by Christopher Barr
“State propaganda, when
supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it,
can have a big effect. It was a lesson
learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.”
- Noam Chomsky
“There is no avoiding
war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli
There are minor spoilers
The Hunger Games:
Mockingjay – Part 1 is a film about the ongoing conflict between The Capital, which
represent the haves and the subterranean District 13, along with the other
districts that represent the have-nots, the oppressed. At the center is Katniss Everdeen who is the Mockingjay,
a Joan of Arc figure that is seen by
the various districts as hope for freedom from the totalitarian hold the
Capital sways over them.

“All over the place,
from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure
to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is
to ratify decisions and to consume.”
- Noam Chomsky
There are no
Games this time around; Katniss is
forced to grow up even more as she sees the impact her symbolic Mockingjay has
done in a real world environment, as opposed to the control of The Hunger Games arena. President Snow of the Capital is clearly responsible
for the ongoing war but Katniss never the less feels survivors guilt as she
stands over so many dead bodies. Unlike
Nolan’s Interstellar, Mockingjay took the time to show its
main character and thus its audience what’s at stake. Where Interstellar
was too quick to get us in space, Mockingjay
saw Katniss flown to her District 12 where she alone, walks around the searing rubble
and happens upon an almost field of burnt to the bone corpses. Knowledge of this wasn’t enough, seeing it is
how one persuades the mind that it is real.
Katniss needed this exposure to reality in order to feel what she will
be fighting for.


“The media’s the most
powerful entity on earth. They have the
power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilt innocent, and that’s
power. Because they control the minds of
the masses.”
- Malcolm X

The real
fight is yet to come in Mockingjay Part –
2 where we’ll see the actual civil war underway. With Peeta not doing so well and the District
13 military still recovering from a massive attack by the Capital, it will be
interesting to see Katniss become the Mockingjay we always knew could be.
“I am not afraid of an
army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
- Alexander the Great
“I know not with what
weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks
and stones.” - Albert Einstein
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