Katniss Everdeen is hardly the typical hero of a romance story, or a dystopian story. She's too flawed for the former, and too naive for the latter. The heroes of dystopian stories are usually clear-eyed hard-boiled survivors: not unlike the detectives of noir films. Katniss starts the story fundamentally unaware of just how horrific the regime she lives under really is. District 12 of Panem as Katniss knows it, is something of a haven. It's low population makes it less threatening, and the fact that no tribute from 12 has won the hunger games in several decades also contributes to the Capitol's lax attitude. There is a strong community that has formed around the black market, since the police are lazy and corrupt. People are poor, but they are generally happy. After the death of her father, Katniss has taken on his role in the family: hunting illegally and selling her catch at the black market, since she's still considered too young to work in the coal mines which are the official industry of District 12. She keeps her head down, and stays safe in relative anonymity.
Or, at least, she thinks she's anonymous. But here's the part where her naiveté comes in. Naiveté doesn't mean a lack of factual knowledge: it means a lack of knowledge about the impact you have on people. It means not believing that people notice your actions, and not needing them to. It means in other words, not needing external validation. Katniss knows what she does for other people, and what other people have done for her. She doesn't need someone to tell her that she provides food for her sister and mother and saved their lives after her father died. She knows what her skills are, and what they aren't. She does not need the Hunger Games to know she is a good hunter. She even talks with her best friend Gale about running away from the District and living in the woods. Katniss is however blind to the impact she has on her community. Her hunting allows other people, like Greasy Sae, to have a livelihood. She isn't just keeping her own family fed, she's keeping other people's families fed too. The meat she brings in, is likely the only meat they ever get. The berries she picks are crucial for their nutrition, as much as they are for her sister Primrose. This is even true for the relatively wealthy: like the Mellarks and the mayor's family. Evidently, fruits and vegetables are luxury products in this dystopian society. She isn't just raising her own family's standard of living: she's raising everyone's. Thus, when Katniss volunteers to be in the Hunger Games to take her sister's place: the whole community is affected. This is why they give the District 12 salute to her as she leaves (which by the way is similar to the real world Girl Scout salute, nice touch Suzanne Collins). But just because Katniss hasn't noticed the way in which she lifts up those around her, doesn't mean this is lost on everyone else. After all: Katniss is only 16. That level of self-awareness would be odd in someone that age. Haymitch and Peeta Mellark have noticed.
Haymitch is secretly a member of a rebellion against the government of Panem, along with the forgotten District 13. It is never explicitly stated that Haymitch informs the other conspirators about Katniss: but he's the only one who could have. Haymitch is the previous winning tribute from District 12, with a mysterious past that has caused a drinking problem. He's a (sort of) high-functioning alcoholic, who uses the fact that no one takes him very seriously in order to work for rebellion. But the rebellion has been dormant until Katniss volunteers for the Hunger Games. The plan is to use the Hunger Games against the Capitol: because they are the only way to communicate with all districts all at once. Katniss, the rebels have decided, will make a perfect symbol. The mayor's daughter Madge hands Katniss a Mockingjay pin, seemingly as an innocent gift. But it was evidently chosen for the symbolism of the Mockingjay: the product of the Capitol's experimental jabber jays mating with mockingbirds in the wild. The jabber jays played a big party in the previous time that the Districts of Panem rebelled, giving information on the rebels to the Capitol. Mockingjays are an accident that the Capitol never meant to have happen: the result of nature taking it's course in a world that abhors all things natural. It is a good symbol for Katniss, because this is what she represents too: nature intruding upon a world that abhors nature.
So, what's the problem here? Well, the problem is that the rebels didn't tell Katniss they were recruiting her for the rebellion. They also didn't tell her that they were going to use her as a prop. They made her into the Mockingjay, little more than a symbol of rebellion against the Capitol. This is of course something that happens to many real-life revolutionaries. It happened to Lenin in Russia, his body is still preserved like some sort of scientific specimen with a bizarre regimen of chemicals: for use by the state as a prop in it's ceremonies. Even though Russia has become something which Lenin would have despised. It happened to Ché Guevara too. His, admittedly attractive, visage was incongruously taken up as a symbol of resistance to the US government. Oddly enough, mostly by anarchists: which is weird since Ché's job as Fidel Castro's right hand man was as executioner. Also, he hated anarchists. He was pretty much the definition of Lawful Neutral. In Anthropology, this phenomenon is called "positive objectification". The name sounds nice: but it's not really. "Positive" in this case just means that the objectified person is treated as precious and important. Think of the way a museum would treat a painting. Sure, Katniss gets to break the rules and people take care to be nice to her. She is cared for, looked after etc: but not out of any genuine concern for her welfare. Rather she is coddled because she is the Mockingjay, the precious symbol of the rebellion that can't be lost.
Katniss does not like this. Most people don't. People can be taught to like it by society, but it is not something that people naturally like. It is not a proper way to treat human beings. This is the treatment that most women in the western world have been subjected to since the Victorian Era. It should be noted that this is only one type of misogyny and the Victorian Era in the western world was not the only time or place where it was prevalent. Other societies have other types of misogyny, and other time periods had other pernicious ideas about women. Positive objectification is why men were pressured to open doors, pull back chairs and the like for women in the past: as if the women were creatures too delicate to do such work. 1950s advertising also contains a lot of positive objectification. This is different from a man opening doors or pulling back chairs for his girlfriend out of genuine respect. It's not about what he's doing, but about why he's doing it. Positive objectification can even take the form of false worship: think of the racist or anti-semitic clergyman. This person claims that they worship a divine being: but actually they are objectifying the divine. They are using the authority that comes from being a clergyman to advance their own secular agenda: an agenda with it's roots in personal or class-based problems rather than any scripture or church doctrine. The name of the divine being, as well as scriptures and church doctrines are objects: tools to be used for a purpose. A true believer doesn't advance an agenda that benefits them personally. In fact they may even work against the interests of their race, class or other identity group. They take a receptive stance: changing their behavior based on what they learn from the scripture rather than trying to make the scripture fit their beliefs. Of course, it isn't just religious people who do this: plenty of scientists have done it as well.
For example, Margaret Mead. In her book on the society of a particular pacific island, she concluded that it was a sexually liberal society where young boys and girls often had intimate relationships before marriage. Except...wait a minute: where are the bastard children? where are the rushed marriages? do they have some form of birth control unknown to the west? no, of course not. The girls flirted with the boys as a way of annoying their guardians: their fathers and brothers. Just like prep school girls at a dance, they act more daringly because they know that if the boys show too much interest their guardians will flip out. What did Mead do? she objectified the people she was writing about in order to advance an agenda she had held long before she went to these islands or even became an anthropologist. She wanted western society to loosen the hell up, so she wrote about a society that was looser even though no such society actually existed. The thing is: the society being detailed in an ethnography is supposed to be the Subject. That is, they are supposed to be treated with genuine respect. The ethnographer is supposed to be like a ghost-writer: it is the people being studied who should be making all the important decisions about the book, including what goes into it.
This brings me to why objectification is bad: it isn't just a question of respect or even of morality. People who objectify other people do so because they have some kind of agenda. Agendas do not have to be conscious: for example Barack Obama's water stunt in Flint, Michigan. Was he consciously intending to insult the people of this city? probably not. But he was probably annoyed about having to come there, and really wanted the bad press to stop at any cost. Even the cost of insulting people who were already being victimized by a racist state system, and doing nothing to put a stop to that system. Again, he likely didn't do this on purpose. This is not a case of objectification, at least so far as anyone knows. But it is an example of someone advancing an agenda despite not realizing he had one to advance.
Most misogynist individuals fall into this category as well: advancing an agenda that supports men at the expense of women without thinking that that's what they are doing. Most people who objectify women do not think that is what they are doing. Just as, in the Hunger Games, President Coin does not think of herself as objectifying Katniss and is confused by her anger. This is quite a clever move on the part of the author: President Coin is female, and so is Katniss. There's no question about what is going on, because gender is not a factor in the relationship. It's also not a romantic relationship: so there's no question about how wrong the treatment is. For some reason, people often excuse this behavior in the context of romance when they would otherwise condemn it. President Coin is not wrong, the rebellion does need a symbol: but a live Mockingjay taught a rebellious song would have done the job. There have been many revolutions that had no single leader, no person to rally around. But they all had something to rally around: and a song is a very common rallying point. A live mascot is more interesting than a static object, but it need not be a person. Think of how the World Wildlife Fund has rallied people behind the giant panda.
If you are waiting for a singular leader of today's resistance to emerge, you will likely wait in vain. But that does not make the movement weak: in fact it makes it strong. If the South African apartheid government had killed Nelson Mandela: the movement he led would have fallen apart. Of course, if he killed himself it would have galvanized the movement: so, since they were unwilling to execute him, they had to keep him alive. A movement which has a singular figurehead like this, is fundamentally weak because the leader's fate will affect the movement. A decentralized movement on the other hand, is strong because the fate of a single member has no effect whatsoever on the whole. There are of course natural leaders and followers: but the deaths of these leaders will not have the consequence of stopping or weakening the movement. Movements need symbols, but it is in no way necessary to objectify a person in order to get one.
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