. First, there is the idea that authentic love persists, which is inseparable from repetition (“always”). Interestingly, this logic of persistence seems connected to the logic of trauma, since traumatic memories also persist by becoming subject to (uncontrolled) repetition. As many theorists of trauma, including Charlotte Delbo (1995) and Ruth Leys (2000, 2007), have suggested, trauma resists cognitive or semantic processing (‘thinking memory’), which is why it is experienced on the affective level of deep or somatic memory (‘sense memory’). If this were otherwise the traumatic event could be remembered, narrated, and worked through. Like trauma, Peeta’s love seems to exist beyond the thinking memory, since it remains preserved in the sense memory. The emotional hijacking by the Capitol is not one hundred percent successful, because it only focuses on thinking memory, leaving the sense memory intact. As a result, the persistence of love allows Peeta to resist being emotionally hijacked, for even though his memories of Katniss have been altered, affectively accurate residues of these memories endure nevertheless. This means that at the moments when Peeta remembers Katniss correctly (“You were stung once too [by the tracker jackers]”), his love for her ceases to be an experience in the past and becomes a counter-memory, a way of remembering other-wise. Even though Peeta’s subjective memory site has been altered by the Capitol as a strategic move against the rebels, the counter-­ memory of his love for Katniss results in recovering his identity as a countermove against the Capitol. Peeta’s urge to remember correctly (“Real or not real?”) is not only an urge to gain knowledge of the real past by locating proper time and place for his memories. It is also a desire to recover his identity that was wiped out together with his memories of Katniss, thus resisting and counteracting the Capitol’s biopower. Furthermore, it might even be argued that Katniss and Peeta reciprocate love for each other because they share the same traumatic experience. It must be noted though, that this idea of love as persistence is radically different to certain romantic notions of love, such as Torben Grodal’s (2000) dualistic concept. Here “spiritual love” residing in the “permanent soul” is characterized by intransience, in contrast to “physical love” located in the “transient body” and characterized by impermanence. By contrast, I argue that the persistence of love in The Hunger Games trilogy is not based on the notion of “permanent soul”, but on a purposive choice

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motivated by active and repeated commitment to the other person. Unlike the ‘natural’, ‘true’ love between Katniss and Gale based on their being a ‘perfect match’ physically and mentally, love between Katniss and Peeta is based on continuous contingency and choice. Needless to say, this does not mean that they simply ‘decide’ to love one another. Still, their ‘love choice’ is an active decision rather than a passive stumbling or falling into love. According to Robert Solomon (1980), this notion of emotion as choice means that emotions fall into the realm of individual responsibility, even when they are not consciously chosen (276–277). This is why Katniss and Peeta’s love is also part of a shared sense of ethical responsibility to “keep each other alive”. Following Iris Murdoch, Susan Wolf (2014) argues that this kind of love is central in active moral agency, since it draws one’s “loving attention […] away from one’s self and toward the object of one’s love [thus counteracting] the tendencies to be self-absorbed and selfish, two of the greatest sources of immorality in the world” (383). Therefore, it might be said that in The Hunger Games trilogy there is not only a development from the theater of love to authentic love, but also from self-love to other-love that is fundamental to moral agency, since it is directed to virtues beyond the self, not within the self. Mockingjay Part II ends with an epilogue. The opening shot finds Katniss with Peeta, framed in a similar composition to the scene in which she was sitting with Gale on a sunny meadow. In the right side of the image Katniss is holding a baby with her back toward the camera, while on the left side we see items for a picnic. Further away, almost exactly in the middle of the image, we witness Peeta playing with their young son, surrounded by an idyllic, pastoral scenery, and a soundscape filled with birdsong. The next frontal shot of Katniss, with her loving eyes directed at Peeta and their son, shows her sporting a different, a more ‘mature’ hairstyle than her emblematic braid. Her modest dress with blue and white flowers on yellow ochre fabric looks like something Laura Ingalls might have worn in Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983). Both dress and hairstyle are part of the cultural definition of femininity. Here Katniss’ look evokes domesticity and motherhood, firmly situated in a natural setting (Fig. 4.4). The association is confirmed when the baby starts crying and Katniss promptly comforts her, while “Rue’s Farewell” theme starts booming on the soundtrack, before it is merged with the “Deep in the Meadow” lullaby, sung by Katniss/Jennifer Lawrence. Using this same lullaby in the final scene of Mockingjay Part II as was heard in the very opening of The Hunger Games, brings the narrative circle

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Fig. 4.4  Mockingjay Part II: Katniss in the final shot of The Hunger Games trilogy. (Screen capture)

of the film to a close. This unambiguously romantic-pastoral ending suggests consummation of ideal love based on true affection, situated in the “liminal zone of nature […] in which pure attraction and emotion reign” (Illouz 1997, 93–94). The mood that such ending with pleasant meadows evokes is best described as idyllic, suggesting that the happiness that accompanied the beginning of a romantic relationship will go on to characterize the entirety of the romance (MacDowell 2013, 116). Furthermore, the ending makes that each and every cinematic element throughout the trilogy is oriented toward heteronormative domesticity. Yvette Bíro (2008) argues that the ending of a film often “has the charge to sum up the whole” (204). If this is correct, in this ending the idea of authentic love as an ethical emotion based on mutual enrichment is established as mere illusion. Ultimately it confirms the stereotypical heteronormative roles which the trilogy seemed to resist from the outset. Sarah Thaller (2016) describes the ending as a “feminist bait-and-switch” that “ultimately reinforces that the ideal heroine will surrender her personal power, will abandon any sense of self outside of heterosexual/repronormative domestic pairings, and will submit to restrictive systems”. This is why the ending of The Hunger Games trilogy might leave the spectator betrayed in a way similar to a lover, whose romance originated in magic, paraded in salvation, but ended in disillusionment.

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References Artaud, Antonin. 2001. On Suicide. Translated by David Rattray. In Artaud Anthology. Edited by Jack Hirschman, 56–58. San Francisco: City Lights. Barthes, Roland. 2001. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wand. Beauvoir, Simone de. 1989. The Second Sex. Translated by H.M.  Parshley. New York: Vintage. Bíro, Yvette. 2008. Turbulence and Flow in Film: The Rhythmic Design. Translated by Paul Salamon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Charney, Maurice. 2000. Shakespeare on Love and Lust. New  York: Columbia University Press. Debord, Guy. 1994. The Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Donald Nicholson-­ Smith. New York: Zone Books. Delbo, Charlotte. 1995. Auschwitz and After. Translated by Rosette C. Lamont. New Haven: Yale University Press. Fisher, Mark. 2012. Precarious Dystopias: The Hunger Games, In Time, and Never Let Me Go. Film Quarterly 65 (4): 27–33. Grodal, Torben. 2000. Art Film, the Transient Body, and the Permanent Soul. Aura 3: 33–56. Gunnarsson, Lena. 2016. The Dominant and Its Constitutive Other: Feminist Theorizations of Love, Power and Gendered Selves. Journal of Critical Realism 15 (1): 1–20. Heit, Jamey. 2015. The Politics of The Hunger Games. Jefferson: McFarland. Herron, Shane. 2016. Dark Humour and Moral Sense Theory: Or, How Swift Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Evil. Eighteenth-Century Fiction 28 (3): 417–446. Hutcheson, Francis. 2006/1730. Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind. Translated by Michael Silverthorne. Edited by James Moore and Michael Silverthorne. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Illouz, Eva. 1997. Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Irigaray, Luce. 1996. I Love to You: Sketch of a Possible Felicity in History. Translated by Alison Martin. New York: Routledge. Jameson, Fredric. 1984. Postmodernism and the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. New Left Review 146: 53–92. Jónasdóttir, Anna G. 1994. Why Women Are Oppressed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Kellner, Douglas. 2003. Media Spectacle. New York: Routledge. Kipnis, Laura. 2003. Against Love: A Polemic. New York: Pantheon Books. Kottmann, Paul A. 2012. Defying the Stars: Tragic Love as a Struggle for Freedom in Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare Quarterly 63 (1): 1–38.

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Le, Thao N. 2005. Narcissism and Immature Love as Mediators of Vertical Individualism and Ludic Love Style. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 22 (4): 543–560. Lee, John Alan. 1977. A Typology of Styles of Loving. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 3: 173–182. Lehrer, Keith. 1991. Love and Autonomy. In Love, Analysed, ed. Roger Lamb, 107–121. Boulder: Westview Press. Lester, David, and Joseph Philbrick. 1988. Correlates of Styles of Love. Personality and Individual Differences 9 (3): 689–690. Leys, Ruth. 2000. Trauma: A Genealogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2007. From Guilt to Shame: Auschwitz and After. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Luhmann, Niklas. 1988. Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy. Translated by Jeremy Gaines and Doris L. Jones. Stanford: Stanford University Press. MacDowell, James. 2013. Happy Endings in Hollywood Cinema: Cliché, Convention, and the Final Couple. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. McDonald, Brian. 2014. The Three Faces of Evil: A Philosophical Reading of The Hunger Games. In The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres, ed. Sean P. Connors, 65–84. Rotterdam: Sense. Paasonen, Susanna. 2018. Many Splendored Things: Thinking Sex and Play. London: Goldsmiths Press. Simon, William, and John H. Gagnon. 1986. Sexual Scripts: Origins, Influences and Changes. Qualitative Sociology 26 (4): 97–120. Singer, Irving. 1991. From The Nature of Love. In The Philosophy of Erotic Love, ed. Robert Solomon and Kathleen M.  Higgins, 259–278. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Sobchack, Vivian. 2004. Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Solomon, Robert C. 1980. Emotions and Choice. In Explaining Emotions, ed. Amèlie Oksenberg Rorty, 251–282. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sousa, Ronald de. 1991. Love as Theatre. In The Philosophy of Erotic Love, ed. Ronald de Sousa and Kathleen M.  Higgins, 477–491. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Szabo, Michelle. 2014. Men Nurturing Through Food: Challenging Gender Dichotomies Around Domestic Cooking. Journal of Gender Studies 23 (1): 18–31. Thaller, Sarah. 2016. Feminist Bait-and-Switch: The Hunger Games and the Illusion of Empowerment. Parlour: A Journal of Literary Criticism and Analysis. https://www.ohio.edu/parlour/news-­story.cfm?newsItem= 04A7BBE4-­5056-­A874-­1D563D477E575CA0. Wolf, Susan. 2014. Loving Attention: Lessons in Love from The Philadelphia Story. In Understanding Love: Philosophy, Film, and Fiction, ed. Susan Wold and Christopher Grau, 396–386. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 5

Survivor Shame and Guilt

Shame and Guilt as Moral Emotions Everyone who is dead is dead because of me. (Katniss Everdeen in Mockingjay Part II)

In her discussion of Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005), Catherine Wheatley (2009) argues that in terms of moral spectatorship, it is Haneke’s most effective film due to the aesthetic organization based on the emotions of shame and guilt (154). Since both shame and guilt are intersubjective emotions that involve a self-monitoring interpretative process, they are indeed “recognizably central to the functioning of morality as a general normative practice, [speaking] the voice of moral conscience” (Bagnoli 2015, 1). Insofar as shame and guilt are fundamentally related to our sense of (moral) self, it is surprising that both remain understudied in the context of emotions and cinematic ethics. Besides Wheatley, at least Carl Plantinga (2009) has discussed shame and guilt as moral emotions in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951). He notices “synaesthetic affects” that are compatible with paradigm scenarios of these self-­conscious emotions (159–166). Furthermore, when considering shame and guilt in terms of cinematic ethics one’s immediate association might be with (documentary) films that explicitly confront perpetrators of immoral acts with their deeds, such as Joseph Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012) or its © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Laine, Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games, Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67334-5_5

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companion piece The Look of Silence (2014). Even though he does not explicitly discuss shame and guilt as moral emotions, Robert Sinnerbrink (2015, 2017) has nevertheless analyzed both films through a spectatorial logic that contrasts witnessing of the victims (shaming) with exposure of the perpetrators (as guilty) in such a way that it becomes an ethical judgment, demanding recognition of immoral past actions in the present. Although The Hunger Games trilogy does not inevitably elicit self-­ conscious spectatorship that is necessary for the spectators to feel shame and guilt themselves, both emotions function as important aesthetic themes and narrative impulses throughout. The spectators can feel the presence of these emotions as embodied in the aesthetic organization of the films, even if The Hunger Games trilogy does not establish recognition of shame and guilt for the spectators in the same way as Caché, The Act of Killing, and The Look of Silence do. For obvious reasons it is not possible to draw a comparison between the historical-political complexity of these three films and The Hunger Games trilogy. Nevertheless, I propose that the trilogy bears similarities to the films insofar as The Hunger Games embodies shame and guilt synaesthetically, as Plantinga suggests. But instead of analyzing shame and guilt through paradigm scenarios, I approach these emotions through the spectatorial logic of shame on the one hand, and the identificatory logic of guilt on the other. By this I do not mean identification by the spectators with the cinematic apparatus as theorized within psychoanalytic paradigm by Jean-Louis Baudry (1985) and Christian Metz (1986), for instance. Neither am I referring to alignment and (moral) allegiance through narrative strategies of engagement with the character as theorized within cognitive paradigm by Murray Smith (1995) and others. Rather, I argue that the sensory qualities of a film scene themselves correspond to the affective structures of these complex emotions in a way that resonate directly with our affective faculties. This is what makes The Hunger Games trilogy ethically forceful, insofar as its aesthetic logic is affectively congruent with shame and guilt as moral emotions.

Shame and Guilt: The Important Difference Yet as moral emotions, shame and guilt may be entangled in many ways, but there are actually important differences between the two emotions. According to the phenomenological distinction by Helen Block Lewis (1971), the focus in guilt is external, since it has one’s actions or behavior

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as its core, while in shame the core is one’s own self, the focus being internal. Lewis understands both shame and guilt as “identification phenomena” (423), with differing routes of identification. In guilt, the locus of identification is the value system of an internalized other, while in shame the locus is the self as seen by this internalized other. Therefore, in guilt this value system of the other is likely to be the focal point of one’s awareness, while in the “internal theatre of shame” one has “watching thoughts” about what the other is thinking about the self (424). Similarly, Ruth Leys explains the phenomenology of shame through the notion of “spectatorial logic” which I find particularly useful in understanding how shame can function as an aesthetic emotion in cinema, conveyed and expressed beyond engagement with a character: [Guilt] is inseparable from the notion of the subject’s unconscious identification with the other [while] shame is an experience of consciousness of the self when the individual becomes aware of being exposed to the diminishing or disapproving gaze of another […] [Guilt] concerns your actions [while shame] is held to concern not your actions but who you are, that is, your deficiencies and inadequacies as a person as there are revealed to the shaming gaze of the other. (10–11)

Thus, the spectatorial logic of shame refers to the negative feelings experienced by an individual as a result of being conscious of negative exposure to the gaze of another. Leys defines shame as “an emotion that is routed through the eyes”, the logic of which “is a scene of exposure” (126). For her, shame is a specular emotion that has the structure of seeing/being seen built into it. Such structure of seeing/being seen is a central aesthetic strategy throughout The Hunger Games trilogy: as its slogan goes, “The World Is Watching”. The sequence with Rue’s funeral in the first instalment of the trilogy is an illuminating example of the spectatorial logic of shame, for instance. The scene lingers in a close-up on Katniss’ bruised hands arranging delicate white flowers on Rue’s body, then shows us a long shot with Katniss looking up, conscious of her exposure to the surveillance camera in the game arena, before she greets it with the three-­ finger salute (Fig. 5.1). The gesture of adorning Rue’s body with flowers before the camera is more than a ritual of mourning. The sensory qualities of the image possess affective intentionality that is designed to shame the Capitol, to present it with its own image, and to make it accountable for Rue’s death by

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Fig. 5.1  The Hunger Games: Rue’s funeral. (Screen capture)

forcefully calling upon a third party—the inhabitants of District 11—to witness the situation. Such witnessing as critical activity has been discussed by Giorgio Agamben, who in his Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive (1999) uses shame as “ethical material” which functions as a “mute apostrophe flying through time to reach us, to bear witness to [itself]” (104). In Agamben’s thinking, shame is the emotion the victim feels on being confronted with the intimacy of death. I argue that Katniss adorning Rue’s body with flowers is an act to materialize shame so that it can travel from Rue, now unable to speak for her own, to the inhabitants of the Panem in the form of an address one “cannot turn away” (54). This is why Katniss’ act is a call for ethical witnessing, which renders her performance to the cameras a voiceless moral judgment and a powerful act of resistance. By contrast, Leys argues that the feeling of guilt does not have a spectatorial dimension and that it might be more appropriately understood in terms of hearing (the voice of judgment) instead (128). Therefore, while the spectatorial logic of shame depends on one’s consciousness of being exposed to the gaze of another, the auditorial logic of guilt depends on consciousness of being addressed by the voice of another. In Catching Fire we witness Katniss and Finnick being haunted by voices of their loved ones, mimicked by jabberjays in a scene reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). In Michel Chion’s classification (2009), the scream of a jabberjay might be categorized as an “acousmation” (465–466), for even though the physical source of sound is onscreen (the impersonation by the bird), it is nevertheless imaginary, because the sound can only be heard by

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the person (Katniss, Finnick) whom the voice addresses. Thus, the voices are simultaneously ‘existing’ and ‘extracted’ from their place of origin (Prim, Annie), which renders the sound highly disturbing. The acousmatic screams seem to originate from every direction, luring Katniss and Finnick into a wedge that is isolated from the rest of the game arena by a transparent barrier. The scene is mostly shot from (extreme) low angle, with the camera quickly circling around Katniss, accentuating the violence with which the birds attack. At some point the camera shows us a bird’s-­ eye view of the situation, which further reinforces the association with The Birds. Slavoj Zizek (2000) has famously interpreted the attack of the birds in Hitchcock’s films as representing a physical manifestation of Oedipal guilt, while Susan Smith (2000) argues that Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is in fact under attack of her own emotions rather than of any external force (139). Similarly, in the jabberjay scene Katniss and Finnick are under attack of their own guilty feelings, even though their guilt is associated with survival rather than with some Oedipal scenario, borne out by unconscious imitation of the aggressor. The jabberjay scene is a moment of shock in which the victim of terror imitatively incorporates the violent other. Leys describes such shock as “abject powerlessness” that makes it impossible for the victim to project aggression onto the aggressor. Instead, “the violence is turned back against the victim, who experiences it in the form of self-­ lacerating conscience” (5). Furthermore, from the way in which the scene is aesthetically organized with overwhelming, immersive sound effects, extreme high and low angles, as well as circular camera movement, we experience the scene synaesthetically, almost as if the birds were attacking us. Sound and hearing are indeed important elements in this experience, but the sense of entrapment (in traumatic guilt) in the scene is not dependent on the aural dimension alone. Thus, the distinction between the spectatorial logic of shame and the auditorial logic of guilt might not be entirely watertight after all. The notion of survivor guilt is central in Leys’ discussion of the writings of World War II concentration camp survivors such as Primo Levi, Bruno Bettelheim, and Elie Wiesel. The latter observed: “I live, therefore I am guilty. I am here because of a friend, an acquaintance, an unknown person died in my place” (cited in Leys 2007, 5). Nevertheless, she observes that shame has taken the place of guilt when it comes to describing the anguish experienced by the survivor. This is significant, because the shift from guilt to shame (also the title of Leys’ book) means a shift of attention away from

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questions of human agency (since guilt concerns one’s actions) to questions about the attributes of an individual (since shame concerns who one is) (11–12). Even though both shame and guilt are present throughout The Hunger Games trilogy, having an important strategic role in President Snow’s emotional power game for instance, I argue that in its narrative trajectory there is progression from shame to guilt, that is progression from the crisis of identity to the crisis of agency. Even though both shame and guilt are moral emotions, it could be argued that in the course of action in The Hunger Games trilogy guilt supersedes shame as a trigger for ethical action. It is guilt and not shame that enables Katniss to expand her circle of concern from self-directed to an other-directed dimension. On the aesthetic level this shift is marked by a change in which the identificatory logic of guilt prevails over the spectatorial logic of shame. This shift from shame to guilt changes the ethical insight from moral appreciation of who Katniss is (a resilient victim of circumstances) to what Katniss does (as an active agent for an ethical cause). This shift is also closely connected with progress from psychological guilt to something positive, the transmutation of traumatic guilt of survival into ethical action. The opening of Mockingjay Part I epitomizes such progression, as it represents an affective low point in The Hunger Games trilogy. It is also captured in Finnick’s desolate statement: “I wish [Annie] was dead, I wish they were all dead, and we too.” The film starts abruptly with a black screen, while on the soundtrack only the diegetic, whispering voice of Katniss can be heard, repeating aloud the most basic facts of her life: her name, her age, her District, the fact that she and Peeta were twice thrown into the Hunger Games arena, and that only she was able to escape. The scene is illuminated by a flashlight as an unknown person enters the setting, which reveals Katniss to us, tightly framed, hiding in the claustrophobic bowels of District 13. The dark, suffocating, and paralyzing quality of the setting epitomizes the depth of her survivor guilt that, synaesthetically, we feel too. At some point, an extreme close-up shows us Katniss’ fingers fiddling with the mockingjay pin, suggesting her inner struggle with an identity that she has not asked for, and that she experiences as a cause of pain and suffering for others. Katniss’ paralytic guilt can only come to an end through transformation into positive action, a struggle that Robert Jay Lifton (1983) described as “animating guilt” or an “anxiety of responsibility” that encourages people to make ethical decisions in order to agitate political change (144). This means that guilt, as well as shame, can transform into something positive, since it is an emotion that epitomizes our

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mutual vulnerability and the sense of self that is both separate from and belonging to a larger whole.

The Spectatorial Logic of Shame The most obvious emotion triggered by the reaping scene in the first instalment of The Hunger Games trilogy might be shock, surprise, or awe inspired by Katniss’ self-sacrifice. Yet the scene is emotionally much more complex than that. The scene is also about shame, and Katniss’ heroic act is borne out by desire to save her sister not only from death, but also from shame. As argued by many shame theorists (i.e., Ahmed 2004; Lewis 1995; Probyn 2005; Sartre 1956; Sedgwick and Frank 1996; Tomkins 1987), shame is an intersubjective emotion that includes seeing oneself from the standpoint of others with a sensed inability to take control of one’s identity and organize a response. Furthermore, in shame there is a sense of being before one’s community without being part of the community. Shame is about exposure and appearance in the eyes of the others, or, as Sara Ahmed (2004) defines this, “the individuation of shame—the way in which it turns the self against and towards the self—can be linked to the inter-corporeality and sociality of shame experiences” (104–105). In the reaping scene, the sense of being before one’s community without being part of the community is established by focalizing Primrose in the foreground of the image as soon as Effie calls out her name. Primrose stays in focus while a circle opens around her, with all eyes directed at her from the surrounding crowd that stay outside the depth of focus (Fig. 5.2). The dramatic significance of the relatively noiseless scene is not accentuated by conventional non-diegetic music, which renders palpable the shame of being chosen to be killed. I insist that the scene is about shame, since as soon as her name is called at the reaping, Primrose is stigmatized, and the aesthetic emphasis on being seen by others who very suddenly become very anonymous would seem to confirm this. As Leys and many others point out, shame is not about one’s actions, but about one’s status of self. The moment of reaping changes Primrose’s status of self from ordinary to stigmatized, be it by no cause of her own fault, which renders her shame qualitatively very different from shame of being exposed as a fraud or an adulterer, for instance. According to Michael Lewis (1995), stigma is a spoiled identity, the idea that somehow one is imperfect (194). Martha Nussbaum (2004) defines a moment of stigmatization as a selfjudgment of inadequacy that “involves the realization that one is weak and

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Fig. 5.2  The Hunger Games: The circle of shame around Primrose. (Screen capture)

inadequate in some way in which one expects oneself to be adequate” (183). The fact that Primrose is reaped to participate in a lethal game that most likely will kill her marks her as inadequate and stigmatized, and she is conscious of this abject exposure in the eyes of the District 12 inhabitants. In addition to stigma, shame is thus also linked to abjection that here is expressed in the way in which Primrose stands out from the image as an excluded stain that does not belong in the picture. The image is predominantly out of focus with bystanders present as shadowy figures that Primrose has to pass by during her private walk of shame. The moment of reaping rendered Primrose what Thomas Elsaesser (2010) has termed an “abject agent”, an outcast in a social community. Abject agents are located in negative, liminal spaces that are made up of exclusion, of the discarded, the useless, and waste, and their agency is characterized by “active non-­ activism” (7). All tributes in The Hunger Games trilogy can be seen as abject agents insofar as they exist at the limits of their condition as living beings (Kristeva 1982, 3). Elsaesser (2004) also calls such characters “posthumous” or “post-mortem” subjects, because they subjectively live their bodies as if they were already dead (115). This is an insight that the character Cato—whose body has been trained for survival throughout his whole life—acknowledges by the way toward the end of The Hunger Games, right before he falls prey to the bloodthirsty wolf mutts, by uttering: “I am dead already. I always was, wasn’t I?” Therefore, at the moment of reaping, Primrose becomes conditioned by ‘ghoulishness’, especially since her poor chances of survival are highly restricted, due to her age, gender, and physical as well as mental abilities. The camera seems to

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acknowledge her fragility, following her from behind as she tucks the hem of her shirt into her skirt when making her way through the crowd. The visual emphasis on this seemingly insignificant gesture indicates that she is very much aware of being seen as carrying a public mark of posthumous subject, and making the small adjustment to her appearance is perhaps the only way to hold on to her agency, as she takes the walk of shame through the crowd. Primrose Everdeen in fact puts the entire Hunger Games franchise into motion, since Katniss only volunteers as a tribute because Prim’s name was called.1 Obviously, Katniss volunteers out of fear for the fate of her little sister, but perhaps also to obviate her shame, her stigma. A close-up of her face lowering her gaze while standing on the podium in public display seems to confirm this: the affect that can be read from her expression is noticeably not horror but shame. For a face is the site of shame, operating at the locus of perceptual-expressive interaction, which is why one wishes to conceal one’s face during shame (Nathanson 1987, 30; Lewis 1995, 23). Carroll Izard and Silvan Tomkins (1966) also link shame to the desire to conceal one’s face when they write: By dropping his eyelids, head, and sometimes the whole upper part of the body, the individual calls a halt to looking at another person, particularly the other person’s face, and to the other person’s looking at him, particularly at his face. [The] head may also be hung in shame symbolically, lest one part of the self be seen by another part and become alienated from it. (117–118)

Katniss’ call of halt to be looked at while standing on the podium is only brought to an end when all inhabitants of District 12 raise their arms in a three-finger salute to greet Katniss as in silent agreement. This gesture is an important moment that signifies a way out of shame through inclusion, through common commitment to shared values while in opposition to the values of the Capitol. This means that shame, as well as guilt, is not a fixed emotion, but has a transient character that can shift and move one away from the ocular trap of the self being seen by the others toward freedom within community. For Jean-Paul Sartre (1982) such freedom within 1  Even though, as Emily McAvan argues in her reading of The Hunger Games novels, by the sacrificial gesture of stepping forward as a volunteer, Katniss becomes not only a substitute for her sister but for the whole of District 12: “The teenage tributes are marginal to their community […] the ‘good’ violence of their sacrifice replaces the ‘bad’ violence of vengeance—endless civil war between the Districts and the Capitol” (McAvan 2017, 51).

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community is the social context and perspective that allows one to have authentic relations with others by the way. Yet Katniss’ moment of shame is reinforced with a painful memory, in which Peeta tosses her a burned loaf of bread that was meant to be given to pigs. This flashback, in which Katniss is depicted in the pouring rain, weakened by starvation, is ‘crosscut’ as it were with shots in the present where Katniss and Peeta first shake hands as tributes in the 74 h Hunger Games. The pronounced ‘eyeline match’ between the shots in the present and the shots in the past establishes the scene as a defining moment that not only functions as a narrative motif that embodies shame, but also describes Katniss and Peeta’s relationship. The flashback with bread, saturated with a grayish-blue hue, is a recurring one in the first instalment of The Hunger Games trilogy. The second flashback, in which a shot of Peeta throwing bread to pigs is cut to a close-up of starving Katniss, creates a Kuleshov-like effect. The association of Katniss being downgraded in social status to even lower than farm animals is completed by Peeta’s condescending gesture of tossing bread at her. In the third flashback the sound of rain is pronounced, and the camera stays with the burned loaf of bread bouncing on the wet ground. The synaesthetic elements in the image make it easy to fancy how disgusting the loaf is—burned in the oven, then soaked in rain—which renders the loaf a symbol of Katniss’ status as an abject body. The synaesthetic elements render the shame tangible on a bodily level, demonstrating the way in which shame turns the self against and toward the self, so that in shame one has to expel oneself from oneself, like Sara Ahmed (2004) has argued (104–105). Katniss seems to feel this, for after the third flashback she is shown leaving the dinner table visibly in disgust, having lost her appetite. Furthermore, the flashbacks with the disgusting loaf show that shame and abjection are linked: both phenomena are intensive moments of subjective crisis in which one no longer is guaranteed any integrity of the self, and in which one has to “abject oneself” in order to (re)establish oneself (Kristeva 1982, 3; 53). In addition, Peeta’s gesture of tossing the burned bread into a puddle can be considered a morally disgusting act. The flashbacks can therefore be interpreted in ethical terms, insofar as they intertwine physical disgust with moral disgust (on the disgust/morality relation, see for instance Rozin et al. 2000, and Schnall et al. 2008). All in all, the recurring flashbacks refer to an overwhelmingly shameful affective experience that has become constitutive of Katniss’ sense of self, persistently stored as

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a visceral image in her memory, and therefore it comes as no surprise that her relationship with Peeta is defined by deep hostility at first. The reaping scene and the flashback with the disgusting loaf of bread demonstrate that the ‘honor’ of becoming a representative of one’s community at The Hunger Games comes with the accompanying shame of losing one’s status as a member of that community—that is left behind feeling guilty relief at least until the following reaping. The moment of shame that Primrose, and later Katniss, seem to experience, is produced by social abjectification, the feeling of being stigmatized and excluded in the eyes of the community. Social abjection is a concept by Imogen Tyler (2013) through which she examines the dehumanizing impacts of governmentality on particular groups. The concept is valid in The Hunger Games trilogy too insofar as abject people (the Districts’ youth) are excluded through their inclusion (the practice of reaping): a paradoxical logic which is reinforced by the fact that the tributes are celebrated as superstars before their entrance to the game arena on the one hand, while rejected as abject bodies on the other. And apart from the tributes, the Districts’ inhabitants (or “waste populations” in Tyler’s terms) are strictly denied recognition in the Capital: they do not possess an identity within its governmental field of vision in the sense that they should, according to the Capitol’s prevailing conventions, not be seen at all, not even as ‘different’. These conventions are introduced in the scene in which the high-speed train carrying Katniss and Peeta arrives in the Capitol. A cheering crowd awaits, dressed extravagantly in tailored suits or couture gowns in bright, saturated colors—fuchsia, electric blue, turquoise, sap green—ornamented with ruffles and crowned with lush accessories. Capitol residents are also shown sporting exaggerated hairstyles and make-up even for their (pedigree) pets, in styles that are diametrically opposed to what Katniss is wearing in her starving, abject non-citizenry. Her ungroomed body—dirty, messy, malnourished, hairy—is deviant from the heavily adorned, ideal body of the Capitol, thus it has to undergo a makeover in order to be rendered docile and manageable. The grooming of her body takes place in a clinical, hospital-like facility, where the tributes passively receive their treatment at the hands of cosmetologists dressed up in sterile uniforms. The immaculately orderly, high-tech setting evokes a strong Foucauldian association of a prison or some other correctional institution, as if designed to discipline and punish ‘unruly’ bodies, as they are being reformed to become ‘orderly’. The deep planes and the perspectival space in the image put an emphasis on the setting itself at the expense of the human body that

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is reduced to a ‘piece of meat’ on the treatment table. The series of close-­ ups depicting gloved hands of an anonymous groomer showering Katniss’ body, cutting her hair, and epilating her eyebrows, functions to fragment Katniss’ body into “cut-outs”, in Laura Mulvey’s (1975) famous formulation. But instead of having a fetishizing, eroticizing purpose, the close-up here functions as a technique to strip the body of its agency as it were, along with all signs of its bodily materiality. The beautification facility—or the Remake Center, as it is called in the world of The Hunger Games—in fact resembles a morgue in which Katniss is left lying down on a metal treatment table like a corpse, after her body has been prepared. The significance of the grooming scene is that it refers to abject agency as discussed above, insofar as its morbid imagery suggests that in the eyes of the world watching the preparations for the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss is already potentially dead. Effectively this means that participating in the Games is not only about survival, but also about regaining one’s agency, and resisting abjectification. As Tyler points out, many writers have considered abjection as a conceptual category of resistance. For instance, Judith Butler (1992) considers abjection “not as a permanent contestation of social norms condemned to the pathos of perpetual failure, but rather as a critical resource in the struggle to rearticulate the very terms of symbolic legitimacy and intelligibility” (3). Social abjection can give rise to resistance when its paradoxical logic is exposed. The logic by which the abject other is denied agency in the social system, of which this very same other is nevertheless constitutive by negation. The party sequence at the presidential palace in Catching Fire functions as a scene of such exposure, with its decadent, ornamental Rococo setting that demands itself to be seen. It is in this scene that Katniss and Peeta are cordially welcomed by a snobbish crowd gathered to be fed with luxurious dishes and entertained with multicolor fireworks. The crowd sees Katniss and Peeta as one of their own, stripped of their initial abject qualities by their victor’s aura. But the perspectival ordering of the scene suggests that everyone at the party is both a subject of look in the practice of enjoying the spectacle and an object of panoptic look within the larger discursive vision organized for President Snow. This means that everyone within this perspectival ordering can also potentially be excluded as a social abject by order of Snow, to be turned into an Avox, like these outcasts are called in the Capitol, enslaved and mutilated by cutting out their tongues. The perspectival ordering of the setting renders the scene self-reflective in terms of seeing and being seen, and it is in this context

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that President Snow and Katniss exchange meaningful looks, while everyone else is watching the fireworks. Snow is seen as if from the exact POV of Katniss, in focus at the rear plane of the frame, while the foreground of the image is blurry. His subtle shaking of the head signifies that Katniss and Peeta’s engagement announcement did not convince him, but the gesture can also be understood in more general, pictorial terms. The gesture means that from Snow’s panoptic perspective, Katniss is but a disturbing ‘stain’ in his field of vision, and realizing this herself, she then lowers her gaze as if in shame. At the same time, the abundance of the party setting creates a conflict between disgust and temptation, and likewise between shame and shamelessness that accompanies the pleasure of indulging in revelry at the expense of moral judgment. This is why Michelle Mason (2010) argues that we should be careful about foregoing shame because of the moral importance of this emotion, the lack of which often purports to mark a moral fault (402). For instance, Peeta’s comment on the party-goers practice of vomiting, in order to be able to “taste everything” while people in Districts are starving, expresses clear moral disapproval of the party-goers lack of shame that he believes should be prompted by such practice. Furthermore, the party scene suggests that lack of moral judgment goes hand in hand with lack of disgust and lack of shame as regards corruption that would threaten the integrity of the Capitol. In this political system, both disgust and shame solely function as sources of persecutory conduct toward the underprivileged and disadvantaged inhabitants of the Districts, which reinforces their social stigmatization by the privileged inhabitants of the Capitol. Panem is a dystopia not only because of its use of violent brutality as entertainment or its panoptic structure of surveillance that ensures the shame of public sanction for those who do not act appropriately (on public shaming and panopticism, see Laval 2012). Panem is a dystopia also because in its political system shame and disgust work to unite the privileged citizens through common contempt for those who are commonly regarded as inferior, dividing the nation into hierarchically ordered Districts, whose inhabitants must not mingle with those of the Capitol (see also Deigh 2008, 125; Nussbaum 2013, 211). But the party scene triggers the realization that the Districts’ impoverishment originates from conditions for which their inhabitants cannot be held accountable, because they are produced by social injustice that also deny them the esteem that human dignity requires. It represents a form of disrespect that Axel Honneth (2001) has defined as

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an injustice not simply because it harms subjects or restricts their freedom to act, but because it injures them with regard to the positive understanding of themselves that they have acquired intersubjectively. (39)

This is why the party scene also contains narrative hints that resistance against this social injustice will erupt (Plutarch Heavensbee’s dance with Katniss) and that President Snow’s power might be omnipresent, but that he is not omnipotent (the close-up of Snow spitting blood into his champagne glass). The party scene is significant, because it exposes a corrupted situation in which a selected few profits from the violence and humiliation of others, a situation that is felt in and through the sense of shame. The moment contains what Eve Sedgwick (2003) defines as a “double movement” of shame, when it no longer concerns an attribute of self, but becomes a “free radical” that can alter the meaning of permitted behavior of others toward the self (62). Such double movement challenges the conventional distinction between shame (of what one is) and guilt (of what one does) in a way that contains leverage for ethical projects. I think that the party scene is a turning point in The Hunger Games trilogy, which consists of an affective shift that renders guilt thematically more important than shame. This affective shift from shame to guilt alters the narrative focus from questions of identity and what one is, to questions of agency and what one does, in addition to moving from self to other-directed action. It is therefore the emotion of guilt that the second part of this chapter will deal with.

The Identificatory Logic of Guilt Above I discussed the reaping scene in terms of shame, arguing that the narrative motivation of self-sacrifice has to do with shame in addition to fear for the well-being of a loved one. But Katniss’ act of self-sacrifice could equally be seen as borne out by guilt, however inappropriate, for not being able to protect Primrose in a dystopic system in which both are totally powerless, except for the ‘power’ to submit themselves. Within this system, Katniss’ protective attitude toward her sister has already been established in the very opening of the film, in which a scene from Caesar Flickerman’s flashy television studio is abruptly cut to an establishing shot of District 12, accompanied by a sound bridge of Primrose screaming in fear. A low-key scene follows with an intimate, loving mood that defines Katniss’ relationship with her sister, which prompts her to make promises

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that cannot be kept. This is why, at the moment of reaping, Katniss identifies with Primrose as if she were already dead, sensing guilt for her death as if it had already occurred. Her fierce act of self-sacrifice thus originates not only from her feeling responsible, but also from unwarranted guilt, which originates from identificatory logic and a sense of responsibility for the dead. Katniss’ guilt-ridden, future-oriented identification with Primrose as if she were already dead has possibly common ground with the notion of “death timing” by Robert Jay Lifton (1964). According to Lifton, survivor guilt is the experience of contradictory wishes concerning death timing, such that one simultaneously wants to outlive one’s siblings and wants them to live forever. Guilt is the (inappropriate) feeling that one’s “survival was made possible by others’ death: if they had not died, he would have had to; and if he had not survived, someone else would have” (200). This quotation might as well be a slogan for the whole Hunger Games trilogy by the way, given the centrality of survivor guilt as a narrative theme throughout. The reaping scene ends with an emotional encounter between Katniss and Primrose, as well as their mother, in which guilt flows in multiple ways. There is the guilt that prompted Katniss to volunteer in the first place, but which transforms into feelings of guilt for leaving Primrose and their mother to survive on their own. There is Primrose’s guilt for being the reason for Katniss’ volunteering and possible death. And there is their mother’s guilt for letting both her daughters down after having survived the death of her husband. This is why Katniss’ act of volunteering can also be seen in terms of “generosity of flesh” that puts her “body at risk” (Bergoffen 1997, 158). The ethical ambiguity in her volunteering resides in the fact that it creates a responsibility for sacrifice in return, and a failure to return Katniss’ ‘gift’ generates even more guilt. The shot/reverse shot from Katniss to her vulnerable-looking mother in high angle, while determined-­looking Katniss is framed in the image from low angle, would seem to confirm this claim. Katniss’ identification with the dead would also seem to extend to her father, which is powerfully expressed in the dream sequence that follows the attack by tracker jackers in The Hunger Games. Accompanied by a dramatic string score, the scene starts with an interior shot of Katniss’ house in District 12, with a highly mobile handheld camera, emulating Katniss’ shaky state of mind, tracking toward an old photograph of her father on a mantelpiece. A succession of quick cuts follows, with close-up shots of the photograph juxtaposed with long shots of a group of workers

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walking in a mine tunnel. The framing of the shots gets gradually tighter, and we realize that all the workers wear the same mask with the face of Katniss’ father from the photograph, rendering them simultaneously unique and anonymous. This is succeeded by an extreme long shot of the mine tunnel, emphasizing the vertical planes in the deep, perspectival space with a claustrophobic effect. An abrupt ‘jump’ cut to a medium shot of the same tunnel with the doors of a lift closing before descending into the shaft prognosticates the explosion that will soon take place. The debris of this explosion drenches the frame completely, but also it destroys Katniss’ house in an “emotional-metaphorical image” (Bartsch 2010), which refers to death as ‘destructive’ and house as ‘family’. At some point the scene ‘rewinds’ and the shards of the house fit back together, as a visual metaphor for ‘picking up the pieces’ after a catastrophe. Like the flashbacks with the burned loaf of bread, the dream sequence is dominated by a bluish-gray hue, signifying a defining moment in Katniss’ life as the scene makes clear that it is her responsibility to pick up the pieces and assume the role of head of family even against her will. One shot in the dream sequence shows Katniss screaming at her mother who is paralyzed with grief. The scene is strangely soundless apart from the non-diegetic score and Katniss’ muffled voice that seems to come from underwater. The sequence comes to an end with a sound bridge of Peeta’s voice from outside the dream, forcefully demanding Katniss to take action. In terms of guilt, the dream sequence not only signifies Katniss’ identification with her deceased father, but also the extent to which she is “completely caught up […] in the scene of shock” that has become a “traumatic image” or an “iconic memory”, which haunts her in the form of hallucinations, flashbacks, dreams, and other “intrusive repetitions” (Leys 2007, 9; 93). Furthermore, the metaphorical destruction of the house serves as a reminder that “whatever is promised by the house is radically susceptible to violation, displacement, and loss” (Rhodes 2017), making visible the lack of security and safety for Katniss’ family in District 12. Rue’s death, which follows immediately after Katniss has rescued her, becomes another source of traumatic guilt. In a fast-paced, tightly framed scene Marvel launches a spear at Katniss, which she narrowly escapes, before instantly killing him with a single arrow. The scene consists of a quick succession of reaction shots and POV shots of which it is difficult to say whether any single POV is from Katniss’ perspective or from Rue’s. This confusion signifies that the spear that kills Rue was meant for Katniss, thus Katniss’ survival becomes a question of being “purchased at the cost

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of another’s” (Lifton 1991, 489). Both Marvel and Rue become traumatic images that are “connected to a feeling of guilt at having survived when others had died” (Leys 2007, 102). The opening of Catching Fire epitomizes such a “death imprint”, which consists of a vivid memory of death associated with traumatic guilt. This scene too consists of a juxtaposition of POV shots and reaction shots as we witness Katniss sneaking up on a group of turkeys and then pointing her bow directly at camera. Accompanied by the impossibly loud, percussive sound of an arrow being launched, the scene becomes Katniss’ inner image representing the memory of Marvel getting hit by Katniss’ bow shot. The framing of this hallucination is similar to the earlier scene in The Hunger Games, and Katniss reacts to the image in panic, almost as if she herself were being shot (Fig. 5.3a, b).

Traumatic Guilt The abrupt appearance of Marvel in the scene illustrates how forcefully a flashback of earlier trauma can emerge from somatic memory to consciousness, shiftily and without forewarning. Trauma is often defined as an overwhelmingly extreme and catastrophic affective experience that resists cognitive processing, so that it becomes constitutive of the person’s sense of self (Herman 1992, 33). It is an affective failure, which occurs when the effects of an overwhelmingly emotional experience are stored in somatic memory instead of semantic memory. Semantic memory is a dimension of memory that processes an emotional event by means of distortion. This locates the event chronologically and positionally in the past, and ensures that it is differentiated from current reality, the present. Somatic memory resides in the sensorimotor, bodily sensations that are related to the experienced emotional event. Since extremely painful emotional events resist processing by semantic memory, they are persistently stored as visceral sensations and visual images, such as nightmares and flashbacks, in the somatic memory (Van der Kolk 1994, 258). This is why the flashback of Marvel functions as a hallucinatory image that can also be understood as what Leys (2007) defines as a hypnotic imitation of or regressive identification with the original traumatic event, with the result that the subject is fated to act it out, or in other ways imitate it (8). The hallucination and Katniss’ ensuing panic indicates that her traumatic guilt not only consists of identification with the dead, but also of identification with the aggressor, insofar as throughout The Hunger

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Fig. 5.3  (a, b) The Hunger Games/Catching Fire: Marvel’s death (replicated). (Screen capture)

Games trilogy Katniss is literally forced to imitate the enemy out of self-­ protection. As Leys argues, survivors may identify with the dead and simultaneously take distance, by describing themselves as capable of enabling and facilitating the “scene of death” (103). I argue that the hallucination scene with Marvel contains a central conflict for the whole trilogy (identification with the victim/the aggressor), and that the narrative struggle partly revolves around resolving this central conflict. But simultaneously this narrative struggle is a psychological journey from pathological guilt to ethical guilt, by which survivors can transmute their self-directed pain and guilt into a sense of responsibility toward the other. Like the hallucination scene with Marvel, the enormous screen that shows Rue watching her as if from her grave during the Victory Tour in District 11 triggers in Katniss an explicit acknowledgment of her

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struggle before the witnessing crowd. Katniss’ emotion is met with a three-­finger salute by a frail elderly man, who is then promptly taken apart from the crowd by the Peacekeepers and shot dead in front of her. The aggression in the scene and Katniss’ forced inability to take action contributes to her traumatic guilt, which at this point acquires a cyclical logic that reproduces itself endlessly. Throughout The Hunger Games trilogy we notice an ultimate Catch-22 situation, in which there is an emotional prison where one ends up feeling guilty, no matter which efforts one undertakes. This is epitomized in the emotion-metaphor with which the scene of violence ends, a POV shot from Katniss’ perspective of the old man’s body being dragged away by the Peacekeepers. The image is framed by a circular hole in a piece of yellow curtain as in an iris shot, emphasizing the emotional importance of the scene in terms of guilt. The round form encircling the body could indicate the extent to which the old man now resides within Katniss’ circle of concern in addition to epitomizing her conflict between identification with the aggressor (for his death is her ‘doing’) and with the victim (her concern is clearly with him). The old man’s death is an effective strategy in President Snow’s emotional game, which prospers by the cyclical logic of guilt. In the beginning of Catching Fire there is a scene in which Snow visits Katniss, reproducing a hologram that depicts an earlier romantic scene between her and Gale. The hologram, as well as the white rose that Snow offers her, functions as visual reminders of her responsibility for acts that she has not yet even committed, creating anticipatory guilt that is designed to manipulate Katniss into playing along in his game. Even though she is plagued by nightmares, during the remaining Victory Tour after the death of the old man, playing along is exactly what she does to the disapproval and disappointment of the Districts’ inhabitants. The intercutting between scenes in which Katniss recites the pre-prepared speech cards before the rebelling audience, and scenes in which she wakes up screaming, epitomizes the double-edged sword of guilt that is wielded upon her. The contraband scene in Catching Fire is a case in point of the ever-­ increasing complexity of guilt embodied throughout The Hunger Games trilogy. This violent ‘countermove’ from Snow’s part is a direct consequence of rebellion inspired by Katniss’ actions, and she herself knows this to be so. Her trauma thus originates from being torn between two points of view about her. She is considered a source of inspiration on the one hand, and a cause of misery on the other. The contraband scene epitomizes these conflicting views by contrasting scenes of violence designed to

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be broadcast in the whole of Panem, with scenes of resistance that are not meant to be made public. The sequence starts with action-packed scenes characterized by extreme mobile framing, shaky even, combined with a frenzied editing style that changes the perspective in the scene in high tempo, and immerses us in the middle of the action. The violence culminates in a particularly brutal scene, in which Gale is tied to a post in the middle of the town square and ruthlessly whipped before Katniss intervenes. What happens to Gale in the contraband scene can obviously be seen in allegorical terms, his whipped body symbolizing the ‘whipping’ of District 12 by proxy. Furthermore, the scarred body serves as a visible reminder of the District’s collective trauma, becoming a traumatic image in itself. In a later scene, President Snow and Plutarch Heavensbee review the footage recorded by the surveillance camera, the significance of which changes as soon as Katniss enters the scene. The inflicted violence that was designed to be a manifestation of Katniss’ complicity in the Capitol’s aggression becomes an expression of solidarity with the victim instead. It is also significant that right before the contraband scene Katniss wants to flee her subjective state of complicity by escaping from District 12 into the woods. Her (spontaneous?) act of intervention can therefore be seen as what Gilles Deleuze (1992) defined as an “ethological attitude”, which maintains that “you do not know beforehand what good or bad you are capable of; you do not know beforehand what a body or a mind can do, in a given encounter, a given arrangement, a given combination” (627). This means that the way in which individual capacities for affecting and being affected are realized depends on specific, altering circumstances. Over and over again, Katniss longs to escape her situation, but she always chooses not do, thereby privileging ethical action over disavowal. Cinna’s death is another strategic countermove in President Snow’s emotion game, thereby heaping feelings of guilt on Katniss just seconds before she enters the Quarter Quell game arena in Catching Fire. In this scene we share Katniss’ POV encapsulated in the launching tube while a group of Peacekeepers rush in and attack Cinna, forcefully smashing his body against a transparent screen. The subjective shots from within the capsule alternate in quick succession with objective shots that show us either a reaction shot of terrified Katniss or give us an overview of the violent beating. In one frame the camera stays low with Cinna being beaten while lying on the ground, while Katniss attempts to smash through the capsule at the rear plane of the image. The shot is slightly distorted, as

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if filmed with a fish-eye lens, with circular wall panels of the confined space contributing to the claustrophobic effect of the scene. The sound in the scene is from the aural perspective of either side of the capsule so that the pronounced sounds of violence are layered with Katniss’ muted screams of desperation, or the other way around. A jarring score starts off and we stay with sobbing Katniss, who ascends into darkness and then into brightness as she enters the arena. The fast-paced circular camera movement around Katniss accentuates her confusion and emotional turmoil while she scans her new, hostile surroundings. The sense of encapsulation that dominates the scene becomes another motif, showing the extent to which Katniss is encapsulated in her feeling responsible for Cinna’s death while incapable of saving him. Katniss’ feeling of being responsible extends even to deaths that seem not to be based on identificatory logic, not even by proxy. These include the ‘fallen’ tributes whose portraits are projected upon the starry sky each night of the Games. Shot from low angle, in these scenes with fallen tributes the dead look down on the living as if demanding acknowledgment that the survivors’ survival has been secured at the cost of others’ death. The Quarter Quell further complicates things, since it is in reality a rigged event, staged to enable the breakout of the rebels and Katniss’ survival so that she can take on the role of the Mockingjay and help start a revolution. This means that the tributes who are part of the conspiracy are willing to sacrifice themselves in order to keep Katniss and Peeta alive. There is the female tribute from District 6, also known as the Morphling, who throws herself between Peeta and a monkey mutation and gets deadly injured. The darkly lit scene of self-sacrifice is very short-lived, with only Peeta’s face illuminated in the image, as the Morphling hurls herself from the darkness of the jungle at the monkey. Even before the scene with the monkeys there is Mags who sacrifices herself by directly walking into a poisonous fog so that her allies may survive. Even though both deaths are voluntary acts of self-sacrifice to aid the rebellion, they still inflict a sense of guilt upon the survivors. In this regard, especially the scene in which Mags sacrifices herself is remarkably intense in its affective-aesthetic functioning. Shot from over Finnick’s shoulder, the scene is too darkly lit as we witness Mags’ fragile, tiny figure making her way directly into the menacingly approaching white fog. Like the debris in the tracker jacker dream sequence, the fog can be read in metaphorical terms, signifying the feeling of helplessness that overwhelms one when another perishes in front of one’s eyes without a possibility for intervention. The inability to act in

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congruence with one’s moral values is a central element in the development of traumatic guilt, and it can be experienced as a feeling of being “eaten up” by, or surrendering to one’s own helplessness (Leys 2007, 36–37). Such a feeling of being eaten up is conveyed in the images with which the fog scene ends: from a low angle shot over Katniss’ shoulder, who prepares to surrender to the approaching, painful death, an immersive effect is created, with the fog descending toward the camera, about to swallow everything in the frame. That is, until a transparent wall obstructs its descent and makes the fog flow upward, creating a ‘wall of fog’, after which the substance evaporates (Fig. 5.4). The sense of helplessness and surrender is palpable in these images, conveying a feeling that approaching death would be somehow welcome, as a way of compensating one’s debt of survival. The way in which the materiality of fog is used as an immersive element creates an interesting contrast with the materiality of tar in a scene that directly follows the death of Boggs in Mockingjay Part II. Boggs dies while commissioned to protect Katniss in the Capitol, so it would seem as no coincidence that the tar appears right after his death, as another symbolic embodiment of survivor guilt. The sequence starts with a farewell chant by a female voice humming eerily, the camera stays in low angle with Katniss and Gale attending to Boggs in the foreground of the image, while the rest of Squad 451 observe the scene in the rear plane. The setting is spherical, with a circular, colosseum-like arena surrounded by high-rise building arranged in a panoptic fashion, with large windows resembling cells in Jeremy Bentham’s original construction. As the gates surrounding

Fig. 5.4  Catching Fire: The wall of fog. (Screen capture)

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this construction close, the Squad finds itself imprisoned within the Panopticon, and black, tar-like substance starts gushing very rapidly down the walls, splashing all over the place in a way reminiscent of the blood elevator scenes in The Shining (1980). Gooey, viscous sound effects accompany the scene as the Squad escapes into one of the high-rise buildings while the level of the tar rises, swallowing the image like the fog in the scene discussed above. While the fog was a haunting, ethereal substance, designed to corrode the skin that got into contact with it, the tar is a bulky, physical substance that sticks onto the skin and suffocates by its sheer substantiality. Ahmed (2004) has found the notion of “stickiness” an apt metaphor for affects that surface as a result of histories between bodies, objects, and signs (90). Metaphorically speaking, the tar that leaves a black stain on the surface it has touched after its withdrawal could therefore be seen as a sign for the affective value of guilt that has accumulated in the course of moves and countermoves between the Resistance and the Capitol. The scene with the lizard mutts halfway through Mockingjay Part II is the most powerful one in terms of visual representation of survivor guilt. These lizard mutts have a muscular, human-like figure enhanced by a long, reptilian tale and protruding jaws that enable them to decapitate their victim in one bite. These seemingly eyeless and noseless lizard mutts have a cadaverous, pale skin covered in disgusting slime so that an association with the alien from Alien (1979) is hard to avoid. Likely to have been formed out of actual humans—Avoxes and other prisoners of the Capitol— the lizard mutts are abject creatures: part human, part reptile, partly alive, and partly dead, signifying in Barbara Creed’s (1993) terms “one of the most basic forms of pollution—the body without the soul” (10). The cadaverous appearance of the lizard mutts is apt insofar as these creatures are living dead both literally and metaphorically, representing the departed that live on in guilty memories. The scene takes place underground, in the sewers of the Capitol, which seems particularly appropriate for an interpretation according to which the lizard mutts are symptoms of survivor guilt. The sound of the mutts hissing Katniss’ name before they attack also suggests that these creatures symbolize her survivor guilt, originating from the dark recesses of her embodied mind, which is a blatant allegory for traumatic images residing in somatic memory. The sewer network is characterized by darkness, with low, narrow alleys, some of which are halfway filled with water. The claustrophobic effect of the underground scenes is emphasized by a wide-angle lens, which renders

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every plane in the image in focus, while bursts of steam randomly erupt in the chiaroscuro-lit setting. The attack itself starts with the sound of a distant, hollow grunt, layered with the pronounced bleeping of a holograph. This layering renders the soundscape of the sequence similar to the scene in Alien, in which Dallas (Tom Skerritt) meets his violent death in the bowels of spaceship Nostromo. For a relatively long time the scene with the lizard mutts builds up a suspenseful mood before the actual, physical attack, much longer than the sequence with the wolf mutts in the first instalment of the trilogy for instance. The lizard mutts have human-like shapes, since they embody the deaths that have facilitated Katniss’ survival. Furthermore, the lizard mutt scene is arguably one of the scariest ones in The Hunger Games trilogy, epitomizing the intensity of feelings that arise from dealing with survivor guilt.

Toward Ethical Action The abject, cadaver-like appearance of the lizard mutts would seem to support the claim that they are embodiments of those who have died. They are death imprints that emerge as abruptly as trauma-based nightmares. The attack scene is then best described as nightmarish, starting with a shock effect as the mutts emerge from darkness and hurl themselves at Squad 451. The framing of the sequence regularly emphasizes the human-­ like silhouette of these abject creatures by illuminating the background but not the figures themselves, and the pace is frantic as opposed to the preceding ‘mood shots’. The sequence ends with a bird-eye view shot of Katniss climbing up a manhole, as if she were escaping her own mind, before activating the self-destruct mode of the holograph and throwing it into the sewers, thereby killing the mutts. The lizard mutt sequence is important, because it is the ultimate confrontation with one’s own survivor guilt, which is expressed in Katniss’ remorseful confession in a scene that shortly follows it: I made it up. All of it. There is no special mission from Coin, there is only my plan. Everyone that is dead is dead because of me. I lied. […] I killed them, I killed Finnick. (Katniss in Mockingjay Part II)

According to John Wilson et al. (2006), the desire to confess is integral in guilt-laden memories of imagined or actual wrongdoing as an attempt to make amends. Therefore, it highlights ethical standards and creates a

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sense of agency, while “strengthening the value of reconciling with others and being forgiven for improper actions and failed enactments in traumatic situations” (130). This would seem to be confirmed in the off-­ screen utterance by Peeta, which absolves Katniss of guilt by reciting all the deaths that can be seen concomitant with Katniss’ survival: Glimmer. Marvel. Mags. Clove. Wiress. Rue. What do all those deaths mean? They mean that our lives were never ours. There was no real life, because we didn’t have any choice. Our lives belonged to Snow and our deaths did too. But if you kill him, Katniss, if you end all of this, all those deaths, they mean something. Cinna. Boggs. Castor. Jackson. Finnick. They chose this. They chose you. (Peeta in Mockingjay Part II)

The confession/absolution scene is a cathartic moment in The Hunger Games trilogy that enables the pathology of Katniss’ traumatic guilt to be transformed into more positive, ethical action. This means that guilt can have a positive function insofar as it has a creative dimension that not only leads to realization of one’s shortcomings, but also contributes to one’s transformation into an ethically virtuous person (Marcus and Rosenberg 1988, 68). But it would be a mistake to conclude that this shift from the pathological to the ethical occurs only at this relatively late stage, since throughout the trilogy there is a positive development in terms of virtuous agency. First in Catching Fire there is an insistence that Peeta has to be saved, which might be nothing more than yet another variation of what goes as an ‘old Chinese proverb’, according to which if one saves a life, one is responsible for that life. But there is also this strategic move when Katniss chooses her allies among the weakest, chanceless tributes—Mags, Wiress, and Beetee—as a gesture of her being responsible for the fact that past victors have to compete for the second time. For it is implied that the rules of the third Quarter Quells were especially designed to force Katniss back into the game arena, with the sole purpose to “destroy her image” and to “show them she is one of us”, in the words of Plutarch Heavensbee. Not only is Katniss aware of what the real reason is for the Quarter Quells rules, but she is also aware that everyone else knows this too, which makes her guilt not entirely inappropriate, even though misplaced. But this awareness also enables her to assign to her guilt a positive, creative role that contributes to her making herself more caring, a more other-directed person (Marcus and Rosenberg 1988, 68).

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An important scene that signifies the transformation from self-directed, pathological guilt to other-directed, creative guilt can be found in Mockingjay Part I, in which Katniss visits District 12 after it has been firebombed to destruction by the Capitol. The shots evoke a mixed mood of guilt and grief in the face of annihilation by means of immersive imagery of the ruins among which Katniss appears small and helpless. The sequence starts with Katniss stepping out of a hovercraft, looking startled, before the aircraft lifts off and reveals us the overwhelming destruction surrounding her. A Steadicam tracking shot follows Katniss in circular movements as she makes her way deeper into the ruins, slowly taking in the devastation. One extreme long shot shows Katniss as a tiny figure surrounded by dust and smoke as she seeks a moment of rest in the ruins of the District, suggesting the traumatic relationship between her bodily experience and the physical, post-apocalyptic landscape, which in turn reflects her survivor guilt seemingly without resolution (Fig. 5.5). Accompanied by the musical theme of the song “Farewell” on the soundtrack, the image provokes ambiguity, incongruity, and incomprehension toward the traumatic event, prompting affective, visceral experiences that are incompatible with narrative processing. Jill Bennett (2005) describes such experiences as transactive rather than communicative, because “they emerge from a direct engagement with sensation as it is registered in the work […] it often touches us but does not necessarily communicate the ‘secret’ of personal experience” (7).

Fig. 5.5  Mockingjay Part I: Katniss and a stray dog in the ruins of District 12. (Screen capture)

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The scene in the ruins evokes a claustrophobic sensation of survivor guilt, resulting in loss of identity, loss of spirit, and loss of agency. Dylan Trigg (2009) approaches ruins such as those depicted in Mockingjay Part I as locations of memory that can haunt the subject of trauma effectively through spectral or “negative spatiality”. Ruins are empty of memory, and bring about “a non-memory, a puncturing in spatio-temporal presence” (95). The shots of Katniss within the ruins are powerful, because they draw a parallel between a ruined individual and the spectrality of the ruins themselves, for there is a suggestion of Katniss being out-of-place here, as if she came to the scene too late, as though her subjectivity is defined by absence instead of presence. One of these shots is filmed through an opening that used to be a window, providing a frame within a frame which encloses her even more in her traumatic guilt. Then a sudden crushing sound precedes a close-up of a human skull, which Katniss accidentally steps on, a scene that is reminiscent of the beginning of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) in which a war robot’s boot steps on a human skull. Like in this scene, in Mockingjay Part 1 it is the sound of the crunch and not the image that renders the object recognizable as a human skull (Elsaesser and Hagener 2010: 145), before the camera slowly tracks out, revealing a vast field of human skeletons. Nevertheless, I argue that these scenes need not only be interpreted in terms of pathological affect of overwhelming traumatic guilt. In a scene that immediately follows the sequence with the ruins, Katniss finds a perfect white rose in a vase at her home in the Victors’ Village that is left there after the destruction of District 12. The shiny, fresh, transparent rose with subtle dewdrops on its petals is prominently brought into the picture in an extreme close-up, emphasizing the harsh contrast between the material quality of the delicate rose and the preceding scenes of destruction full of smoke and dust. Obviously, the rose signifies the ever-dominant presence of President Snow, and Katniss promptly drops the rose, with a horrified look on her face. But I argue that the close-up of the rose and the gesture that follows also signifies an epiphany of sorts, the realization that her guilt concerns actions that are not of her own doing after all. Thus, it could be claimed that by dropping the rose Katniss lets go of some of her feelings of guilt, which renders the scene a defining moment that allows Katniss to channel her guilt into positive action. After the sequence in the ruins of District 12 the narrative tension seems to an ever-increasing extent a balancing act between negative survivor guilt based on identification with the aggressor and positive

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responsibility based on solidarity with the victims. The scene in District 8 in Mockingjay Part I is a case in point of this. In this scene the camera follows Katniss into a makeshift hospital full of wounded people. The extreme long shots panning the setting emphasize the multitude of casualties, whereas the reaction shots of Katniss’ face convey her sense of helplessness in a desperate situation. The objective shots alternate with POV shots from Katniss’ perspective, lingering on the bodies in pain, while the soundscape of the setting gradually goes almost silent in acknowledgment of her presence. The people at the hospital then form a circle around her in an establishing shot in which only Katniss in focus at the front plane of the image. The anonymity of the surrounding crowd suggested by this shallow focus is canceled out though as soon as Katniss is addressed by offscreen voices that inquire whether she is fighting with them. This offscreen address literally hails Katniss to occupy a position of the Mockingjay, to leave her self-enclosed existence and to enter what Jean-Luc Nancy (2002) calls the mode of “being-with” or “side-by-side”, which to Nancy is the foundation of any ethical relation with the other. To him, “‘Being-­ with’ is an [ethical] understanding that we […] share understanding between us: between us all, simultaneously—all the dead and the living, and all beings” (99). At the same time, the scene is an example of being “face-to-face” with the other in the Levinasian sense, as the ultimate moral responsibility of each individual for the other. I argue that in this scene the off-screen voices function as a face that we cannot actually perceive, and that therefore here occurs what Sarah Cooper (2006) calls a “space of responsibility” in cinema, which “persistently resists any attempt to reduce those we see either to their image, or to an image of ourselves” (23). The scene in the makeshift hospital is ethically relevant, because it creates a space of responsibility that evokes a sensation of solidarity that causes Katniss’ concern to shift from the self toward the other. It is this feeling of solidarity and being-with that enables Katniss to make a powerful appeal to Panem’s citizens in the middle of the burning ruins after the bombing of District 8. Fire is an important element in the scene, which is in strong contrast to the previous sequence within the ruins of District 12. It functions as an emotional-metaphorical element for self-transformation, embodying the significance of what happens when one evolves through one’s traumatic guilt into one’s ethical purpose.

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References Agamben, Giorgio. 1999. Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Trans. Daniel Heller-Rozen. New York: Zone Books. Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge. Bagnoli, Carla. 2015 “Introduction.” In Morality & the Emotions, Carla Bagnoli, 1-36. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bartsch, Anne. 2010. Vivid Abstractions: On the Role of Emotion Metaphors in Film Viewers’ Search for Deeper Insight and Meaning. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 34 (1): 240–260. Baudry, Jean-Louis. 1985. Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus. Trans. Alain Williams. In Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology. Ed. Phil Rosen, 286–298. New York: Columbia University Press. Bennett, Jill. 2005. Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bergoffen, Debra B. 1997. The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities. Albany: SUNY Press. Butler, Judith. 1992. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge. Chion, Michel. 2009. Film, a Sound Art. Trans. Claudia Gorbman. New  York: Columbia University Press. Cooper, Sarah. 2006. Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French Documentary. London: Legenda. Creed, Barbara. 1993. Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection. Screen 27 (1): 44–71. Deigh, John. 2008. Emotions, Values, and Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1992. Ethology: Spinoza and Us. Trans. Robert Hurley. In Incorporations. Ed. Jonathan Crary and Stanford Kwinter, 625–633. New York: Zone Books. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2004. Was wäre, wenn du schon tot bist? Vom ‘postmodernen’ zum ‘post-mortem’—Kino am Beispiel von Christopher Nolans Memento. In Zeitsprünge: Wie Filme Geschichte(n) Erzählen, ed. Christine Rüffert, Irmbert Schenk, Karl-Heinz Schmid, and Alfred Twes, 115–125. Bertz: Berlin. ———. 2010. Pohjalla: Aki Kaurismäki ja abjekti subjekti. Translated by Antti Autio. Lähikuva 2: 7–27. Elsaesser, Thomas, and Malte Hagener. 2010. Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses. New York: Routledge. Herman, Judith Lewis. 1992. Trauma and Recovery: From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. London: HarperCollins. Honneth, Axel. 2001. Personal Identity and Disrespect. In The New Social Theory Reader, ed. Steven Seidman and Jeffrey C.  Alexander, 39–45. London: Routledge.

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Izard, Carroll E., and Silvan S. Tomkins. 1966. Affect and Behaviour: Anxiety as a Negative Affect. In Anxiety and Behaviour, ed. Charles D.  Spiegelberger, 81–125. New York: Academic Press. van der Kolk, Bessel A. 1994. The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and Evolving Psychobiology of Posttraumatic Stress. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 1 (5): 253–265. Kristeva, Julia. 1982. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press. Laval, Christian. 2012. Surveiller et prévenir: La nouvelle société panoptique. Revue du MAUSS 40 (2): 47–72. Lewis, Helen Block. 1971. Shame and Guilt in Neurosis. Psychoanalytic Review 58 (3): 419–439. Lewis, Michael. 1995. Shame: The Exposed Self. New York: The Free Press. Leys, Ruth. 2007. From Guilt to Shame: Auschwitz and After. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lifton, Robert Jay. 1964. On Death and Death Symbolism: The Hiroshima Disaster. Psychiatry 27: 191–210. ———. 1983. The Broken Connection: On Death and the Continuity of Life. Washington: American Psychiatric Press. ———. 1991. Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Marcus, Paul, and Alan Rosenberg. 1988. A Philosophical Critique of the ‘Survivor Syndrome’ and Some Implications for Treatment. In The Psychological Perspectives of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, ed. Randolph L.  Braham, 239–256. New York: East European Monographs. Mason, Michelle. 2010. On Shamelessness. Philosophical Papers 39 (3): 401–425. McAvan, Emily. 2017. ’May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favour’: The Sacrificial Logic of The Hunger Games. Books and Culture 13 (2): 49–62. Metz, Christian. 1986. The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema. Trans. Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster, and Alfred Guzzetti. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mulvey, Laura. 1975. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen 16 (3): 6–18. Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2002. Being Singular Plural. Trans. Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O’Byrne. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Nathanson, Donald L. 1987. A Timetable for Shame. In The Many Faces of Shame, ed. Donald L. Nathanson, 1–63. New York: Guilford Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2004. Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2013. Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Plantinga, Carl. 2009. Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator’s Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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CHAPTER 6

Dynamics of Contempt and Dignity

Contempt Versus Dignity Such bravery. Such spirit. Such … contempt. (President Snow in Catching Fire)

Halfway through Mockingjay Part II some Peacekeepers destroy the building where they believe Katniss and the rest of Squad 451 are hiding. The footage of annihilation is aired live and followed by a mandatory public service announcement on the television screens, in which the Squad members’ portraits are broadcast with military anthem swelling in the background. This resembles the practice of projecting the dead tributes’ portraits across the sky during the Games. After this President Snow addresses the rebels in a condescending tone, calling Katniss “a poor unstable girl with nothing but a small talent with a bow and arrow”, valuable to the rebellion only because its allies would “have no vision, no true leader” among them. However, this broadcast is hacked by the resistance and turned into a pirate transmission highlighting a passionate speech by Alma Coin, in which she refers to Katniss as a “brave young woman” who “rose up from District 12 and turned a nation of slaves into an army”. The scene embodies what I consider one of the most important emotional conflicts or forms of affective tension in The Hunger Games trilogy, namely the contrast between contempt and its negative counterpart, the sense of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Laine, Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games, Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67334-5_6

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emotional dignity. These two emotions are related to the extent that contempt functions as an active, affective force to undermine dignity, while dignity resists practices that violate human decency and integrity for economic, social, and political goals. Panem is a dystopian society largely because it is based on the arbitrary supremacy of one privileged group, whose leader uses his influence to set vanquished, underprivileged groups against each other. Panem, extremely hierarchical in its organization, is a society of contempt. This cold emotion permeates the flow of power between individuals and groups, but it is nevertheless shown to be reversible. Thus, Snow’s speech is an affront to Katniss’ dignity, as well as to the rebels’ dignity by proxy, in qualifying her as unworthy in the Panem social system. Coin’s response reestablishes Katniss’ sense of dignity as an individual with her own moral standards, who also upholds the standards of the rebel community of which she is a member. In the social system of Panem, political and ideological differences are considered morally shameful and hazardous to the nation. The District populations, who are socially, politically, and geographically outside the hierarchy of power, are left without a sense of dignity for their individual and/or social selfhood. The reason for this is that from the Capitol’s point of view, the Districts’ inhabitants fail to abide by its norms and therefore they deserve the Capitol’s contempt. The Games themselves convey this logic of contempt, as they are designed to isolate valuable subjects from expendable human material. These valuable subjects are applauded and celebrated as victors who are meant to reinforce the Panem social system. This explains Snow’s disapproval of Katniss’ performance in the 74th Games that enabled the crowning of two victors, as this act called into question Panem’s hierarchical system, instead of reinforcing it. This is why Snow interprets Katniss’ action as an act of rebellion. But actually Katniss’ “little trick with the berries” can be seen as her upholding her own moral standards, thus demanding recognition of her dignity and authentic self. This chapter argues that in The Hunger Games trilogy the tension between contempt and dignity moves on multiple planes. The first part of the chapter discusses contempt predominantly as an emotion, which involves somebody’s judgment that another person is worthless because of some moral or societal standard. I shall also explore by means of concrete examples from the trilogy the similarities and differences between contempt and related hierarchical emotions such as disgust, resentment, and hatred. The second part considers contempt as an affect with social roots, thus making it an institutionalized phenomenon that thoroughly

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influences the totalitarian organization of Panem and the behavior of its citizens. I shall argue that in The Hunger Games trilogy the Capitol exhibits totalitarian contempt toward the Districts as a central strategy by which its authoritarian government undermines human reality and factuality (Arendt 1968). Furthermore, there is an organic relationship between totalitarian contempt and the socio-economic exploitation of the Districts, which becomes manifest in the Games themselves, when the tributes are rendered into the ‘heroes’ of the Capitol. One central concept through which the totalitarian contempt in The Hunger Games trilogy gets its expression is the notion of masquerade. The Games themselves function as a spectacular masquerade, seemingly celebrating individualism as a ‘pageant of bravery’. Essentially, the masquerade provides the Capitol inhabitants with an excuse to enjoy the brutality of the tradition though, without explicitly displaying the contempt and insensitivity to the value of life it is founded on. Other expressions of masquerade resulting from totalitarianism include the Capitol fashions, architecture, and finally the figure of President Snow itself. The concept of masquerade shows that emotions such as contempt can be institutionalized. Rather than being experienced on a merely individual and personal level, the masquerade of contempt informs us of social relationships and the emotional ethics that define those relationships. Yet masquerade can also be understood as a form of resistance against the dominant social codes in contrast to submission. Therefore, the final part of the chapter explores the way in which masquerade in The Hunger Games trilogy is harnessed in the service of resistance, when dignity is reclaimed by means of fashion as an assertion of personal and collective self-esteem. Like contempt, dignity is related to hierarchical, social standards. Ignoring these standards will damage an individual’s dignity. When unable to uphold those standards, a person becomes less dignified in terms of moral virtue (Killmister 2017, 2071–2072). Likewise resembling contempt, a sense of dignity can be personal, based on the moral standards of a single individual, which do not necessarily coincide with the social standards of the community. This means that on the one hand an individual’s dignity can be based on conformation to social standards that the community recognizes as morally virtuous for its members. But on the other hand an individual’s dignity can also be based on standards that he upholds for himself, but which differ from the standards the individual is subjected to as a member of a community (2073–2075). This is why “acts that may be necessary to uphold personal dignity may simultaneously damage social

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dignity” (2075). Personal dignity can therefore be in conflict with social dignity. Throughout The Hunger Games trilogy we witness Katniss struggling with this very same conflict which finds its narrative climax toward the end of Mockingjay Part II. Here Katniss weighs the harms of prospective violation of social dignity against other harms, including her personal well-being. I argue that this conflict is reflected in the fashion items designed for her by Cinna in the fictional world of The Hunger Games. Stella Bruzzi has written that costumes can be more than mere “functionaries” of the film narrative, for they can become “spectacular interventions that interfere with the scenes in which they appear and impose themselves onto the character they adorn” (Bruzzi 1997, xv). This chapter hopes to demonstrate that especially the design items based on the figure of mockingjay, a bird that is not supposed to exist, function as such a spectacular intervention, distancing the character from the pressures of both the Capitol and the rebellion, even when her costumes are a symbol for the latter.

Contempt and Its Cousins Surprisingly little has been written about contempt in the context of Film Studies thus far. One notable exception is Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit’s (2004) analysis of Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mépris (1963), which addresses the question of contempt’s appeal, both for the film’s doomed couple and for Godard the filmmaker. According to Bersani and Dutoit, contempt affects the visual field of the film so that it becomes “the psychic metaphor for a body so secure in its power to dazzle the gaze of others that it can count on not being observed” (42).1 Similarly, in my analysis contempt functions to reify power relations, but the focus will be on strategies of projecting contempt onto individuals separate from the self. In contrast to the notion of contempt, many film scholars have written eloquently on disgust, which is an affect from the same emotive family. For instance, in his Philosophy of Horror, Noël Carroll (1990) argues that horror films scare by structuring the spectators’ fear around the disgusting properties of the 1  Other interesting approaches to Godard’s film assessing the relation between Camilla and Paul through contempt include Macalaster Bell’s article “A Woman’s Scorn” (2005), which argues that Camilla’s contempt toward Paul in Le Mépris is a particular way of rejecting patriarchy, and Paul Coates’ “Women, Statues, Gods” (1998), which discusses the relationship between Paul and Camille in terms of mutual contempt.

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film monsters in a way that is essentially connected to their cinematic pleasure (193). Carl Plantinga (2006) has studied the way in which filmmakers either conflate or maintain a strict separation between physical and sociomoral disgust, while Chuck Kleinhans (2009) provides a cross-cultural analysis of disgust in films such as Takashi Miike’s Visitor Q (2001), arguing that disgust as an emotion might be universal, but what provokes disgust varies from culture to culture. And in 2011 Tina Kendall edited a special issue on disgust for the Film-Philosophy journal, with articles such as “Laura Dern’s vomit: Or, Kant and Derrida in Oz” by Eugenie Brinkema, an article on Food, Inc. (2008) by Jennifer Barker, and a contribution on the poetics of cinematic disgust by Julian Hanich. Disgust is an evasive emotion, elicited to protect the self from impurity and degradation, and in moral terms associated with intentional immoral behavior (Rozin et al. 2000; Hutcherson and Gross 2011). Disgust involves overwhelming proximity to the disgusting object that threatens to come too close and engulf us (Probyn 2000, 131). Furthermore, disgust occurs primarily in relation to taste, which is why Julia Kristeva (1982) described the phenomenon through food loathing where “spasms and vomiting” protect by separating one from filth which one has come into contact with (2). Disgust is a relevant narrative theme in The Hunger Games trilogy too. One of its central characters, Effie Trinket, is introduced by it at the six-­ minute mark of its first instalment, for instance. She arrives for the reaping at District 12 sporting an enormous floral fascinator and a matching necklace, and wearing a fuchsia-red pencil suit with big, puffy sleeves, unsteady in her high heels on the rough gravel. A close-up of her heavily made-up face captures her facial expression, which involuntarily and subtly seems to betray her attempts to hide disgust. Her feeling of disgust is caused by visual and olfactory contact with things she would rather keep at a distance, as if her bodily integrity and cleanliness were threatened by the damp, sooty, pungent stink of this coalmining District, which immerges her body in the tangible feel of poverty. This is confirmed by a POV shot of her glancing at some Capitol men in white overalls hosing down the District’s Justice Hall covered in coal dust. In Catching Fire, the scene is replicated when Effie arrives in the Victors’ Village with Katniss’ prep team. The team members are visibly disgusted until Effie reassures them that they will “get used to the smell”. Earlier we have already witnessed the same prep team openly expressing their disgust at Katniss’ ungroomed body, which has to be showered, waxed, snipped with scissors, and scrubbed with a brush in order to

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become presentable in the Capitol. At some point one prep team member conceitedly raises his eyebrows and says that they might have to “hose down” Katniss again, while another one turns to stare at her, as if repulsed by her audacity to even exist. The sentiment of disgust expressed in the phrase “hose you down” is reinforced by a low camera angle. The same angle is equally strikingly used in the flashback scenes of Peeta tossing burned bread at Katniss in the rain, which is the initial cause of her hostility toward him. And there is moral disgust, for instance, when the prep team suggest that Peeta should make himself vomit, so that he could stomach more food at the decadent, gluttonous presidential party in the Capitol. These scenes demonstrate the insight of Jonathan Haidt et  al. (1997), that disgust runs on a gamut, starting from a “guardian of the mouth” through protecting the “temple of the body” to becoming a keeper of “human dignity in the social order” (121). Nevertheless, in my view a more yielding analysis of such scenes rests on the premise that they are instances of contempt. In this line of thought, the prep team ‘hosing down’ Katniss and Peeta tossing bread at her are seen as a contemptuous expression of superior social standing. That Katniss is restricted to inferiority is accentuated by the position of her body in these scenes, helplessly lying on an operation table in the Remake Center, or collapsed from hunger in the rain at the District 12 merchant section. In contrast to disgust, contempt is an affect based on separation, and therefore it has affiliation with vision and hearing, the sensory perceptions of distance. An even more important aspect of contempt is that of inferiority within social hierarchy, which is why it fits the image of ‘looking down’ at a person. According to Robert Solomon (2007), contempt involves “an essential judgment of marked superiority” (211); contempt is therefore not merely a reaction against (moral) contamination. Like disgust, contempt is an evasive emotion, but it also involves comparison between the superior social standing of the self and the inferior standing of the other (de Silva 2017, 22). In The Hunger Games, the training sessions and the scores given to the tributes are there to create a hierarchy and to mark certain tributes as superior, and other ones as inferior. The first training session starts off with a voice-over of the chief trainer, explaining to the tributes that in two weeks’ time, twenty-three of them will be dead and only one will be alive. This voice-over functions as a textual speech to which the image responds by showing us a close-up of Cato looking at Katniss. Tilting his face upwards at that moment, he literally looks down on Katniss whom he

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holds in contempt.2 The camera spirals around the tributes, moving from left to right behind the shoulders of different individuals, as they listen to the chief trainer’s explanation. The camera continues to slide along, zooming in on different facial expressions, which show caution, confidence, anxiety, supremacy, anticipation, and studied indifference. Not aligning strictly to any of the tributes, the camera finally tilts upward to show the Gamemakers on their elevated platform from low angle, keenly observing the proceedings that are both literally and metaphorically ‘beneath them’. At some point Peeta falls from the large rope net stretched underneath the ceiling, followed by another low-angle shot of the Career Tributes lining up to sneer at him. After Peeta has thrown a large metal weight across the gym to impress the Careers, an extreme low camera angle showing him out of breath, expresses the change of hierarchical relations between himself and others. Therefore, not only facial expressions, but also camera height and angle convey judgments of superiority and inferiority in the film. There are other aspects in which contempt is similar to disgust, insofar as both emotions are grounded in an evaluative appreciation that is negatively affective. But while disgust is a hot emotion that contains intensive action tendencies (Kedia and Hilton 2011, 490), in contempt these action tendencies are “covered with a cold jacket” (de Silva 2017, 22). Unlike disgust, contempt is not associated with hot feelings, but with cool disregard, with “silent ignoring of another person, and coldness” (idem). This coldness is epitomized in the scene in which Katniss finds out about Gale’s betrayal. Except for one fading, singular melody on the soundtrack that functions to bridge it to the previous one in Snow’s rose garden, the scene is remarkably silent, void of any non-diegetic score or background noise. There are noticeably long pauses between the lines of dialogue uttered by Katniss and Gale, producing an atmosphere of icy, contemptuous intensity. This coldness is further enhanced by the framing of the shots, which creates distance between the two characters. It is remarkable that Katniss does not really appear disgusted by Gale’s immoral actions. Instead it is a cold, contemptuous mood that this silent, subdued scene evokes.

2  In the novel, Katniss describes the moment as follows: “Now I see nothing but contempt in the glances of the Career Tributes. Each must have twenty to forty kilos on me. They project arrogance and brutality [by] showing off, clearly trying to intimidate the field” (Collins 2011a, 109).

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Another distinction needs to be made, namely between contempt and resentment. The latter is “an emotion of the weak [who] resent the strong. […] Resentment is always on the defensive, and it is always looking up at those considered oppressive” (211). Therefore, the difference between contempt and resentment is a matter of intentionality, or ‘towardness’ of the affect within social hierarchy. The intentionality of contempt is directed downward at inferiority, while resentment is directed upward at superiority. This is shown in Katniss’ private training session before the Gamemakers in The Hunger Games, which is dominated by high camera angle. While in the collective training scenes low-angle camera stayed with the character at the receiving end of contempt, in the private training session high camera angle places, in the private training scene high angle places us among the Gamemakers, feeling contempt toward Katniss. She is shown entering the gym looking up at the Gamemakers’ tribune with furrowed brow and puckered up lips. The camera stays with the Gamemakers who are immersed in conversation as Katniss tries to attract their attention, only to lose it promptly by missing the target in her first attempt with the unfamiliar bow and arrow. We feel her humiliation in and through the pitch of the rhythmic tingling on the soundtrack while the Gamemakers ignore her second, excellent shot. Then she fixes her gaze on the roasted pork at the center of the Gamemakers’ attention, and sends an arrow right through the apple in its mouth. The last shot of the scene is from the height of the tribune, looking down at Katniss as she takes a sarcastic bow, thanking the Gamemakers for their consideration. The shooting of the apple can be seen as an expression of resentment, insofar as it is a protest against contemptuous treatment that implies a wrongful judgment of her competence as worthless (Goffman 1967, 31; Murphy and Hampton 1988, 51; Haber 1991, 48; Nussbaum 2016, 262). Katniss’ arrow is directed against the Gamemakers’ disdain that lowers her status in the eyes of others, that holds her inferior to a roasted pork. The arrow defiantly reaffirms her dignity and value as a human being, which has been called into question in the private training session. The parallel scene in Catching Fire, in which Katniss puts up a target practice dummy with the name of Seneca Crane written on it, is significantly different from the earlier one. Here Katniss symbolically hangs Crane, the late Head Gamemaker who was executed for previously allowing Katniss and Peeta to win the 74th Games, thus reminding the current Gamemakers that they too are vulnerable to President Snow’s wrath. Katniss hanging the dummy is not an example of resentment though, because her action is

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not induced by her being insulted, offended, or deprived, as was the case in the scene with the roast pork. Instead, it conveys a sense of contempt, triggered by Peeta’s painting of a lifeless Rue covered in white flowers, and intended to break through the condescending façade of those she considers responsible for Rue’s death. In this scene, the camera stays on a subtle low angle as Katniss strings up the dummy, then takes a bow that mimics the gesture from the previous assessment session. The scene ends with a close-up of her face from an extreme low angle, exaggerating her contemptuous grimace, before cutting to an establishing shot which centralizes the dummy, while a triumphant, diegetic score from the upcoming scene starts booming on the sound track. Unlike shame and guilt, which are self-directed emotions originating from a status crisis of the self, both contempt and resentment are normally other-directed affects, even though self-directed contempt (self-loathing) and resentment (self-pity) exist as well. Ueli Kramer et al. (2020) define self-contempt as a psychopathology that is marked by a harsh, negative self-evaluation, a symbolical ‘spitting’ on the self, a critical rejection of what one deems unacceptable about oneself (209). In Mockingjay Part II, Peeta is shown full of self-resentment when, still under the influence of tracker jacker venom, he regrets having intentionally burned a batch of bread so that he could give some to Katniss: “All I know is that I would’ve saved myself a lot of suffering if I’d just given that bread to the pig.” In a later scene in the Capitol streets, Peeta suffers a psychotic attack and pushes off one of the members of Squad 451 into the approaching black tar. This activates a barbed wire trap that pulls the Squad member up and kills him. This triggers in Peeta a bout of self-loathing that is so severe that he begs for a nightlock pill with which to kill himself. Also Katniss, after having witnessed both friends and strangers suffer brutal deaths in retribution for her actions, as well as having killed several people herself, suffers from self-contempt, which regularly compromises her ability to maintain her agential dignity. A final distinction that needs to be made here is between contempt and hatred. For if contempt and resentment are emotions based on social inequality, then hatred can be defined in terms of equality. Solomon (2007) explains that: Our typical metaphor for hatred and its supposed opposite, love, is black and white. The good guy in the classic black-and-white western (for example, the Lone Ranger) always wears light outfits, the bad guy (Lee van Cleef,

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for instance) almost always wears black. But just as love seeks out equals […] hatred, too, seeks out equals. Colloquially, we can easily understand why people so readily label so many of their negative emotions ‘hate’ […] because it casts a person in a bad light when he or she admits to resentment or, for that matter, even contempt (in our supposedly egalitarian society). (211–212)

In The Hunger Games trilogy this emotional metaphor of black versus white is reversed. Katniss as the ‘good guy’ wears her black mockingjay battle outfit that serves as a symbol to inspire the revolution, and President Snow as the ‘bad guy’ always sports a white rose, which serves as a constant reminder of how he gained and maintains his power, that is, by poisoning his enemies. Ildikó Limpár (2017) writes that white roses not merely symbolize Snow’s character, but that they also stand generally for the cruel mechanisms of Capitol’s governmental power. A product of genetic engineering, the white rose is related to other artificially modified natural phenomena, such as the tracker jackers, the mutts, and the jabberjays, which all belong to the heterotopia of Panem’s monstrosity (185). In addition, in The Hunger Games trilogy the symbolism of black versus white communicates the emotional development that characterizes the relationship between Snow and Katniss. What starts as contempt from Snow’s part and resentment from Katniss, ends in hatred that embodies a more equivalent relationship between the two. Obviously, there is no suggesting that the nature of their relationship becomes more ‘ethical’ in the end. My point is that their mutual dislike is related to their judging each other’s relative social standing. The initial sign of their reaching equal standing over for each other is epitomized in a scene toward the end of The Hunger Games, which shows Katniss and Snow within the same frame for the first time. This is when Katniss and Peeta are being crowned as victors. The camera stays level as Katniss and Snow face each other en silhouette, before Snow comments on her mockingjay pin, which functions as a countermotif for his white rose in the image. Snow’s insistence that Katniss and he himself would never lie to one another also testifies of equality, in addition to this being a narrative theme culminating in the scene where Snow is imprisoned in his own rose garden. In face of his impending death, Snow’s remarkably calm and even cheerful posture seems to cancel out his disadvantageous position as conveyed by the high camera angle from Katniss’ perspective. Regardless of the nature of the situation, it is Snow who has narrative agency in the scene, as he tells Katniss that Coin was responsible

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for the bombs that killed Prim and a number of Capitol children. His line “Oh my dear Miss Everdeen, I thought we’d agreed never to lie to each other” plants a seed of suspicion in Katniss’ mind that makes her doubt Coin’s motive. A suspicion which is immediately confirmed in the roundtable scene that promptly follows. Where emotional ethics are concerned, the roundtable scene and the subsequent events are the most complex and challenging in The Hunger Games trilogy. The narrative premise is of Alma Coin, who after appointing herself interim president of Panem, calls for a vote among the remaining victors on whether symbolic Hunger Games should be held one last time with the Capitol children as tributes. Like President Snow, Coin personifies totalitarian contempt, but unlike Snow who cloaks his emotion in offensive charm, Coin behaves noticeably cold, controlled, and distant, displaying her stark emotion. This is highlighted by her physical appearance: her fair skin, her sleek, silvery hair, and the pale gray cape suit. Now Katniss’ decision to kill Coin instead of executing Snow can also be interpreted as an act of contempt, not only toward Coin but also toward the rebels, as by killing Coin Katniss transforms their reformative actions into her own project. As I argue in the chapter on anger, this act condemns Katniss to remaining a morally imperfect heroine, failing to achieve ethical maturity. This ending prevents The Hunger Games trilogy from becoming a moralizing story, insofar as it poses ethical questions by inviting emotional engagement, but does not necessarily provide answers to those questions.

Totalitarian Contempt The examples of contempt and the related emotions of disgust, resentment, and hatred that I have discussed so far are all instances of individual affect. Yet, an even more important emotion in The Hunger Games trilogy is institutionalized contempt, or rather totalitarian contempt. This is displayed by the Capitol toward the Districts, as conveyed by the thematic features and the aesthetic organization that characterize the Panem societal system of rules and regulations. Target of totalitarian contempt is any form of democracy and it focuses on forcing individuals to live under dictatorship, especially those with dissenting views on political and social issues. In The Hunger Games trilogy, totalitarian contempt is directed at justice and human dignity in general, which comprises more than the difficult circumstances under which the District inhabitants labor both

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physically and intellectually. This is epitomized in the very first scenes of the trilogy’s first instalment. The film opens with a black screen accompanied by the eerie, melancholy score of a lone, ambient guitar and strings. Across this screen a quotation from the Treaty of the Treason appears: In penance for their uprising, each District shall offer up a male and a female between the ages of 12 and 18 at a public ‘reaping’. These tributes shall be delivered to the custody of the Capitol. And then transferred into a public arena, where they will fight to the death until a lone victor remains. Henceforth and forevermore this pageant shall be known as The Hunger Games. (The Hunger Games)

The first scene of the film takes place in Caesar Flickerman’s flashy television studio, where this extravagant host enquires from Seneca Crane what his “personal signature” is as Head Gamemaker. Before Crane can answer Flickerman’s question, the scene is abruptly cut to an establishing shot of District 12, accompanied by the sound bridge of a loudly shrieking girl. Not only does this abrupt transition imply that Crane’s personal signature is defined by efficient infliction of fear, it also establishes the Capitol’s total lack of compassion with human suffering in the Districts as a narrative theme of the film. The location shots of District 12 are presented to us as we follow Katniss making her way toward its border, which is marked by an inoperative high voltage electric fence. These shots, revealing a setting dominated by dilapidated rustic buildings and carts, show a striking similarity to the Depression-era photography by Dorothea Lange, as has been noted by a number of critics (e.g., Lange and Riechers 2012; Lacey 2016, 5). The setting highlights the impoverished, oppressed conditions in which the inhabitants are forced to carry on with their daily tasks without any hope of escape. The contrast between the flamboyant studio setting and the bleached-out scenery with wooden shacks and muddy roads, scrawny kids, and one fragile elderly man gnawing at the bones of a cooked small animal (a rat?), effectively conveys the stark disparity between the Capitol’s decadent prosperity and the hideous poverty in District 12. The same effect is achieved by the dissimilarity between the softly draped, dreary cotton clothing worn by the District’s inhabitants, and the architectural, brightly colored suit worn by Effie Trinket in the reaping scene. In the impoverished setting of District 12, Effie’s clothing does not merely stand out, but it intimidates, signifying hostility, assault, and dominance (Lange and Riechers 2012).

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The unsightliness of this setting conveys systematic inequality and repression, as lingering effects of the totalitarian contempt with which the Capitol treats the inhabitants of the Districts, and especially District 12. It is a vicious circle: Panem’s politics of contempt have condemned the Districts’ inhabitants to impoverished lives, and their poverty exposes them to even more contempt. In the context of (commodity) capitalism, Guy Debord (1994) recognized this connection between contempt and socio-economic exploitation when he wrote: political economy sees in the proletarian only the worker who must receive the minimum indispensable for the conservation of his labor power, without ever seeing him in ‘his leisure and humanity’. These ideas of the ruling class are reversed as soon as the production of commodities reaches a level of abundance, which requires a surplus of collaboration from the worker. This worker, suddenly redeemed from the total contempt which is clearly shown him by all the varieties of organization and supervision of production, finds himself every day, outside of production and in the guise of a consumer, seemingly treated as an adult, with zealous politeness. […] Thus the ‘perfected denial of man’ has taken charge of the totality of human existence. (43)

Even though the logic of capitalism conveyed in The Hunger Games is totalitarian rather than commoditarian, a Debordian philosophy can be found at its heart nevertheless. The way in which the Capitol deliberately extracts wealth from the Districts is an obvious allegory for a capitalist economy exploiting the labor power of the proletariat. But in Panem there is no level of abundance, which would require a surplus collaboration from the worker as a consumer. Instead, the ‘surplus of collaboration’ is extracted from the oppressed in the form of forced participation in the celebration of their own low status as objects of contempt in the eyes of those who hold the power to legitimize the ‘perfected denial’ of their existence. This perfected denial is conveyed in the opening sequence of The Hunger Games, which functions as a watching ‘manual’ for the entire trilogy. According to Thomas Elsaesser (2012), the opening sequence of a film often prepares the spectator for story comprehension and emotional involvement. Here we often find a privileged image or composition, which in a sense gathers together diverse and heterogenous elements in a single configuration, whose meaning will only become fully apparent in retrospect. It thus functions

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rather like an emblematic picture, as a condensation of the various narrative motifs, as well as implying a temporal structure of anticipation and suspense. (117)

In the opening of The Hunger Games there are a number of these emblematic pictures, such as Primrose’s cat hissing at Katniss to show its disdain, the deer that escapes while hunted by Katniss, and the worn, bland dress, which Katniss is required to put on for the reaping. Prominent among all the condensed motifs is the shot of a Peacekeeper’s black footwear, critically framed in the image as a visual metaphor for people ‘under the boot’ of tyrannical dictatorship (Fig.  6.1). It is as if the image was inspired by the following line from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (2001): “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever” (280). One shot showing the inhabitants marching toward the reaping ceremony in the central square is framed from below their heads. Their faces as mirrors of their ‘leisure and humanity’ are figuratively cut out of the image. In addition, the “material sound indices” (Chion 2009) of footsteps marching on slushy, muddy roads cause us to experience aurally the physical conditions of the District’s poverty. But there is also the motif of the mockingjay pin, which Katniss finds among the junk at the black market, and hands over to Primrose as a token of good luck. Later, Katniss will wear the pin herself, first as a sign of her sister’s affection, then as an emblem for herself as the ‘girl on fire’. Finally the figure of mockingjay becomes the main symbol of the rebellion.

Fig. 6.1  The Hunger Games: “Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, for ever …” (George Orwell). (Screen capture)

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Mockingjays themselves are hybrid creatures that came into existence by accident, when genetically modified jabberjays mated with mockingbirds. Thus, the mockingjay is a perfect symbol for the rebellion, as it was never meant to exist outside the control of the Capitol (Williams 2015, 48; 59). Targeted at the Districts to inspire uprising, the Mockingjay is nevertheless as performative an identity as is the ‘girl on fire’ routine that Katniss has to present to the Capitol. These visual symbols and thematic metaphors are elements of the central dramatic tension, which the narrative is to resolve. It is all crucially centered around Katniss: the relationship between hunter and hunted, oppressor and oppressed, contempt and self-worth, power and resistance. This tension is intensified in the film’s ‘second’ opening, when Katniss and Peeta are placed in the custody of the Capitol. We share Katniss POV as she enters the Tribute Train. The interior is futuristic and art deco at the same time: stainless steel, glass, mahogany, blue velvet, and crystal, almost as if it were “lifted straight from industrial design legend Henry Dreyfuss’ 1930 Mercury Trains” (Lange and Riechers, 2012). This decor is unlike anything Katniss and Peeta have seen, as is obvious from the reaction shots capturing their astonishment. The following POV shot lingers on the abundance of delicate fresh fruit, flaky pastries, colorful petit fours, sugary beignets, and exotic beverages served on silver platters. These sumptuous foodstuffs are brought into picture in a manner often referred to as ‘food porn’, a glamourized, highly stylized, and therefore spectacular visual presentation of cooking and eating, especially in advertising (Coward 1984). It drives home the harsh contrast with the previous images depicting District inhabitants on the brink of starvation, when even plain bread is a luxury product. This immediate access to unlimited indulgence for a District inhabitant who is ‘promoted’ to a tribute could be interpreted as a sudden redemption from the Capitol’s former total contempt.3 Yet this actually only forebodes a more covert form of contempt as manifested in Haymitch’s cynicism about Katniss and Peeta’s chances of survival in the Game arena. He enters the film visibly drunk and unkempt, greeting Katniss and Peeta with a boozy “congratulations”, before veering toward the liquor cabinet. 3  Emily McAvan (2017) makes a similar argument of The Hunger Games novels when she writes that, once Katniss and Peeta are selected as tributes, they are drawn into a system of intimacy with the Capitol, symbolized by the access to the circle of consumption with rich food, wine, showers, and beauty treatments (55).

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When Peeta asks what advice Haymitch has for them, he answers sarcastically: “Embrace the probability of your imminent death, and know in your heart that there’s nothing I can do to save you.” Rather than with Katniss and Peeta’s fate, Haymitch’s concern is seemingly with his new trousers, which get stained when Peeta tries to grab his glass. Even though Haymitch cynicism turns out to be studied indifference instead of a genuine emotion, it is nevertheless borne out by his awareness that the Capitol’s celebration of tributes as ‘chosen ones’ is grounded on its hidden contempt toward them. Therefore, the focus of Haymitch’s cynicism is not Katniss and Peeta, but his lack of trust in the political system of Panem. Haymitch is a textbook example of a cynical individual who “expects nothing but the worst of human conduct […], who does not trust or respect the goodness of other people and their actions” and who is “distrustful or contemptuous of others’ motives” (Eisinger 2000, 55). Furthermore, the sudden indulgence that the tributes are immersed in can also be seen as contemptuous insofar as its purpose is to intimidate them, instead of to be enjoyed. This is captured in the image of Katniss left alone in the dining car as if she were an imperfection, a discrepancy in the abundant setting. The same mood of not belonging in the picture, not being properly a subject of the Capitol’s consideration, can also be found in the Presidential party scene in Catching Fire. In this scene, impeccably dressed Katniss and Peeta are being welcomed by the applauding Capitol elite, seemingly as one of their own. The overwhelming abundance of food and drink on reflecting surfaces, surrounded by candelabra, glassware, and crystal that make the setting glow, grants to this astonishing party an in-your-face effect, which is appealing and appalling at the same time. While the rest of the party dances away joyfully, their serious facial expressions and the stiffness of their body language betray Katniss and Peeta’s attempt at hiding their discomfort. The purgative drink offered to Peeta by Flavius and Octavia, which should enable him to go on enjoying the feast, is once more a sign of the enduring contempt, separating the corrupt Capitol steeped in luxury from the starving outer Districts, to which Katniss and Peeta still belong to. The scene is a possible reference to a hyperbolic passage from Seneca’s stoic message in De Consulatione ad Helviam Matrem (41–42 AD), when he admonishes—in his view—decadent Roman contemporaries for “vomiting in order to eat, eating in order to vomit, without even deigning to digest the banquets for which they scour the whole world” (Makins 2015, 287).

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Totalitarian Masquerade Katniss and Peeta’s first entrance into the Capitol is thus marked by a paradox of hidden contempt masquerading as the celebration of an individual. It is a masquerade the tributes are forced to participate in, for in order to stay alive during the Games, a tribute has to appeal to possible sponsors. Understanding this, Peeta cheerfully greets the huge, colorful crowd that is gathered at the Capitol train station to welcome the Tribute Train enthusiastically, while Katniss observes the situation as a bystander, as if unable to believe her own eyes. It is the same enthusiasm that the crowd shows at the start of the Games, as the tributes stand on their platforms waiting for the countdown to finish and the Cornucopia bloodbath to begin. Peeta keeps up this cheerfulness in the television interview with Flickerman, asking if he smells like roses after having spent the past days in the Capitol. It is this type of performance that the audience needs in order to be able to watch the subsequent hideous massacre, disguised as entertainment. Such masquerade performances in which the tributes participate provide a justification of sorts for the Capitol’s comprehensive contempt toward the Districts, which denies their inhabitants human value and dignity. In psychoanalytical theory, masquerade is a concept introduced by Joan Riviere (1929/2000) to define a (feminine) mode of being for the (male) other. When a woman masquerades, she renounces her subjective agency in order to become an image of femininity for the male gaze. By contrast, when a man masquerades it is more tied to power structures than the female masquerade, to “the trappings of authority, hierarchy, order [and position that] make the man” (Heath 1986, 56). The concept is also central in Franz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (2007), in which racial masks masquerade not only cover black but also white bodies, which leads to social, political, and economic consequences. Otherwise Kathleen Woodward (1988–1989) argues that masquerade is a strategy by which to deny, erase, or efface one’s aging body, especially in cultures which particularly devalue old age (121). In a rather complex way, The Hunger Games trilogy can be analyzed in terms of masquerade, not only with regard to the tributes participating in the Games, but also considering the Capitol inhabitants. The citizens’ masquerade reflects their wealth and dominance by means of radiant, exaggerated make-up, towering headpieces, ceremonial accessories, and very bright, sculptural garments (Fig.  6.2). These come in fuchsia,

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Fig. 6.2  The Hunger Games: Capitol fashion. (Screen capture)

turquoise, gold, as well as acid green and yellow, and are made of luxurious materials such as silk, organza, brocade, and leather. People swarm the Capitol streets flaunting puffy sleeves and outsized shoulder pads, extra-­ large bows, ruffles, ostrich feathers, as well as multicolor fur, and even house pets adorned in Capitol style. One pair of sisters are dressed identically, head-to toe in fuchsia-red from their curly wigs to babydoll dresses and high-heel gladiator sandals, like some futuristic version of the Grady twins from The Shining (1980). Sometimes the Capitol costume design evokes an association with creations by Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1930s and the 1940s, who was heavily influenced by surrealism. Organic forms, such as flowers and butterflies, dominate in jewelry and hair fascinators, similar to Schiaparelli’s work, whose 1938 Rhodoid necklace, made of cellulose acetate plastic, was designed to evoke the illusion of multicolored insects crawling on the wearer’s neck (metmuseum.org). Some articles of clothing and accessories have a clear association with royalty. One Capitol resident holds a scepter with a silver miniature skull for a knob, while another wears a wide, starched ruff, and a young boy sports a regal tailcoat with remarkable ease. One striking headpiece, fully covered by rhinestones and topped by puffs of red fur, clearly makes another majestic statement. Part of the Capitol wardrobe seems to be inspired by military uniforms: banned jackets in dark colors with white facings, astrakhan labels, conical hats, breeches, stockings, and spats. Some Capitol residents have altered their appearance more drastically by means of tattooing and plastic surgery, which strikes an otherworldly effect. The character Tigris whom we meet only toward the end of

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Mockingjay Part II must be an extreme example of such otherworldliness. Her hybrid looks are both human and feline: a stretched face tattooed with black tiger stripes, a flattened nose that forms a short snout, and surgically implanted, long whiskers. The Capitol dress code is therefore best characterized as carnivalesque, though contrary to the sense of the word as used by Mikhail Bakhtin (2009). Capitol fashion is designed to express dominance and to conceal sadistic contempt toward the dominated. By contrast, in Bakhtinian thinking, carnivalesque refers to a (grotesque) mode of being that subverts and unshackles the conventions of the dominant style or taste through humor and chaos. Nevertheless, there is a carnivalesque element in the Capitol dress code insofar as it contains grotesque elements, its extreme conventions drawing attention to its essentially artificial, performative nature. By contrast, the masquerade put forward by President Snow does not conceal anything. It expresses stark contempt, not by sporting an extravagant style but by means of a dark, reserved, and totalitarian look that places him above everyone else in the Capitol. Snow is introduced during the Tribute Parade of the 74th Games with a camera ride, starting out from an establishing shot that shows the ceremonially illuminated government building, decked out in large Panem flags. The camera sweeps across the Avenue of the Tributes, then flies upward for a close-up of the Capitol Seal, depicting an eagle encircled by a laurel wreath. In Ancient Roman mythology, the eagle represents Jupiter, the king of the gods, while the laurel wreath or laureate is a symbol of victory (Thompson 1988). Then the camera seamlessly lands on Snow, inviting us to associate the significance of the Capitol Seal with this character from the very first shot that brings him into the film. This association is reinforced by the split screenshot that shortly follows. It depicts the Capitol audience eagerly waiting for the Parade to start in an extreme long shot in the left panel, with a width of approximately 20% of the aspect ratio in the image. The panel on the right with a width of 35% of the aspect ratio depicts Caesar Flickerman and his co-host Claudius Templesmith in a medium shot, engaged in a vivid preview of what the Parade might bring. The center panel is the widest and shows Snow in medium close-up, wearing an elegant three-piece suit, which is not at all grotesque nor outrageous compared to the prevailing garish Capitol fashions. The width of the image, the distance of the camera, as well as his imposing costume suggest that Snow is above everybody else, the one with true power beyond masquerade (Fig. 6.3). Even though the framing, editing, and image composition of the scene suggest

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Fig. 6.3  The Hunger Games: A split screen centering President Snow. (Screen capture)

that the Parade is presented first and foremost for President Snow, he himself is aware that the whole operation is merely a façade, vulnerable to cracks which would expose its fragility, enforcing its radical reorganization. And in the beginning of Catching Fire he indirectly admits as much to Katniss. Snow’s sophistication singles him out as an object par excellence of ‘perverse allegiance’, which is a notion coined by Murray Smith (1999) to explain why in cinema we sometimes take pleasure in evil or immoral characters such as Snow here, or Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy (1972–1990) and Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise (1977–), to name just a few examples. According to Smith, our fascination for immoral characters has to do with intellectual curiosity about extreme demeanor that for most of us is inconceivable in reality. But there is also the element of “perverse delight” in provocation “that takes as its object not only depicted actions but also what we take to be accepted and responsible moral response to these actions […] of a strict moralist” (232). Yet rather than Snow’s actions, the focus of our perverse allegiance in The Hunger Games trilogy is on his character build-up, which can be characterized as ‘attractive-bad’ (225). His character-structure is explored explicitly in Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel to her The Hunger Games trilogy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020). It tells President Snow’s backstory, focalizing the narration through Snow’s perspective, as he is torn between his political ambition and his love for Lucy Gray Braid, the female tribute from District 12 for the 10th Games. Anyhow, in the film adaptation of

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The Hunger Games trilogy, if not in the original novels, Snow is simply shown attractive, while simultaneously portrayed as a genuinely vicious, corrupt, and immoral character. This ambiguity is enhanced by the convincing charisma of actor Donald Sutherland, who portrays Snow’s character with extraordinary personal presence. Furthermore, in the cinematic narrative, Snow’s monstrosity is mostly established indirectly, such as when he expresses to Seneca Crane his disapproval of granting Katniss eleven points in training score, while tending his white roses. When he has Crane executed for allowing both Katniss and Peeta to win the Games, his inner motivation is left to the spectators’ imagination only. Their surmising is triggered by the scene in which Crane finds himself locked in a ceremonial room, containing only an ornamental glass bowl with fresh nightlock berries for him to consume. Only once throughout the trilogy, Snow is shown to lose his temper. This takes place toward the end of Catching Fire, when Katniss destroys the arena and Snow finds out about Plutarch Heavensbee’s betrayal. It is only in Mockingjay Part I and II that Snow’s immoral traits and actions are explicitly brought to the foreground. For example when he orders the makeshift hospital of District 8 to be destroyed, filled as it is with wounded civilian casualties. Another example shows Snow contemptuously toasting one of his ministers, celebrating “the end of a glorious era”, while the unsuspecting minister is choking to death after having drunk from a poisoned cup. But most of the time Snow is charming, witty, courteous, well-­ mannered, and cultured—indeed, his particularly composed manner marks him out as dignified, even when he executes his enemies or waits for the implementation of his own death sentence. It seems clear that Snow’s charm simultaneously expresses and conceals totalitarian contempt, which extends into the Panem state structure. His scent-enhanced white roses are not only symbols of corrupted innocence, but they also function as signifiers in his game of terror. After the Capitol’s hovercraft attack on District 13  in Mockingjay Part I, Katniss emerges from an underground shelter to discover that the bombed area is littered with white roses. Together with the suspenseful score, the overwhelming presence of the roses has an unnerving impact on both Katniss and the spectators, who immediately understand the intimidating significance of the roses. These roses make one think of “The Roses of Heliogabalus” in the painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1888), which depicts guests of Roman Emperor Heliogabalus being suffocated by a shower of roses for the entertainment of the Emperor and his entourage. Like in

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Alma-­Tadema’s painting, totalitarian contempt for the reality of human suffering taints the beauty of Snow’s roses completely, rendering their symbolic value of pureness and innocence into emblems of corruption and death. Totalitarian contempt is also articulated in the image composition of the Tribute Parade scene in The Hunger Games, which places Snow in the foreground of an establishing shot of the Capitol City Circle, while sovereignly addressing a cheering audience. The architecture of the Capitol reflects its totalitarian values. This is why production design of The Hunger Games was inspired both by Ancient Rome and by Neoclassic design of 1930s, notably the work of Adolf Hitler’s chief architect Albert Speer. These totalitarian values are expressed in the symmetry of the setting, in its expansive boulevards, tall columns, towering structures, triumphal arches, and massive open forums decorated by national symbols and flags. The association between Panem and Nazi Germany is therefore hard to avoid. In the context of totalitarian sovereignty such as in Nazi Germany, Hannah Arendt (1968) has written: While the totalitarian regimes are thus resolutely and cynically emptying the world of […] common sense, they impose upon it at the same time a kind of supersense [pretending] to have found the key to history or the solution to the riddles of the universe. […] The insanity of such [regimes] lies not only in their first premise, but in the very logicality with which they are constructed [which harbours] totalitarian contempt for reality and factuality. (431)

In Panem the specific upheaval that created the conditions for mass support of totalitarianism was the First Rebellion. It was followed by District 13 separating from Panem in order to secure its independence, while the other Districts descended into the final phase of the conflict known as the Dark Days. This was concluded by the Treaty of the Treason, which denied all universal human rights to the Districts’ inhabitants, but not to Capitol residents. Totalitarian supersense is what gives contempt for human rights “its cogency, logicality, and consistency” (432). When Snow in a speech, in which he refuses to call the rebels ‘rebels’, compares the functioning of Panem to a human body in Mockingjay Part I, he reveals such supersense, when de declares the Panem system superior to all other possibilities:

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Citizens, tonight I address all of Panem as one. Since the Dark Days, Panem has had an unprecedented era of peace. It is a peace built upon cooperation and a respect for law and order. In the past weeks you have heard of sporadic violence following the actions of a few radicals in the Quarter Quell. Those who choose this destructive path, your actions are based on a misunderstanding of how we have survived, together. It is a contract. Each District supplies the Capitol, like blood to a heart. In return, the Capitol provides order and security. To refuse work is to put the entire system in danger. The Capitol is the beating heart of Panem. Nothing can survive without a heart. The criminals that kneel before you use symbols for the purpose of sedition, which is why all images of The Mockingjay are now forbidden. Possessing them will be considered treason. Punishable by death. Justice shall be served swiftly. Order shall be restored. To those who ignore the warnings of history prepare to pay the ultimate price (President Snow in Mockingjay Part I).

In agreement with totalitarian logic, Snow draws the inevitable conclusion that the “unprecedented era of peace” was built upon the Capitol holding all power over the Districts, which have no say over the policies the government imposes on them. Within this kind of reasoning it is logical that due to such a “contract”, the citizens of Panem “have survived, together”. For Snow this leads to the next logical conclusion that the social organization of Panem is anchored in the reality of the human body. This simply reflects as an undeniable fact that each District should supply the Capitol, like the blood circulatory system supplies the heart. Therefore, anyone who endangers the system should be eliminated in order to prevent the supply of blood to the heart from being blocked as in a cardiac arrest. Snow’s use of the human body as a metaphor for Panem is a (failed) narrative strategy to create a supersense of belonging, which should include all citizens. Such belonging would be an imaginative, organically based engagement with the Capitol from the inside. But this model is indecent and unethical, incompatible with individual agency, human dignity, and equality, not striving toward good for all. Furthermore, it is an example of Orwellian ‘doublethink’, a process of indoctrination in which the subject is expected to accept two mutually contradictory pretexts, such as that constant suffering of the Districts would ensure ‘protection’ by the Capitol. In this discourse, which articulates power relationships in Panem through bodily metaphors, nothing else matters but consistency to the totalitarian supersense. Aired live, the impact of the discourse is enhanced by the execution of some individuals who supposedly have used the Mockingjay symbol as a political agitation device. Based on my

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interpretation of the scene, I conclude that Snow’s speech and the executions, which function as its performative counterpart, ultimately encapsulate the totalitarian masquerade. At its heart lies contempt for anyone and anything that opposes its logic, and its most spectacular performance is the institution of the Hunger Games.

Masquerade as Resistance Yet it would seem a mistake to conclude that masquerade as a strategy only enables agency within the framework of a hegemonic discourse or ‘matrix’ upheld by the ruling class, as Karl Marx would have it. Masquerade can also be understood in terms of subversion, challenging of and overt resistance to ubiquitous hegemonic frameworks. In her work Femmes Fatales Mary Ann Doane (1991) has discussed this same subject matter when she writes that masquerade holds its discursive significance at a distance, which creates critical space for the acknowledgment of its fabrication. For Doane, the feminist implications of masquerade are multiple: The fact that we can speak of a woman ‘using’ her sex or ‘using’ her body for particular gains is highly significant. […] The masquerade doubles representation: it is constituted by a hyperbolization of the accoutrements of femininity. (26)

Masquerade does not only confirm established power systems and their form of expression, but it equally threatens to deconstruct such systems. Doane gives as a specific cinematic example of masquerade the image of Marlene Dietrich. In her performance she demonstrates flaunting, hyperbolized femininity, which makes a mockery of the established conventions of womanhood: “By destabilizing the image, the masquerade confounds this masculine structure of the look”, effecting a “defamiliarization of female iconography” which carries a threat to the “male systems of viewing” by disarticulating these systems (26). I argue that Cinna’s fashion design in The Hunger Games trilogy functions as disruption of authoritarianism, while it produces and sustains forms of masquerade that support the Capitol’s power. Cinna’s designs show that just as contempt can masquerade as celebration of the individual, so can dignity be concealed with the seeming forms of compliance

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with totalitarian rules.4 This is why for the Tribute Parade of the 74th Games, he dresses Katniss (and Peeta) in outfits which simultaneously confirm and threaten Panem’s social construction as epitomized in the Games. As is the custom for the Parade, each representative should wear a costume that makes a statement about his or her District. Thus for the 74th Games, Glimmer and Marvel from District 1 (luxury) are dressed up in spectacular, magenta-colored, richly sequined garments, further adorned with feathers. Glimmer wears an immense matching headpiece, which is fanned out like a peacock’s tail. Clove and Cato from District 2 (weaponry) are dressed as elite gladiators, wearing decorative, golden armor as in a Roman pre-game parade. The male and female tributes from District 3 (technology) wear costumes that represent solar panels, reflecting light from every angle, and so forth. By contrast, the leather jumpsuit worn by Katniss is less ‘costumy’ than the outfits designed for the tributes from the other Districts, even though it is ‘in flames’. The suit still represents her District (mining), since its glossy sheen is intended to imitate the texture of anthracite, a hard, brittle, and lustrous type of coal. But the jumpsuit is also covered by ‘epidermal’ scales, like those found on birds, and features a collar and cuffs adorned with a wing design, which is an anticipatory reference to the Mockingjay that Katniss will become. The effect of her costume is hyperbolic. Not only does it win over Caesar Flickerman and the wildly cheering Capitol crowd, but also catches President Snow’s attention. It seems that he implicitly understands the potential threat that Katniss will pose to the political system of Panem, when their eyes meet and lock symbolically. This is realized by the camera moving to a close-up of Snow, and then cutting away to a shot of Katniss’ radiant face, with flames in the background that immediately draw Snow’s interest. She then catches a glimpse of her own image on the huge television screen, literally returning her own gaze as if suddenly aware of the power of masquerade, of projecting an image of strength while concealing weakness.

4  See also Christina Van Dyke ‘s (2012) discussion of The Hunger Games novels: “Again and again, the ways Cinna chooses to present Katniss help her gain a deeper understanding of her situation and her role. In making her the girl on fire, he creates not only a vision of her that the rest of Panem can latch onto, but also one in which she can find strength. Through the nuances of his presentation of her before and after the Games, he guides her to a better understanding of how to negotiate the treacherous political terrain in which she finds herself” (263).

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In Katniss and Peeta’s second Tribute Parade in Catching Fire, Cinna explicitly instructs them neither to wave nor to smile, but to look straight ahead as if the whole event was beneath them. For this Tribute Parade, Katniss wears a provocative, laser-cut black leather dress lined in gold fabric, matched by her bold and dominant make-up. Immediately after Snow acknowledges her entrance with a nod and an exultant smile, Katniss’ dress ‘catches fire’ and starts glowing like ember in a fireplace. A following shot from behind Katniss and Peeta’s chariot gives the spectators the sensation that sparks from their costumes would burst through the screen and touch them (Fig.  6.4). Meanwhile the diegetic audience sings Katniss’ name in rhythm to the sound of kettledrums, which we will hear again in the execution scene toward the end of Mockingjay Part II by the way. Therefore, this sound could be considered an aural premonition for events to come. Similar to the images from the opening of The Hunger Games, where Katniss wears a significant plain blue dress, her flaming costume can be seen as a privileged image. It functions as a condensation, embodying the film’s significance, which is also captured in its title: Catching Fire. Elsaesser (2012) writes that sometimes a major ambiguity hinges on the title of a film, initiating uncertainty rather than certainty about the film’s narrative conflict (119–120). In Catching Fire, the ambivalence is couched in the word ‘catching’, which is polysemantic as it can have various meanings. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the verb as ‘to capture’ or ‘to seize’ especially after pursuit, but also as ‘to avail oneself of’, or ‘to become affected to the point of being imbued with enthusiasm’. Thus, the title

Fig. 6.4  Catching Fire: Katniss and Peeta’s costumes catching fire. (Screen capture)

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plays with Snow’s obsession to ‘catch’ Katniss’ fire before it truly becomes ignited, increasing in scope and effectiveness, as well as ‘catching’ others in its wake in the spirit of revolution. The most spectacular item of masquerade in all of The Hunger Games trilogy must be the wedding gown for Katniss and Peeta’s strategically planned matrimony. President Snow forces Katniss to wear it for her interview with Caesar Flickerman, because the staged wedding never could take place due to the third Quarter Quell, when the tributes are reaped from the existing pool of victors, “as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol”. The design for this costume wedding gown is by avant-garde fashion designer Ted Saverio, who took his inspiration from the idea of an ice cube being at once fragile and strong, just like Katniss (Egan 2012, 124). Similar to the costume for the Tribute Parade chariot ride, the layered crystal organza gown is laser cut to imitate peacock feathers, as if to give the gown a decadent ‘Capitol feel’, complete with a silver metal cage bodice that rises up like flames. As an item of masquerade, the gown is intended to express Katniss’ allegiance to the Capitol, forcing her to continue performing her role as the Capitol’s romantic sweetheart. But as Katniss twirls, this gown too ‘catches fire’, and she rises from the ashes in a shimmering mockingjay dress, triumphantly spreading the amazing, full-fledged wings attached to her arms (Fig. 6.5).5 This scene with the wedding gown transforming into a mockingjay costume could be interpreted through Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s (1987) notion of ‘becoming-animal’, a form of ‘becoming-minoritarian’. The notion is an important element in what they term ‘micropolitics’— politics of ‘desire’ that are distant from the politics of ‘identity’: There is an entire politics of becomings-animal, as well as a politics of sorcery, which is elaborated in assemblages that are neither those of the family, nor of religion, nor of the State. Instead, they express minoritarian groups, or groups that are oppressed, prohibited, in revolt, or always on the fringe of recognized institutions, groups all the more secret for being extrinsic, in other words, anomic. (247) 5  According to Deidre Byrne (2015), the wedding gown/mockingjay dress embodies three meanings. First, it dresses Katniss as a hybrid, simultaneously conforming and rebelling against the Capitol’s agenda. Second, it foretells Katniss’ role as the Mockingjay in the uprising, the symbolic rallying figure. Finally, it signs Cinna’s death warrant by disclosing his role in the resistance (58).

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Fig. 6.5  Catching Fire: The mockingjay dress. (Screen capture)

The transformation of Katniss’ wedding gown into a mockingjay dress is a moment of the rhizomatic, productive potentiality of becoming-­ animal, which “functions as a deterritorializing agency that dislodges the subject from his/her sense of unified and consolidated identity” (Braidotti 2011, 31). The mockingjay dress functions as a forceful reclaiming of dignity that sustains deterritorialized (inter)subjectivity instead of fixed subjectivity, within an established territory. This means that as soon as the mockingjay dress rises from the ashes of the wedding gown, Katniss no longer belongs to herself, but to a multiplicity of relations with the (minoritarian) others, whether she wants this or not. The mockingjay becomes a running theme in the costumes designed for Katniss in the rest of the trilogy. In Mockingjay Part I and II an image of her as “the best-­ dressed rebel in history” is constructed by means of fashion design for a mockingjay battle outfit, which Cinna finished before he died. The design for this outfit was inspired by the armor collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as by historical depictions of Joan of Arc. It features an asymmetrical breast plate based on the gear worn by kuydokas, practitioners of the Japanese art of archery Kyudo. The shoulder pieces of the armor are shaped like wings in reference to a mockingjay, with a knifelike quality to the wings’ feathers. The outfit is completed with a three-finger shooting glove, which refers to the three-finger salute, meanwhile the symbol of the revolution (Begley 2015). The mockingjay battle outfit functions as a shield, which not only protects Katniss physically from the bullets shot at her by a Capitol loyalist, but also psychologically. It enables

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her to act out the public identity of the Mockingjay, which does not necessarily correspond to her private sense of self.6 This is why the function of the mockingjay suit is as ambiguous as Katniss’ character is.7 On the one hand, it embodies the social standards of dignity from an anti-totalitarian point of view, as it functions as an instrument of the revolution. On the other hand, as a masquerade, it enables Katniss to exercise her individual agency as a morally dignified subject, which nevertheless proves to be in conflict with the aims of the revolution. This is why by assassinating Coin at the end of Mockingjay Part II, Katniss loses her social dignity. Her actions contravene the standards recognized by the rebels, which leads to her exile from the Capitol to District 12. She maintains her individual dignity though, even though ethically damaged, which is only recognized by a few individuals: Plutarch Heavensbee, Haymitch Abernathy, and Peeta Mallark of course. Even though the killing of Coin is not an act of accomplishing goodness, it is a deed of resisting evil, unpolluted by self-interest, by which Katniss manifests both moral self-esteem and active agency (Taylor 2015). It is an extreme case of political disobedience, informed by emotions that express Katniss’ ethical integrity in contrast to customary morality (Rorty 1998). Therefore, it feels as if the epilogue to The Hunger Games trilogy with Katniss, wearing a floral dress, peacefully sitting in a sunny field with a baby in her arms, falls prey to a happy ending syndrome. No longer the Mockingjay—the role she abhorred—but also no longer a huntress either, a narrator, a woman of action, a combatant of injustice. This epilogue seems to suggest the emergence of Katniss’ motherly self as her fundamental identity, after all the layers of masquerade are stripped off. 6  In the novel, Katniss describes the situation as follows: “First there were the Gamemakers, making me their star and then scrambling to recover from that handful of poisonous berries. Then President Snow, trying to use me put out the flames of rebellion, only to have my every move become inflammatory. Next, the rebels ensnaring me in the metal claw that lifted me from the arena, designating me to be their Mockingjay, and then having to recover from the shock that I might not want the wings. And now Coin, with her fistful of precious nukes and her well-oiled machine of a district, finding it’s even harder to groom a Mockingjay than to catch one” (Collins 2011b, 66). 7  Another element of ambiguity has to do with the fact that Katniss does not participate in the selection of her clothes as a tribute, victor, or the Mockingjay, as Kathryn Strong Hansen (2015) points out in her reading of The Hunger Games novels: “In helping to elevate Katniss to the level of political symbol, dress becomes a weapon against the Capitol, but her lack of participation in the selection of her clothes compromises Katniss’s power throughout the trilogy” (167).

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Makins, Marian W. 2015. Refiguring the Roman Empire in The Hunger Games Trilogy. In Classical Traditions in Science Fiction, ed. Brett M.  Rogers and Benjamin Eldon Stevens, 280–306. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McAvan, Emily. 2017. ‘May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favour’: The Sacrificial Logic of The Hunger Games. Books and Culture 13 (2): 49–62. Murphy, Jeffrie G., and Jean Hampton. 1988. Forgiveness and Mercy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2016. Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Orwell, George. 2001/1949. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New  York: Harper Perennial Classics. Plantinga, Carl. 2006. Disgusted at the Movies. Film Studies 8 (3): 81–92. Probyn, Elspeth. 2000. Carnal Appetites: Food Sex Identities. London: Routledge. Riviere, Joan. 2000. Womanliness as a Masquerade. In Gender, ed. Anna Tripp, 130–138. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Rorty, Amélie O. 1998. Political Sources of Emotion. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 12: 21–33. Rozin, Paul, Jonathan Haidt, and Clark R. McCauley. 2000. Disgust. In Handbook of Emotions, ed. Michael Lewis, Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones, and Lisa Feldman Barrett, 637–653. New York: Guilford Press. de Silva, M.W. Padmasiri. 2017. Emotions and the Body in Buddhist Contemplative Practice and Mindfulness-based Therapy: Pathways of Somatic Intelligence. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Smith, Murray. 1999. Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, or Apparently Perverse Allegiances. In Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion, ed. Carl Plantinga and Greg M.  Smith, 217–238. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Solomon, Robert C. 2007. True to Our Feelings: What Our Emotions Are Really Telling Us. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taylor, Jacqueline. 2015. Moral Sentiment and the Source of Moral Identity. In Morality & The Emotions, ed. Carla Bagnoli, 257–274. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, Cynthia L. 1988. Hairstyles, Head-coverings, and St. Paul: Portraits from Roman Corinth. The Biblical Archaeologist 51 (2): 99–115. Williams, Britni Marie. 2015. A Creature the Capitol Never Intended to Exist: Katniss Everdeen, Muttations, and the Mockingjay as Cyborgs in The Hunger Games Trilogy. MA Thesis, University of Akron. Woodward, Kathleen. 1988–1989. Youthfulness as a Masquerade. Discourse 11 (1): 119–142.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

This book hopes to have shown that even a popular, young adult film franchise such as The Hunger Games can be a rich and sophisticated source for experiencing the emotional part of ethical engagement with morally complex cinematic events. While there is a number of notable works, which investigate emotions and ethics in popular cinema—such as Stanley Cavell’s Pursuits of Happiness (1981), Noël Carroll’s A Philosophy of Mass Art (1998), Joseph Kupfer’s Visions of Virtue in Popular Film (1999), and Carl Plantinga’s Screen Stories (2018)—it would seem that many previous studies of cinematic ethics have either marginalized emotions or focused principally on highbrow auteur cinema. This book has aimed to demonstrate that the ethical insights in The Hunger Games films lie beyond reflective interpretation that emphasizes their allegorical meaning, which is a message about actual economic and social conditions outside fiction. By contrast, the film-philosophical value of The Hunger Games films is grounded on the cinematic qualities themselves, which prompt affective experience in a way that encourages moral reflection. This renders The Hunger Games trilogy one of the most relevant contemporary dystopias insofar as it advances our understanding of the role of emotions in ethical thought. The trilogy draws attention to the use of violence as a spectacular narrative element by immersing the spectator affectively in its cinematic world. While the films consistently place the spectators in a position of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Laine, Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games, Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67334-5_7

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close proximity with the suffering of the tributes, crosscutting to a distanced viewpoint regularly draws them in the opposite direction, to the position of onlookers. For instance, in the Reaping scene of The Hunger Games the camera moves along the path of attention with the potential tributes, while the sound of marching feet envelops the spectator acoustically in the filmic event. This proximity breaches the safe distance between the film and the spectators, marking them out as bearers of affect in relation to what they witness. But almost simultaneously, the very first scene in The Hunger Games has already aligned the spectators with the diegetic audience. These are entertained by Caesar Flickerman interviewing Seneca Crane about his signature style of inflicting suffering and pain on the tributes. Such sequences in The Hunger Games trilogy are among the most ethically challenging in dystopian cinema. The Cornucopia bloodbath scene for instance provides an important illustration for this. While the immersive use of image and sound engulfs the spectator in the affective intensity of the scene, the constant crosscutting to Flickerman’s live commentary, framed as if on a television screen, does not allow us to forget that we are spectators too. The Hunger Games trilogy produces complex forms of spectatorship, which are simultaneously participatory and ocular-­ specular. They are conditioned by (pan)optical, distanced access to the spectacle. The aesthetic organization of the trilogy positions us both among the tributes and among the audience, demonstrating an insightful use of cinematic form. This in turn enhances its exploration of an ethical conundrum. Furthermore, this book hopes to have shown how emotions can contribute powerfully to the ethical significance of film, and that these are more complex than affective responses based on sympathy and empathy for the protagonists. The phenomenology of emotion—including its organizational logic, affective intentionality, and emotional energy—is shared by both cinema and spectator. There are human affective modes which can be mimicked in cinematic form, by means of camera framing and movement, dynamic editing, as well as the resonance effect of sound and music. In addition, distinctive emotions have different properties of valence (pleasant/unpleasant), energy (alert/weary), tension (intense/mild), and logic (internal/external). All these necessitate inquiry into both the affective quality of a film and the experienced emotional reaction to the film. For instance, the affective intentionality of anger, consisting of an intense, violent, and heated outburst of emotion, is conveyed in the scene in which Katniss’ arrow flies into the force field of the Quarter Quell game arena in

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Catching Fire. Kinetic energy of the scene moves us on a visceral level while we are engulfed in the midst of the arena’s destruction. In the scene with the reproachfully screaming Jabberjays, acoustically choking their prey as it were, embodies the suffocating sensation one feels after being hit by a bang of guilt. The spectators can feel this affect as the unbreakable, invisible shield encloses the Jabberjays’ victims within their own emotion, unable to break through. This book has discussed emotions expressed in and through cinematic aesthetics, having run the gamut from fear through guilt and shame, to love, anger, and contempt. All these complex emotions saturate the narrative progression of The Hunger Games trilogy throughout, rendering the trilogy a remarkably complex affective event in its emotional orientation. Most importantly, the central argument of the book has highlighted the significance of emotions as a source of ethical knowledge, demonstrating that the philosophical relevance of The Hunger Games trilogy is based on the incorporation of emotional ethics in its aesthetic organization. The spectator’s experience of emotional ethics in the trilogy is therefore more immediate, in contrast to the indirect, moral allegiance with film characters. Such allegiance is based on an evaluation to what extent the characters represent morally desirable or preferable personalities, triggering a sympathetic attitude toward them (Smith 1995, 188). Rather, as we have seen, the very operational logic of emotions can introduce an ethical conflict within the cinematic event. For instance, in the opening of Mockingjay Part I we find ourselves in a narrow passageway of District 13 with Katniss, tucked away as darkness closes in. The affective quality of the scene enables us to grasp the significance of this opening as expressing her survivor guilt, even before we can process this idea on the narrative level. Furthermore, this opening shows that our emotions do not merely register affects embodied in a film scene, but that they actively participate in the creation of the ethical significance of a scene. We understand immediately that the only way out of this metaphorical tunnel will be ethical action and the sense of responsibility toward others, which is thereafter established as the main narrative theme of the film. In Mockingjay Part II we sense a change in affective orientation as the cheerful, diegetic folk music played at Finnick and Annie’s wedding is submerged by a non-diegetic, gloomy ambient sound while we witness Katniss and Prim in a swirl of dance. This signifies the ethical predicament in the conflict between Katniss’ concern for her sister and her concern for the revolution. One might interpret the scene as embodying a conflict between Katniss’ inner (self-directed) and outer

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(other-directed) circle of concern, which is epitomized in the circular camera movement gyrating around the sisters in close embrace. In the scene that follows, Katniss after having sneaked out of District 13 for her private assassination mission is indeed enclosed in a new circle, this time formed by the rebels in the outskirts of the Capitol, greeting her with the three-­ finger salute, while the camera imitates the circular movement from the previous scene. The affect which is epitomized here, is the sense of loss accompanying the ethic of self-sacrifice, as Katniss extends her circle of concern to everyone in Panem. Such expression of both emotion and its moral significance through cinematic aesthetics renders The Hunger Games a remarkable example of emotional ethics, elevating it from mere young adult fiction into a triumphant celebration of cinema’s affective power.

References Carroll, Noël. 1998. A Philosophy of Mass Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cavell, Stanley. 1981. Pursuits of Happiness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kupfer, Joseph. 1999. Visions of Virtue in Popular Film. Boulder: Westview Press. Plantinga, Carl. 2018. Screen Stories: Emotion and the Ethics of Engagement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, Murray. 1995. Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema. Oxford: Clarendon Press.



Appendix A: The Hunger Games Filmography

The Hunger Games (2012) Directed by: Gary Ross Written by: Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, Billy Ray Produced by: Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik Director of photography: Tom Stern Production design: Philip Messina Edited by: Stephen Mirrione, Juliette Welfling Original score by: James Newton Howard Main cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland Country: United States Language: English

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) Directed by: Francis Lawrence Written by: Simon Beaufoy, Michael deBruyn Produced by: Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik Director of photography: Jo Willems Production design: Philip Messina © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Laine, Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games, Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67334-5

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Edited by: Alan Edward Bell Original score by: James Newton Howard Main cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright Country: United States Language: English

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I (2014) Directed by: Francis Lawrence Written by: Danny Strong, Peter Craig Produced by: Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik Director of photography: Jo Willems Production design: Philip Messina Edited by: Alan Edward Bell, Mark Toshikawa Original score by: James Newton Howard Main cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Julianne Moore Country: United States Language: English

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II (2015) Directed by: Francis Lawrence Written by: Danny Strong, Peter Craig Produced by: Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik Director of photography: Jo Willems Production design: Philip Messina Edited by: Alan Edward Bell, Mark Toshikawa Original score by: James Newton Howard Main cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Julianne Moore Country: United States Language: English



Appendix B: Overview of the Analysis

Chapter 1: Introduction Spectacular, spectacular

The World of The Hunger Games But is it (film) philosophy?

Opening (THG) President Snow Finale/Cato’s death (THG) The suicide pact (THG) Cornucopia bloodbath (THG)

Victory Tour (CF)

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Chapter 2: Between Fear and Hope The politics of fear

Fear for oneself

Video game aesthetics

Fear for the other

Technologies From fear of fear to hope

The Cornucopia Cornucopia Cornucopia Public destruction bloodbath bloodbath bloodbath executions of game (M1) (THG) (THG) (CF) arena (CF) The attack on District 13 (M1)

Forest fire (THG)

Tracker jackers (THG)

Career Tributes’ camp (THG) Katniss’ Cornucopia rescue (CF) feast (THG)

Peeta’s TV broadcasts (M1) Peeta attacks Katniss (M1)

Practices of hacking

The reaping (THG)

(Virtual) attack on the Capitol (M1) Mockingjay Hanging Part I tree teasers propo (M1) District 12 Ending propos (M2) (M1)

Chapter 3: Anger and Generosity The ethics of anger

Road of payback/ status

Noble anger

The trolley problem

Reinventing Panem

Johanna Mason

Individual assessment (THG) Anger between Katniss and Gale (CF, M2) Suicide pact (THG)

Katniss destroys game arena (CF) Katniss visits District 8 (M1)

Roundtable (M2) Katniss kills Coin (M2)

Loyalists of District 2 (M2) Rue’s funeral (THG)

Katniss ‘hangs’ Crane (CF)

Rebellion in District 7 (M1)

Roundtable/killing of Coin (M2) Katniss’ exile (M2)

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Chapter 4: The Many Forms of Love A romantic spectacle

Performing lucid love

Love as imprisonment

Love, naturally

From true Love as to authentic resistance love

Mockingjay Part II trailer

Katniss and Peeta’s cave (THG) Suicide pact (THG)

Snow visits Katniss (CF)

Nature as backdrop for true love (THG, CF)

“Always” (CF, M1, M2) “Real or not real” (M2)

Peeta’s TV interviews (THG, CF)

Victory Tour (CF) Presidential party (CF)

Peeta’s warning (M1) Epilogue (M2)

Chapter 5: Survivor Shame and Guilt Shame and guilt: The important difference

The spectatorial logic of shame

The identificatory Traumatic guilt logic of guilt

Toward ethical action

Rue’s funeral (THG) Jabberjays’ attack (CF)

The reaping (THG) Flashbacks with bread (THG) Remake center (THG) Presidential party (THG)

The reaping (THG) Tracker jackers (THG)

Hallucination of Marvel (CF) Victory Tour in District 11 (CF)

Confession/ absolution (M2) The ruins of District 12 (M1)

The deaths of Rue and Marvel (THG)

The contraband scene (CF) Cinna’s death (CF) Mags’ death (CF) The pool of tar (M2) Lizard mutts (M2)

Makeshift hospital in District 8 (M1)

Opening (M1)

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Appendix B: Overview of the Analysis

Chapter 6: Dynamics of Contempt and Dignity Contempt versus dignity

Contempt and its cousins

Totalitarian contempt

Totalitarian masquerade

Masquerade as resistance

Snow/Coin address Panem (M2)

Remake center (THG)

Opening (THG)

Capitol fashions (THG, CF, M2)

Tribute Parade (THG)

Training sessions (THG) Gale’s betrayal (M2)

The Tribute Train (THG) Presidential party (CF)

Tribute Parade (THG) President Snow (THG, CF, M1, M2)

Tribute Parade (CF) The wedding gown/ Mockingjay dress (CF) Mockingjay battle outfit (M1, M2)

Private training sessions (THG, CF) Snow imprisoned (M2) Roundtable (M2)

Snow’s roses (M1) Snow’s address/ public executions (M1)

Epilogue (M2)

Index1

A Abjection, 123, 126, 128–130, 141, 142 Act of Killing, The, 119, 120 Ahmed, Sara, 18, 35, 39, 60, 125, 128, 141 Alien, 141, 142 Alien3, 77 Anger, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 60, 65–82, 84, 85, 88, 89n4, 161 Arendt, Hannah, 2, 54, 153, 172 B Battle Royale, 9 Biopower, 3, 3n1, 52, 55, 113, 129, 155 Birds, The, 122, 123 C Caché, 119, 120

Compassion, 69, 86–88 Contempt, 17, 21, 24, 26, 73, 131, 151–154, 154n1, 156–161, 157n2, 163, 165–167, 169, 171, 172, 174 self-contempt, 159 totalitarian contempt, 153, 161, 163, 171, 172 D Debord, Guy, 5, 103, 163 Dignity, 24, 26, 67–69, 72–74, 76, 131, 152–154, 158, 159, 161, 167, 173, 174, 178, 179 Disgust, 128, 129, 131, 141, 152, 154–157, 161 moral disgust, 155, 156 Dystopia, 1–4, 7–9, 26, 27, 56, 93, 106, 107, 110, 131, 132, 152

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

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INDEX

E Elsaesser, Thomas, 6, 10, 48, 126, 145, 163, 176 Emotion, 1, 6n3, 7n4, 8–11, 14–26, 22n20, 28, 35–39, 41, 43, 45–49, 51, 52, 56, 59, 66, 67, 69, 70, 72, 72n1, 75, 80–84, 87, 87n3, 89, 95–98, 101–104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112–115, 119–121, 123–125, 127, 131–135, 137–139, 146, 151–153, 155–161, 163, 166, 179 Empathy, 10, 11, 79 Entertainment, 2, 5, 6, 43, 54, 85, 109, 131, 167 Ethics, 1, 7n4, 8–26, 10n6, 21n19, 22n20, 28, 36, 37, 49–52, 56, 58, 61, 66, 67, 69–71, 73–75, 79–81, 82n2, 83–89, 86–87n3, 98, 101, 102, 107, 108, 110, 114, 115, 119, 120, 122, 124, 128, 131–133, 136, 138, 140, 142, 143, 146, 152, 153, 156, 160, 161, 170, 179 F Fahrenheit 451, 56 Fashion, 19, 26, 105, 129, 153–155, 166–169, 174–179 Fear, 6n3, 17, 17n16, 18, 24, 35–46, 48–53, 56, 59, 60, 82, 97, 109, 111, 112, 132, 154, 162 claustrophobia, 39–41, 124, 134, 139, 141, 145 fear for oneself, 36, 37, 49, 50, 52 fear for the other, 36, 49–52, 127, 132 fearmongering, 38, 53–55, 59 technology of fear, 36, 52, 54, 55 Feminism, 14, 15, 97, 99, 103, 115, 167, 174 Film-philosophy, 9, 18–20, 19n17, 28, 80, 163

Food, Inc., 155 Foucault, Michel, 3, 4, 4n2, 52, 54, 58, 60, 97, 129 G Gender, 8, 15, 94, 99, 103, 114, 126, 167, 174, 179 Generosity, 24, 67, 79, 87, 88, 133 Godfather, 170 Grief, 69, 71, 72, 74, 96, 98, 109, 121, 134, 144 Guilt, 11, 17, 21, 24–26, 99, 119–146, 159 survivor guilt, 26, 124, 133, 135, 136, 139–142, 144, 145 H Hacking, 56, 58–60, 112, 151 Handmaid’s Tale, The, 8 Hatred, 51, 152, 159–161 Hope, 9, 24, 38, 48, 56, 59, 60, 79, 82, 87 Humiliation, 14, 68, 69, 74, 75, 87, 132, 158 I Identification, 14–16, 17n14, 36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 47–49, 70, 79, 108n2, 120, 121 Immersion, 6, 7, 14, 17n14, 18, 24, 36, 38, 41–44, 48–50, 123, 138, 140, 144 Individualism, 2, 9, 15, 26, 60, 79, 82, 100, 152, 153, 174, 179 L Levinas, Emmanuel, 36, 37, 50, 52, 94, 146 Leys, Ruth, 121–123, 125, 134–136, 140

 INDEX 

Little House on the Prairie, 114 Look of Silence, The, 120 Love, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 36, 73, 89, 93–115, 132, 159, 160 authentic love, 25, 97, 110–115 ludic love, 95, 100, 104 romance, 94–96, 98–100, 102, 103, 105–107, 109, 110, 113, 115 sisterly love, 25, 93, 94 theatrical love, 25, 94–96, 100, 102–105, 114 M Masquerade, 4, 26, 51, 153, 167, 169, 174–179 Matrix, The, 77 Mépris, Le, 154, 154n1 Minority Report, 86 N Nazi aesthetics, 53–55, 172 Nineteen Eighty-Four, 8, 54, 164 Nussbaum, Martha, 22, 24, 66–72, 74, 75, 79, 81–87, 89, 125, 131, 158 O Orwell, George, 4 P Panopticism, 4, 54, 55, 58–61, 93, 106, 130, 131, 140, 141 Performativity, 20, 78, 94, 96–101, 103, 104, 111, 122, 152, 165, 167, 169, 174, 177, 179 Pi, 41

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R Requiem for a Dream, 41 Resentment, 21, 152, 158–161 self-resentment, 159 Resistance, 13n11, 15, 24–26, 27n23, 37, 38, 56–61, 77–79, 84–86, 94, 97–99, 101, 113, 115, 122, 124, 130, 132, 137–139, 146, 151–154, 160, 161, 164, 165, 172, 174, 177–179, 177n5 Romeo and Juliet, 96, 100 S Sartre, Jean-Paul, 13, 125, 127 Saving Private Ryan, 45 Shame, 17, 21, 24–26, 119–146, 152, 159 Shining, The, 141, 168 Shoah, 57 Silverlake Life: The View from Here, 108 Smith, Murray, 15, 16, 70, 87, 120, 170 Sobchack, Vivian, 46, 49, 108 Solidarity, 78, 82, 85, 138, 146 Solomon, Robert, 22, 35, 36, 39, 41, 49, 65, 81, 114, 156, 159 Sontag, Susan, 5, 8, 57 Sousa, Ronald de, 94, 95 Spartacus, 11 Spectacle, 2, 4–6, 9, 20, 26, 42, 57, 78, 103–106, 130, 153, 154, 165, 174, 175, 177 Spectatorship, 6, 8, 10, 11, 14–18, 17n14, 24, 25, 36, 39, 42, 43, 45–48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 57, 70, 71, 79, 80, 84, 89, 108, 109, 115, 119, 120, 154, 171, 176 Star Wars, 170 Stigma, 125–127, 129, 131 Strangers on a Train, 119

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INDEX

Suicide, 16, 20, 73, 74, 88, 100–102, 101n1 Surveillance, 4, 52, 54, 55, 61, 69, 76, 78, 85, 97, 99, 121, 131, 138 Sutherland, Donald, 13, 171 Sympathy, 10, 11, 15, 38, 43, 47, 49, 70 perverse allegiance, 87, 170, 171 Synaesthesia, 44, 119, 123, 124, 128 T Televisuality, 2, 4, 5, 9, 50, 55, 95, 103, 105, 151, 167, 173, 175 Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 145 Totalitarianism, 2, 4, 9, 9n5, 11, 13n11, 16, 20, 24,

26, 37, 38, 52–55, 59, 70, 83, 86, 96, 103, 106, 107, 129, 153, 160, 161, 163, 164, 166, 169, 171–175, 179 Trauma, 26, 45, 49, 67, 72n1, 111–113, 123, 124, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140–146 Trolley problem, 79, 80, 82–84 Truman Show, The, 8 V Videogames, 5, 24, 36, 42–48 Visitor Q, 155 Voyeurism, 5, 108