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One of my favorite book series of all time is The Hunger Games series. While it made a very large wave in pop culture, the novels themselves actually are really insightful, and provide a lot of interesting social commentary. If you don’t know what happened in The Hunger Games, it’s pretty simple. The novel takes place in a dystopian society, called Panem, where there is one capital, literally referred to as “The Capital,” and twelve districts. Citizens of the capital live in luxury while the districts- some incredibly poor- provide for them. In order to remind the districts of The Capital’s power, each year 2 children (ages 12-18) are selected from each district to participate in a competition called “The Hunger Games,” which is literally a fight to the death. The novel follows a young girl named Katniss, who is selected to compete in The Hunger Games for her district, which is the poorest district in the country. All tributes (those who are participating in the games) are trained for the games in the capital, where they get to experience a taste of the luxurious living style. Katniss makes many, many comments that highlight the injustice and abuse of power present in Panem. One example is when Katniss literally asked what a shower does, because Katniss’s district doesn’t have running water. Like many of the works we’ve read in class, The Hunger Games comments on injustice in an adaptive way, where the author manifests her opinions on our society in a made up society. I think the Hunger Games strives to highlight how the unequal distribution of resources affects people, in any day or time. We could even go further to say that the novel suggests a large cycle of inequity, where birthrights determine if you will live or die. To some degree, this is true in our world. While our country doesn’t select citizens for a fight to the death, there are many policies that support a cycle of injustice mainly targeting racial minorities. Based on who you’re born to and how much inherited power you have to overcome the system, your fate, while not necessarily sealed, is strongly suggested. 

Squid Game is a Korean TV show by Hwang Dong Hyuk that aired on Netflix in September of 2021 that took the world by storm. It was a Battle Royal where 456 players fought to the death through a series of children’s games. It revolves around Seong Gi-hun, player 456, who won the game, and 45.6 billion South Korean won. 

The entire season highlights the class inequality that most modern economies face. Modern capitalism has extreme competition, just like the intense competition where people fight for their lives. The players are so desperate for a better lifestyle than they are willing to play a game where they have almost no chance at winning the jackpot, risking their lives on the line. When the player wins the prize money, they can pay off their debt and live comfortably. But, as seen with a dramatic twist at the end, Gi-hun did not even touch the money he won. He was so disturbed by the dramatic squid game he had to endure that he did not touch his money, revealing a theme that money does not create happiness. He still had so many problems regarding his family and overall satisfaction that money could not solve. Another critical theme was class inequality. There is a growing income gap throughout the world, and South Korea has the fastest-growing gap globally. Also, there is a rapidly growing household debt in South Korea, giving inspiration to the show. The colors throughout the show reveal some of the economic problems. The VIPs and the game show host were in black and other flamboyant costumes. The contestants were wearing green, which announced their status.

Overall, there were a lot of class inequalities revealed throughout the show. In our society, many people deal with wealth problems because of the economic systems around the world. The writers want the audience to remember this show when seeing excess poverty and the growing income gaps across the globe.

Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing arouses conversation 32 years after its release. The movie brings the topics of racism, police brutality, discrimination and inner-city life to light. The film allows a conversation to spark between races about the discriminations on colored people.

Mookie is a young man living in a Black and Puerto Rican neighborhood in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He works as a delivery man at a pizza shop where an Italian owner Salvotore “Sal” Frangoine has owned it for 25 years. His older son Giuseppe “Pino”, is a racist that disrespects all the neighborhood black people.  Sal’s younger son Vito is friends with Mookie and they have a brotherly bond. 

One day a man named Buggin Out, who is a man that talks about civil rights, entered Sal’s pizza shop. He demanded that Sal put up pictures of black celebrities since his pizzeria is in a black neighborhood. Sal refuses and this causes an argument leading Mookie to take Buggin Out outside. Buggin Out then returns to the shop with a man named Radio Raheem who earlier got into an argument with Sal for playing his music too loud. They then all get into a fight that is led outside where the police are. Buggin Out is arrested while another police officer chokes Radio Raheem, killing him. This is when “Othering” is depicted. This enraged the spectators then turned to Sal’s restaurant and started destroying his restaurant. The next day Mookie returns to the restaurant wanting his pay. Sal then angrily throws the money at him and tells him he is fired because he blames him for everything that happened. They eventually reconcile at the end. 

This film allowed many conversations to happen when it comes to injustice. Even people who are not a part of the colored community can have an understanding of what they go through. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing allows everyone to have a conversation about bettering the injustices in the world. 

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For this text review assignment, I am going to discuss the acceptance of transgender in society by sharing a Taiwanese movie Miss Andy . The background of Miss Andy was set in Malaysia where the state law enforced prohibiting “a male person posing as a woman”, hence prosecuting people whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned to them at birth. Miss Andy describes a transgender male: Evon and her struggles of being accepted by her own family and creating her own family. Evon did her transgender surgery after her wife died, but was rejected by her kids. One night, Evon met and help a woman Sophie and her kids who did not have food and a house to stay. At that time, Evon was also attracted to a man Tank who was her ex-co-workers and had hearing impaired, and getting along with these three imperfect people seems to give Evon a hopeful life again. However, after Tank knew about Evon’s winning lottery ticket, he stole it and escape with Sophie and her son, leaving Evon alone.

The injustice elements were highlighted by the challenges and discrimination that Evon faced- not accepted by the society and her right to have warmth and love from family. In fact, Malaysia government has law enforcement on not recognizing transgender on identity cards, which prevent most of the transgender individuals to get a official job, and they only can work under market that increase their risk in threat. Those contrains on law increase the stereotypes in the society that prevent transgender people’s rights to live a normal life. The one and the other concept that we talked in class relates to Evon’s situation. From the depiction of the movie, Sophie, Tank, and Evon were all recognized as other from the society. However, at the end of the movie, the escape of Sophie and Tank highlight that Evon is the only other in this movie. From this aspect, even though these three people are all imperfect, Sophie and Tank are still physically recognized as the One; thus the one and the other concept can be applied in self recognition, mentally, and physical appearances.

When They See Us is a movie based on a true story about five teen boys who were black and hispanic, ages ranging from 14-16. They were accused of assaulting and raping a white women at a park in New York. The movie starts off with the young boys going to the park with their friends at night to simply go for a walk. While walking with their friends they witnessed a group of boys attacking random people at the park. The police showed up and the boys got scared so they decided to run away. Without any questions the police decided to arrest every black boy they could capture at the park. The boys were then taken to be questioned about a crime that took place that same night. Each one of them told the police how they didn’t know anything about a rape of a young women and that they were innocent. The detective framed and encouraged the police to coerce the boys into confessing to being involved in a rape case. The police beat and threatened the boys to get them to confess how they were involved with this case but also how each boy helped although they didn’t know each other at the time. During trials, the prosecutor blackmailed the lawyers of the defendants so they could win the case and send the boys to jail. There wasn’t any evidence that could point to the boys and their involvement in the case besides the confession videos. Unfortunately, all the boys were found guilty and were charged with multiple counts. They had to serve years of sentences for a crime they didn’t commit and the only crime they did commit was being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The moral of the movie is to bring awareness of how systemic racism can paint people of color as criminals without any evidence. It also shows how people can use their powers in their best interest against people that are very vulnerable.

My name is Khan is a bollywood movie that hit the theaters in 2010. This is a movie about Rizwan Khan an autistic immigrant living in the United States and his journey to meet the President of the United States. The plot of the movie summarizes the lives of muslim Americans pre and post 9/11. The open racism and islamophobia is clearly depicted in this movie. This movie also shows the hardships that many immigrants face in this country. One such example is when Rizwan tries to find work. It is incredibly hard for him to find a job because he is first an immigrant and second he is a muslim man and lastly he is a man with disability. However, Rizwan is determined to find work and earn money in an honest way. Furthermore, the movie focuses specifically on America’s reaction towards muslim people. The power struggle between the two groups is shown thoroughly in this movie. A very specific scene that shows this is the death scene of Rizwan’s step son Sameer. The scene shows a bunch of white boys beating Sameer up and calling him foul names. They call him a “Paki” and “Osama’s son”, the scene eventually ends with Sameer’s death. This goes to show the power struggle between the white group of boys and Sameer. These boys felt as if they had more power over Sameer just because they were Americans and white. They felt powerful enough to take his life. This is the event that triggers Rizwan’s journey to Washington D.C. As he flies out to his destination he gets stopped by airport security because of his islamic name. They question him for hours and let others go by. This is sadly still a reality in this country. Many muslim people find themselves in this similar situation when they fly into this country. At the end of the story we get to see Rizwan seeing the President and telling him “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”. I think the purpose of this movie was to inform people about the injustice many muslim personels were facing after 9/11. Moreover, the audiences were able to get educated on important topics such as islamophobia and racism. This movie covered a lot of important educational topics and persuaded people to talk and learn more about immigrants, racism, islamophobia and disabilities.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a young adult dystopian novel that tells the story of the sixteen year old girl, Katniss Everdeen. This girl lives in a country called Panem, formerly called North America, which is divided into 12 districts and a capitol. In the districts, the people are poor, struggle to access food, and are forced to participate in an annual game where two tributes from ages twelve to eighteen must fight to death with only one remaining victor for the entertainment of the capitol. In the book, Katniss expresses her frustrations at the abuse of the president’s power and how the citizens of the capitol do not look at the young tributes as real people but instead look down upon these individuals who they consider to be worthless pawns only useable for leisurely enjoyment. 

This book brings into focus the problems that arise in a society when there are alterns and subalterns. One prominent problem in the story is that the needs of the poverty stricken people in the districts are not being taken care of. They are expected to continually work and produce goods for the benefit of the capitol while basic necessities such as food, water, and adequate shelter are not made available for them at home. Neglecting the needs of the less fortunate is still a prevalent issue in many places including the United States. Lower class citizens, or the subalterns, are expected to work for low wages which in turn helps boost the status of those already in higher classes, or the alterns. This is all occurring while basic tools like educational or economic/financial resources are rarely or never accessible to these people in need.

By the end of the story, Katniss and many other district citizens have retaliated against the unjust system and created a world to benefit all people equally. In the same way, labor movements and educational reforms have proven to be effective as more rights have been granted to people attempting to advance in the workforce and schooling institutions. Collins’ goal of addressing these systemic inequalities makes the reader thoroughly analyze the abuses of political power and also inspires a conversation to look into the interactions between different areas of classes, whether it be social, financial, or academic, and how it affects the way one can live his or her life.

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