Reality Television In The Hunger Games By Suzanne Collins

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Entertainment can come and be enjoyed in many different forms. Television shows and movies are some of the different forms of entertainment can be in. The lives of famous actors from shows or movies are constantly scrutinized on and off screen. Within the world of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins a version of reality entertainment is the televised murder of innocent children. Those who are chosen to be within the Hunger Games become a scrutinized celebrity. Katniss and other tributes that are forced to fight and kill show how human identity can become lost as they become objectified for the people of Panem. The Hunger Games helps represent the harm that reality television can have by using the glorification of death with the objectification …show more content…

The Hunger Games do not provide a realistic glimpse into the lives of the tributes. The Capitol takes great pride with appearances and fashion, and this is reflected through the tributes. Every year the tributes are groomed and pampered by the Capitol’s chosen stylists for the Games in order for the tributes to be admired by the people of Panem before entering the arena. Katniss acknowledges this when she says, “What do these people do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to row in and die for entertainment” (Collins, Hunger 65). The Games show a glamorized type of reality in order to entertain Panem. The tributes cannot win on strength and brutality alone; they must win the hearts of sponsors and citizens of the Capitol. The tributes transform in to celebrities to win the hearts of citizens before being killed on live television. Mary Matos in her article “Media in the Hunger Games”, she states that throughout the Hunger Games trilogy Katniss alternates between that awareness, understanding, and manipulation of the media (Matos 4). While Katniss is alternating between all of these she will never out of the media itself. Being a tribute she will always be juggling herself between these three

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