The Panem Companion

by V. Arrow

  Although it could be argued that the “love triangle” is both an allegory and a true narrative love triangle, that is still not quite true. For the story to have been a real love triangle, Katniss would need to be in love with both Peeta and Gale, or at least romantically or sexually involved with both men. She isn’t. Katniss feels a sense of duty towards both men; she seems to view possible romantic entanglement with both or either not as exciting or desirable but instead as a reciprocal obligation (if they love her and provide her with help, she must love them and provide them with help). There’s no real evidence that she feels romantically inclined towards both (or either) man with any constancy, at least until after the rebellion has ended.

  After all, one of Katniss’ most-quoted (and most kickass) lines in the series is, “I really can’t think about kissing when I’ve got a rebellion to incite”!

  Gender Roles and Reversals

  The place we must look instead, in examining sex and gender in Panem, is at the way the series’ characters themselves utilize and are affected by sex and gender.

  Before we really get into gender roles and gendered expectations in Panem, though, I do want to stop and clarify: as far as any analysis of the text shows, Suzanne Collins wrote Panem as confined within the same limiting gender binary we see in our world. When I say “female,” I mean “cisgender and self-identifying (or identified by Katniss as) female/feminine,” and when I say “male,” I mean “cisgender and self-identifying (or identified by Katniss as) male/masculine.”2 This is in no way intended to discount or discourage any reader experience or interaction with the text in terms of identification with (or of) characters of nonbinary gender role placement.

  It seems, in many ways, like women and men alike serve in roles of power in the Hunger Games trilogy. Coin is equally revered, in her role as leader of District 13, as Snow is as president of the Capitol; Clove is as fierce a fighter as Cato, and none of the sponsors or other tributes appear to view her as lesser (or less deadly) because of her sex.

  Perhaps Panem, for all its dystopian horror, is one of those typical sci-fi futureverses where gender discrimination has been overthrown!

  Or not.

  Although neither sex appears to claim preferential treatment over the other, there are definitely stereotypes and prejudices still in play—and unfortunately, perhaps in part because she is our point of view character, we see those exhibited the most by Katniss herself. (This is true at the outset of the story, at least; a part of her personal narrative journey is overcoming them!)

  I’ve been right not to cry. The station is swarming with reporters with their insectlike cameras trained directly on my face. But I’ve had a lot of practice at wiping my face clean of emotions and I do this now. I catch a glimpse of myself on the television screen on the wall that’s airing my arrival live and feel gratified that I appear almost bored.

  Peeta Mellark, on the other hand, has obviously been crying and interestingly enough does not seem to be trying to cover it up. I immediately wonder if this will be his strategy in the Games. To appear weak.THG41

  We could theorize that, given how far in the future the trilogy takes place, gender roles themselves have flipped—that Katniss’ attitude (strength shown in a lack of emotionality) would be emblematic of a Panem female, and her view of Peeta (emotional, manipulative, and weak) typical of a Panem male. In this scene, Katniss is female but aligns herself with both behaviors and a mindset that is closer to what we would call “masculine,” and disparages a character who she views as showing behaviors that we would call more “feminine.” So it’s tempting to interpret Panem’s views on sex and gender based on Katniss’ very biased narration—to say, “Katniss is strong, and Peeta is weak. Therefore, in Panem girls are strong, and boys are weak. Wow, Panem is so evolved!” The number of female heads-of-household in Panem—Mrs. Everdeen (or Katniss), Mrs. Hawthorne, Greasy Sae—and women in positions of power—Mags as mentor, Commander Paylor in District 8, President Coin in District 13—would support this idea. But if Panem is examined as a complete society, it’s clear that there are as many, if not more, cultural expectations imposed on individuals due to their sex and gender in Panem as there are in the world we live in.

  Gender is a construct not created within the individual but by society. Katniss’ personality and views reflect just a small part of the society she lives in. In fact, she seems designed, as a character, to be diametrically opposed to Panem society, given her responsibility in sparking and bringing about the rebellion. Because how is “society” better exemplified in Panem than through the Hunger Games themselves, from the interviews to the Games strategies of different tributes?

  When Katniss volunteers herself into the Games, she takes extraordinary pains not to present herself as emotional, equating the display of sadness with the appearance of weakness. It could be argued that, as a hunter, Katniss understands the importance of maintaining a façade of calm in the face of fear, but she doesn’t phrase her aversion to projection in terms of hunting: she treats tears as if they would be a source of shame.

  “Prim, let go,” I say harshly, because this is upsetting me and I don’t want to cry. When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I’ll be marked as an easy target. A weakling. I will give no one that satisfaction.THG23

  And:

  Crying is not an option. There will be more cameras at the train station.THG34

  When she reaches the Capitol, one of the primary functions of the prep team, Cinna, Effie, and Haymitch’s coaching, and Caesar’s guidance through her interview is to remake Katniss into the Capitol’s ideal image of femininity: she giggles, she twirls, she wears sequins and has flames painted onto her manicured fingernails. She needs to seem likeable—and likeable, for a girl in Panem, is apparently appearing softer and more personable than Katniss is naturally. (The same is true for Glimmer, whom Katniss immediately pegs on sight as marketing herself to be “sexy” and who will be a sponsor-favorite tribute.) Katniss’ training score of eleven (the highest score) is as seductive a selling point with sponsors as it is because it is a counterpoint to her ability to fit succinctly into the female gender role that Capitol sponsors favor. Although Katniss is not privy to the entirety of Peeta’s strategizing with Haymitch, she does understand, at a primal level, the importance of being seen as District 12’s female tribute, despite seeing Peeta as constitutionally weaker than she is. “And there I am, blushing and confused, made . . . desirable by Peeta’s confession . . . and by all accounts, unforgettable.”THG49

  Coloring Katniss’ understanding of how femininity and masculinity play in the Hunger Games is her memory of Johanna:

  I immediately wonder if this will be his strategy in the Games. To appear weak and frightened, to reassure the other tributes that he is no competition at all . . . this worked very well for a girl, Johanna Mason, from District 7 a few years back . . . [N]o one bothered about her until there were only a handful of contestants left. It turned out she could kill viciously.THG41

  The main area of discussion on the internet and in academia about gender roles in the Hunger Games is the subversion within the Katniss/Peeta pairing. Katniss and Peeta are, essentially, each playing the gender role that would usually be assumed by the other in Western culture. Katniss is the sole provider for her family; she hunts, she fishes, she’s terrible with emotions. She—frankly—has a very negative view of women (such as Mrs. Mellark, her mother, Venia, and Octavia, especially at the outset of the trilogy; it improves somewhat as the books continue). Peeta bakes, nurtures Haymitch (by cleaning him up after his drinking binge on the train), nurses a lifelong schoolyard infatuation, and is emotionally self-aware. Perhaps most radically, Peeta Mellark is a man who navigates his world through words, where Katniss is a woman who navigates her world through action. Still, the character who most deftly illustrates Collins’ ability to contrast and foil both characters’ and readers’ expectations of traditional gender roles (both i
n our current culture and in Panem) is Johanna Mason.

  Johanna knows gender roles and how to play them for effect more concretely than anyone in the series or in most YA literature as a whole. Johanna is a lumberjack, which is a stereotypically male profession. During her first Hunger Games, Katniss tells us, Johanna deliberately played the role of “a helpless girl” to throw off her opponents. However, when we meet her during the Quarter Quell, and for the duration of Mockingjay, Johanna’s self-presentation aligns with one that is more stereotypically masculine. She eschews hygiene and personal appearance and does not allow anyone to form opinions of her based on her looks; she expresses her sexuality “like a man,” stripping down just to get out of her clothes and catcalling and wolf-whistling Finnick and Gale, whom she deems “gorgeous.” That doesn’t mean she is no longer interested in the effect of gendered expectations or no longer willing to employ them for her own ends: she uses sudden gender-role trope reversal—fawning over Katniss’ fashion, most notably—to disarm Katniss and keep her confused about Johanna’s intentions towards her, which is an essential part of making sure Katniss is kept in the dark about the Quell plot.

  Equally compelling as Katniss and Peeta’s role reversal, but less chronicled, is the one between Johanna and Finnick Odair. Whereas Johanna is written as “masculine,” Finnick is written as “feminine.” He is described as beautiful and sensual; even Katniss remarks on his appearance and manner with some breathlessness. He is also described as a romantic (both in persona, for the cameras, as when he helps to perpetuate the Quell lie about Katniss’ pregnancy, and in truth, when he talks about Annie) and emotional; he spends the majority of the first half of Mockingjay crying, which serves as a counterpoint to Katniss’ catatonic stoicism and, later, Johanna’s rage and bitterness. Whereas the most important events in Johanna’s story line, or at least pertaining to her role in Katniss’ narrative, are acts of violence (notably the climax of Catching Fire when Johanna cuts the tracker from Katniss’ arm in the Quarter Quell), Finnick’s story comes to its zenith when he weds Annie—a plot device that is more stereotypically used for female character arcs in Western literature.

  In spite of being written with oppositional gender traits, however, Johanna is still described by Katniss as undeniably female and Finnick as something of the epitome of male in Katniss’ eyes (“Finnick’s such an amazing male specimen”CF275). This shows another subtle way that, by Catching Fire, Katniss has already begun to break with her own previous prejudices—and shows her distinct differences from Panem’s ideology. Katniss does not underestimate Johanna for her femaleness, as she may have a year previously. Finnick’s presentation as a Capitol mannequin does not deter Katniss from seeing him as a powerful competitor, or masculine, though just a year before Katniss saw Peeta’s finer clothes and traditionally feminine profession as signs of weakness.

  Panem’s cultural perception of males as inherently dominant and masculine and females as submissive and feminine determines the way Katniss, Peeta, Johanna, and Finnick are “publicized” by the Gamemakers and stylists and received by Panem-at-large. But the contrast between their nonconforming gender traits and the other tributes’ cultural and manufactured expectations works in each character’s favor in the arena—if only because it causes their personal strategies to seem wildly unpredictable (especially in Johanna’s and Katniss’ cases). Unfortunately, although Katniss and the people in her life may show tremendous depth, Panem itself is no different from modern-day America in terms of wanting its women to be Girls and its men to be Men—especially on TV.

  Finnick Odair and Sexual Exploitation

  Of course, in the Capitol, the audience’s expectations extend beyond the television set and into “real” life. Victors of the Games no longer belong to themselves; as victors, they have responsibilities, from mentoring future tributes to maintaining their personae from the Games for the enjoyment of their audience, often with tragic and highly exploitative consequences. There are repercussions to the way tributes present themselves in the arena to survive, as first illustrated by Katniss and Peeta’s forced “wedding.” As victors, Katniss and Peeta are expected to allow the Capitol audience into their lives as long as the viewers want to be there. The show they put on in the arena stops being for their own benefit, and instead starts being used for the benefit of the Capitol.

  There is no better example of this than Finnick Odair. As Panem’s biggest star, Finnick is arguably the single most tragic story in the Hunger Games franchise and the place where the darker aspects of gender, sexuality, and exploitation most clearly intersect.

  The mainstream media, when covering the Hunger Games, most frequently refers to Finnick as a “sexy playboy,” which is both inaccurate to his character and deeply insulting, given the scope of his character arc and the tragedy-ridden history of his real-world counterparts. In a similarly incorrect fashion, parts of fandom commonly call Finnick Odair a prostitute. It is more accurate to describe Finnick as a trafficked child or a slave.

  Victims of human trafficking are not permitted to leave upon arrival at their destination. They are held against their will through acts of coercion and forced to work or provide services to the trafficker or others. The work or services may include anything from bonded or forced labor to commercialized sexual exploitation.li The arrangement may be structured as a work contract but with no or low payment or on terms that are highly exploitative. Sometimes the arrangement is structured as debt bondage, with the victim not being permitted or able to pay off the debt (the most common form of enslavement in our world today).lii

  In Mockingjay, Finnick describes his experiences for the camera, for broadcast across Panem:

  “President Snow used to . . . sell me . . . my body, that is,” Finnick begins in a flat, removed tone. “I wasn’t the only one. If a victor is considered desirable, the president gives them as a reward or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love. So you do it.”M170

  In popular fandom theory, Finnick is trapped into his slavery by claims for reparation by his sponsors in the Hunger Games—as suggested by the mention of his trident being among the most expensive gifts a tribute has ever received in the arena, coupled with the canon knowledge from Finnick’s broadcast from District 13 that favored tributes are coerced into sexual slavery in the Capitol—and by President Snow’s threats against Annie and Mags. Given that Johanna tells Katniss that “Mags was half [Finnick’s] family,”CF328 it can be inferred from the text that, in at least this instance, Snow and his government made good on the threats of violence used to coerce victors into bonded sex labor.

  It can be inferred that even Haymitch and Johanna were punished for refusing service to Snow and the Capitol. Johanna states that “there’s no one left [she] love[s],” while Haymitch lost “his mother, his little brother, and his girl” just after his Games. (Though the reason Haymitch gives Katniss for his family’s deaths is his “stunt” with the force field, he also says that Snow used him as “the example. The person to hold up to the young Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen to a victor who caused problems.”M172-173) Given Snow’s fairly overt threats to Katniss’ family, including the Hawthornes, if she does not comply with his plan for her—including her and Peeta’s forced, televised marriage and all that entails—it is a popular interpretation. However, because Finnick is the only canonically confirmed survivor of the system, only his characterization serves here as the basis for discussing exploitation in Panem under this system.

  Listening to Finnick’s revelations in Mockingjay, Katniss is stunned, and her understanding of Finnick and his reputation changes completely: “That explains it, then. Finnick’s parade of lovers in the Capitol. They were never real.”M170 Given Finnick’s reputation for flirtatiousness and perceived promiscuity—which he presumably uses as a coping mechanism, and to protect Annie and Mags—neither Katniss nor the reader have reason to guess that he is anything other than the
image he presents until his reveal in Mockingjay. When she discovers she was wrong, Katniss feels immediately shocked and guilty for believing ill of Finnick’s sexual past (an effective chastisement for victim-shaming).

  That Katniss overlooks this possibility is especially indicative of two things—Panem’s traditional gender expectations vis-à-vis males and sex, and the extent to which victors, especially Finnick, have been marketed by the Capitol as hedonistic sexual beings. It is especially telling given that Katniss shows previously that she has an understanding of indentured bondage: she remarks in Catching Fire that Head Peacekeeper Cray is unpopular in District 12 because he is a frequent customer of girls and women driven to prostitution by the institutional disparity of the Seam:

  “Cray would have been disliked, anyway, because of the uniform he wore, but it was his habit of luring starving young women into his bed for money that made him an object of loathing in the district . . . Had I been older when my father died, I might have been among them.”CF114

  In terms of exploitation, Panem is a deeply corrupt country. The sexual violence of human trafficking is proof of that . . . but so are the Games’ opening ceremonies. Is it really any wonder that a country that revels in seeing tributes under the age of eighteen paraded around the streets of the Capitol wearing nothing but a smattering of coal dust would also not be averse to buying a sixteen-year-old (or fourteen-year-old, like new victor Finnick) for sex?

  It seems from the text that this sexually objectifying attitude is pervasive and commonplace—even in the districts, given Katniss’ matter-of-fact tone when discussing Cray. That Katniss remarks with surprise that Cinna does not touch her nude body on their first consultation before the Seventy-fourth Games illustrates how clearly she had expected to be abused or assaulted by the Capitol’s citizens, and further comments on the lack of physical privacy in Panem, for district residents if not necessarily for the people of the Capitol. Yet Katniss still did not guess the truth about how Finnick (and, likely, other victors) were treated; she sees Finnick more as a denizen of the Capitol than as a person, a man from District 4—a victim, exploited like her.