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The transcription discusses the role of music in the Hunger Games series, particularly in depicting the contrast between the wealthy Capitol and the impoverished District 12. The soundtrack uses different instruments and melodies to represent these settings and the class divide. The use of ballads, such as "Deep in the Meadow" and "The Hanging Tree," also ties into the Appalachian culture portrayed in the series. The prequel film, "The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes," further explores the connection between music and the setting, featuring a folk bluegrass band from District 12. Overall, the music in the series helps to create a sense of place and highlight social and economic disparities. When on screen, the high-tech, wealthy Capitol is always accompanied by some huge brass band or an inspiring trumpet melody. In entering the Capitol, a song on the soundtrack for the first movie, there's a huge build-up to when Katniss first sees the Capitol. This is where I'm going to play the Capitol clip. That electronic feel and eerie, victorious sound that you just heard is what marks the sonic sound of the Capitol. Some other songs that represent this disparity between the settings of District and Capitol are District 12, the plays when Katniss comes back to her home in Mockingjay after it was completely decimated by the Capitol. Here's a short clip of the song District 12. Here's where I'll play District 12. In that clip that you just heard, she goes back to where she lived and immediately the acoustic instruments come in to juxtapose the modern feel of all the music that accompanies images of the Capitol. To further this, next I really want to talk about how music depicts not only setting, but class, status, and wealth. Okay, so this is my next section, which is pretty much a continuation of the setting, but now I'm going to bring in ideas of class, status, and wealth. So, setting and wealth really build off of each other in the books, movies, and music, so I want to continue talking about how music portrays the class of people in District 12 versus the class and wealth of the Capitol. So, I really want to focus on two songs that are used to represent two distinct people. First, of course, Katniss, our main character, who's from District 12, the coal mining district, who is hunger- and poverty-stricken, and she's usually accompanied by these mellow, even sad-sounding acoustic melodies. Here is Katniss the Foot from the first movie. Here's where I will play Katniss the Foot. That was Katniss the Foot, and it really embodied the natural-sounding reeds and strings that are used to accompany images of District 12. So, meanwhile, in the Capitol, Cesar Flickerman, a very prominent Capitol figure in the books, is paraded with a booming brass melody that echoes his every step. Here is War by the Brass Ensemble. Here's where I will play War by the Brass Ensemble. So, that was War by the Brass Ensemble. It's a very consistent, high-energy, triumphant-sounding piece of music that really represents the Capitol and its people. So, this disparity in instrumentation as well as mood is incredibly intentional and brings us back to one of the themes that music plays a key role in, the high-tech Capitol versus the low-tech districts. Sonically, when Katniss is on screen, it is so much more acoustic and low-tech and melancholy-sounding. The reeds and plucked strings evoke a sense of intimacy and a classic Appalachian feel. It also evokes images of a lot less wealthy places, as it is so natural-sounding and reflects instruments that are used in Appalachian music. A full 180 to that is what is heard when people from the Capitol are on screen. The techno-sounding beats with massive, booming brass bring images of wealth and power. Even the volume sets these two characters apart. The quietness of Katniss's song is blown out of the water by Cesar Fukerman's theme. Everything mentioned before this aids in setting apart the wealthy-sounding Capitol to the lower-class sonic themes of Katniss in District 12. Alright, so that kind of wrapped up my ideas and thoughts about wealth, status, class, and setting and how music aids in portraying those in the Hunger Games. So now I want to move on to talking about the ballads, as well as the ballads of Songwriters and Snakes, which is the prequel of the Hunger Games. So, as with the first two sections, the next two also have some pretty heavy crossover and connections. So, a really important facet of Appalachian music are the ballads. That is the aspect of Appalachian music that I really want to focus on here. Things like murder ballads, which have been sung and reworked for decades, have marked a really important part of Appalachian music and the culture surrounding it. Hazel Dickens, a really prominent Appalachian musician, has solidified herself as the go-to murder ballad musician, and lots of the ballads in the Hooks Games franchise tend to echo the musicality that she paved the way for. A Place Called District 12, a book about the Hunger Games and music, by Thomas Paradis, described the origins of ballads as a staple in Appalachian culture and music. The Scots, Irish, and English brought the ballad, among other song styles, to Appalachia. The ballad is somewhat the core of Appalachian music, and by utilizing it so prevalently in the Hunger Games series, Susanne Collins is clearly channeling Appalachian culture. One incredibly noteworthy ballad that comes up in many ways is Deep in the Meadow, which is first sung by Katniss to soothe her sister Prim after a bad dream, not even two minutes into the first film. It is a lullaby ballad that really calls on imagery of Appalachia. Here's a clip of that. Here's where I will play Deep in the Meadow. Okay, so that was a clip from Deep in the Meadow. You can hear that it's a very mellow, melancholy-sounding ballad, in which it's just Katniss's voice and nothing else. So, in the book by Paradis, it is brought up that this song could be a little hummed tune that the women of Appalachia could sing to themselves in daily work. I think it really shows how ritualized the ballads and other folk tunes are in Appalachian households. This song is used twice in the first film, first when Katniss is in District 12 and soothing her sister, and second when she is trying to call on home when she is in the games and her friend Rue dies. It is not mentioned or used any time again until the very last scene of Mockingjay Part 2, only when Katniss is safe back in District 12 and has children of her own. It's a very full-circle moment tied together with a stereotypically Appalachian-style ballad. Okay, now I'm going to talk about another ballad in the Hunger Games series. So, the most known song from the entire series is The Hanging Tree. It's an inherently eerie ballad that garnered major attention in pop culture. It was first seen in Mockingjay and in the film Mockingjay Part 1, where Jennifer Lawrence sings it as Katniss. It became a pop culture phenomenon and took over public radio as well as social media at the time. The song has been regarded as a caricature of the Appalachian ballad, in which Suzanne Collins and folk group The Lumineers work together to create an eerie murder ballad that inspired revolution. In the prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, readers find out the true history of the song. Lucy Gray Baird, the first-ever District 12 Hunger Games winner in the 10th Games, was the original author of the song after witnessing the hanging of a man at District 12 Gallows. Lucy Gray forms this ballad and is miraculously passed down for generations and lands with Katniss. Here is a clip of that song. Here is where I will play the clip of The Hanging Tree. So, as you can hear, it's a really eerie-sounding ballad that is really only accompanied by a few plucks on guitar by Lucy Gray Baird, and it's really beautiful and really channels that Appalachian feel. So that kind of wrapped up my ideas on the ballads of the Hunger Games, and I think it's a really good segue into my next topic. So, the next topic is The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes, which is the last installment of the series. It is the prequel movie that was released in fall of 2023, so pretty recently. It really pulls the entire series together in terms of music. Hey, ballads is even in the title. So, the release of this movie was actually what inspired me to look into the material for this project, which is really cool, and looking back, it's really a great experience. Okay, so let's get into it now. The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes features the girl chosen to be in the tense Hunger Games from District 12, Lucy Gray Baird. Lucy Gray is part of a small folk bluegrass band called the Covey. This is very central to the themes of the book and the characters, as well as theme and setting. Also, having Lucy Gray be from District 12 and having her sing songs that channel Appalachian folk really pulls the Appalachian setting and the Hunger Games together. All of their songs really channel the musicality and instrumentation of Appalachian music. My favorite of these is Pure as the Driven Snow. So, here's a little snippet of that. Here is where I will play Pure as the Driven Snow. So, I think that that was really beautiful, and it really evokes a lot of images of Appalachia, since the mandolin and guitar are so heavily featured, and those are really common instruments in Appalachian music. I think that by having all of the music in The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes be of Appalachian descent really pulls together the setting and the themes of the entire franchise, and I think it's done pretty well. Also, something cool that this movie did is that it allowed a lot of hardcore Hunger Games fans to learn a lot more about Appalachian culture, because it's not as much prevalent in the first three movies, but this one really gets into the music and culture surrounding Appalachia. It does this by using things like modern folk and Appalachian artists on the official album, such as Sierra Farrell and Charles Wesley Dodwin and Billy Strings, just to name a few. This connected the region and culture to the series so well, and it was really done really beautifully. So, that was all that I really wanted to talk about for The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes, but now I want to talk about Suzanne Collins and some critiques and controversies that the Hunger Games series has been part of. So, in my core Appalachia class, one thing that we really get into is how stereotypes and depictions of Appalachian people really show them as backwards, barbaric, and even uncivilized, and how media coverage, like things like local color writing, really send this depiction and paint them in a bad light. And after having done some research, a lot of people think that the Hunger Games series might be a perpetuation of these stereotypes. So, Suzanne Collins built this brilliant franchise with her words, but the culture that she brings into it is not inherently hers. Collins was born in Connecticut and grew up in a military family. She is not from Appalachia, and her life is incredibly different from those who are from the Appalachian region. In creating Katniss and Lucy Gray, who were distinctly Appalachian, post-apocalyptic or not, she was drawing on lots of stereotypes of the region. For instance, in District 12, poverty and starvation are the norm, reflecting many regions in Appalachia where education, availability of luxuries, and employment opportunities that don't have to do with mining are far and few between. There's even a clip of Suzanne Collins reading her book in Katniss's voice as she speaks in an Appalachian dialect or accent. This proves that she intends Katniss to be all around Appalachian, even though Jennifer Lawrence did not include the accent in any of the films. Something that's really interesting is that Rachel Zegler, who portrays Lucy Gray Baird in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, has a distinct Appalachian accent. There are a lot of differing opinions and ideas on why this is, and why Jennifer Lawrence doesn't include the accent but Rachel Zegler does. One of the explanations is that Lucy Gray Baird is really the cross between music and Appalachian culture, and in music the accent is so prevalent, and that might be why she includes the accent. And other people say that it's all about the perspective of the main characters. So Katniss sees herself as not having the accent because all she knows and all that is the norm to her is the accent of District 12. And that is why she doesn't have the accent, because she just doesn't perceive herself to have the accent. There's even a part in the book where she first goes to the Capitol, and she gets really weirded out by the accent of the Capitol people, since it's reminiscent of the transatlantic or even an English sounding accent. And meanwhile, Lucy Gray, who is a spectacle from the outside and really perceived by many groups outside, has the accent because she's seen from the outside, and her accent is not the norm. So whatever is actually true is whatever, but it's interesting nonetheless. Overall, many have seen Collins' writing and depiction of Appalachia as backwards, as starving and poor, as a continuation of local color writing from the late 19th, early 20th centuries, and also a continuation of the sensationalization of Appalachian issues during the War on Poverty. So yeah, that's all I have to say on this topic, but I could easily talk about this for hours, like the books and films and the music especially, for at least a day. So I hope you enjoyed and learned a little about The Hunger Games and its interaction with Appalachia and music. But yeah, thank you so much for listening. Bye!