The Hunger Games movie describes how each year, two people from the twelve Districts of Panem, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, were drawn from a bowl of name cards and would have to fight against one another in what was known as the Hunger Games. This was a nationally televised event whereby not until there was one survivor left to win. This competition was a result of a rebellion that took place in District thirteen, which was destroyed by the political power in the series known as the Capitol and serves as a reminder to the people that revolt will not go unpunished in the eyes of the lead of the Capitol, President Snow. The two main characters in the series are Katniss and Peeta, the female who volunteered as tribute in place of her younger sister and the male who was chosen as tribute from District twelve.
Furthermore, Functionalism is exhibited throughout the whole movie, where every part of the system, such as organizations, societies and institutions exist because they provide a certain function. For example, district twelve is known for coal mining and people there struggle to keep their families safe and alive. The functional theory basically relays in the hunger games symbolic idea, where rich are going to keep getting richer and watch people dying as if it’s a show. Then poor struggle more and more throughout the years to only get more miserable. In my opinion, the game displays how people die at war times, due to politics and power. The elite sector of the society is usually unharmed and even benefiting more than ever, and the unfortunates are suffering at the same time.
When it comes to how conflict theory is being portrayed in the movie, I would say that it is the struggle of the society often over the limited and valuable resources needed for survival. This can be seen is in the majority of districts as the citizens of each district struggles to survive to attain the basic necessities such as food, water, clothing and shelter. They are also being exploited by the rich for their specific resources in those districts such as coal, shelter, fish, and steel. This reminds of my own village back in Uganda where the poor village people to this day are controlled by the rich and exploit them for their resources such as rocks they cut construct roads, buy their chunks of land at such a low cost where oil exits so they can process it and make billion and so forth. The conflict theory is even exhibited in a more literal sense in the actual Hunger Games competition as tributes battle to t he death over resources to survive.
In conclusion, I would like to say that Hunger games is an amazing movie exemplifying the different sociological theories. The many aspects of this movie relate to our societal livelihood, although some of those aspects have been exaggerated in the movie, but the underlying message of equality throughout the social class is on point. In Hunger games it is easily seen that the Caste system of class differs amongst the District as well as the Capitol, the poor stays poor and the rich will remains rich. The rich exploit others by making excuses of justifying the need for a class system which benefit them. Having watched Hunger Games a couple of times, I never internalized it in sociological perspective until I joined the lectures of “Social Theory” that I was able to see the underlying messages.
