A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in The Hunger Games – Interview with Tom Paradis

A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in The Hunger Games – Interview with Tom Paradis June 6, 2022

There is a new book out by my Butler University colleague Tom Paradis: A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in The Hunger Games. Tom kindly agreed to do a blog interview and I was amazed by the time and effort he put into offering such detailed answers to my questions…

Hi Tom. First, congratulations on your new book on a topic that I’ve been eager to talk with you about. The Hunger Games novels and movies offer such a powerful symbolic representation of how our own society works, with an elite living in luxury at the cost of hard labor and competition which only ever elevates a tiny portion of the majority of laborers to a less arduous life. As someone whose area of academic expertise is the way that human societies function, I can see why it would grab your interest. Thank you for bringing your subject area knowledge to bear on this popular franchise! My first question is how realistic or unrealistic the fictional social world of The Hunger Games seems to you on the whole, as someone who has studied the workings of more societies than most people have?

  • James, what an excellent (and loaded) question about how realistic Suzanne Collins decided to be within her world of Panem and the Hunger Games saga. This is a question that has engaged many a fan and scholar alike since the original trilogy was released more than a decade ago. It could also take us in any number of directions, or into layers of meaning within the stories, so I must be careful to focus here.
    • As a human (or cultural) geographer I’m focused more on the spatial connections of places, population distribution and demographics, economic geography and cultural characteristics that Collins has deftly built into the series.
    • From a geographer’s perspective, I’ve had the most fun with recognizing (or unearthing) the physical and human geographies and landscapes that underpin the entire saga. I suppose that’s the underlying theme of my entire book. Collins adroitly and expertly integrates and inserts a wide range of historical and geographical contexts and characteristics of real places that probably go overlooked by many readers. It has also been instructive for me to channel my inner “geography geek” to better understand what Collins wanted us to learn about the places she takes us too, whether in her characteristically subtle ways or otherwise. Aside from having Katniss declare that her home is somewhere in a place once called the Appalachians, and that the Capitol is somewhere in the Rockies, one must read Collins’ narratives carefully to find her countless “breadcrumbs” and meaningful clues about Panem and District 12.
    • We can start a discussion on the realism of Collins’ dystopian world by looking at the demographic and ethnic composition of District 12, which turns out to be quite representative of similar Appalachian mining communities. Collins likely simplified the class structure a bit with her binary designations of “Seam” residents versus the “merchant class,” though generally this was the segregated reality in many coal-mining towns, regardless of the degree of corporate control and oversight. Most were segregated along racial and/or socioeconomic lines. Once again, Collins demonstrates her intimate knowledge of history and geography within this mountain region. She purposely separated her mixed-race, working-class community of the Seam from a more Caucasian, middle-class community she calls the “merchant class.” And although District 12 as a whole is portrayed as poor and oppressed, it is the residents of the Seam who take the brunt of the economic and social toll. Mining companies even encouraged such segregation, creating areas of town designated specially with names like “Hunky Hollow,” Colored Town, or Little Italy, to name just a few. Discrimination was blatant and systematic, and the jobs available were typically based on one’s racial or ethnic background. Central Appalachia surprisingly had some of the most ethnically diverse local populations in America by the early 20th century, given successive waves of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe—especially Italians—to join mining communities already occupied with families of African American, English, Scots-Irish, and Native American heritage. One of the more obscure populations was (and is) known as the Melungeons, a mixed-race population that has inhabited the central Appalachians since colonial times and may represent a complex blending of African, Native-American, and Mediterranean lineages, most likely representing Portuguese ancestry. The Melungeons were also discriminated against by the dominant Anglo-American culture and weren’t allowed to vote, similar to those of African descent and other minority groups. It is very possible—though Collins has not confirmed this—that Katniss is Melungeon, or at least represents a complex heritage of mixed-race ancestors. Collins has admitted during interviews that “a lot of racial mixing” has taken place by the time Panem takes over North America. It is curious, though, how uncanny the similarities are between Katniss’ own “olive skin, straight black hair, and gray eyes,” and commonly-used descriptors for those of Melungeon descent. In any case, we’re not quite sure what race Katniss is, though we do know what she is not—that is, a blond-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-American woman with light skin like her sister, Prim. Regardless, the District 12 population, its racial and ethnic heritage, and largely segregated sub-cultures along racial and class lines is highly realistic for what we would have found in countless smaller mining towns throughout the Appalachians.
    • District 12 Square: The public square featured throughout the saga is another special place that is often overlooked aside from the Reapings. However, Collins provides enough of an ongoing description of the town square and its surrounding street layout—either through the eyes of Katniss or Coriolanus (in the prequel) that we can get a good visual idea of what type of small-town landscape she had in mind. And it is very different than what is portrayed in the films. I had a lot of fun decoding and piecing together various subtle descriptions of District 12’s town center to confidently conclude that what Collins gives us is a rather typical American small town and public square. The place is not really a “district” at all, despite the rather anonymous “District 12” label. A lot of my earlier research involved looking at smaller towns and cities and how they have developed and evolved through time, including various boom-bust cycles brought on by extractive industries. So it was natural for me to take a fresh look at the District 12 townscape as Collins describes it. Despite her otherwise fantastical, dystopian tale, she brings us right home to a rather typical Appalachian small town, right down to the rectangular blocks of the street layout and a Philadelphia-style courthouse square, the type of which is found commonly throughout the Midwest and South. And the commercial landscape of Main Streets shows up around the square depicted in the novels, complete with two-story commercial storefronts with apartments above, just as one would find around the courthouse square. Katniss describes all of this, and where she leaves off, Coriolanus picks up within the prequel as he makes his way through town (spoiler alert?). In the famous film scene with Peeta throwing Katniss the bread from the bakery, it so happens that the bakery is in the wrong location compared to the novels. Collins describes the Mellark Bakery as one of the numerous storefronts lining the square. Another funny thing is that the filming locations for the District 12 square are quite different in the first two films, and completely contrary to what Collins describes of the courthouse square town plan. The producers did not keep the town square consistent from “The Hunger Games” to “Catching Fire,” and neither of the film versions remotely resembles what Collins had in mind. For the purpose of the films that’s fine: the industrial scenes scattered with various warehouses and factories provide appropriate visual settings. This type of analysis is admittedly “academic,” and in good fun. If one doesn’t read the books, however, viewers are fed a pretty deceptive view of the town square and its surroundings.
    • Regarding the Capitol and its urban layout: it was fun to write about the history and urban design of Collins’ scenes in the Capitol, a fictitious city which is fundamentally designed around a European Baroque-era street plan with hyper-modernist architecture that was favored by authoritarian leaders for several centuries. Thus, the Capitol with its “City Circle” and radiating streets and boulevards could come straight out of Rome, Paris, or—closer to home in the US—Washington, D.C., which given her other symbolic breadcrumbs is probably the model city Collins had in mind. I also posit in the book that Collins may have even intended to use downtown Indianapolis as a model, which would not be too farfetched given that she attended school at IU Bloomington. Instead of the “Circle City” as Indianapolis is dubbed, Collins gives us the “City Circle,” her descriptions of which demonstrate an uncanny similarity to the original square-mile Baroque plan of Indianapolis’ downtown. Beyond that, if we look at the economic and social connections throughout Panem and its 13 districts and the Capitol, we also find a Panem-sized model that demonstrates the tenets of World Systems Theory espoused originally by Immanuel Wallerstein. Basically he described the world’s global setup of nations and cities within a spatial hierarchy of core, semi-periphery, and periphery regions or nations. Peripheral nations are often the poorest and most dependent upon the wealthier nations of the core and have also been largely colonized and ruled by core European nations. This hierarchy plays out well with the Capitol playing the role of the industrialized hub that holds varying levels of economic and political control over the semi-periphery (Districts 1-4) and the outlying rural periphery of Districts 11 and 12.
    • All this said, there are some quirky geographic aspects of Panem and District 12 that make little sense from a practical perspective. I don’t think these were blatant mistakes by Collins, as everything she does is strategic and carefully thought out. Instead, she decided to take some geographic liberties to better tell the stories and provide the messaging she wished to convey. The clear disconnect, for instance, is Panem’s strange reliance upon traditional pick-and-shovel coal mining in District 12, keeping in mind this is probably 3-400 years in the future from our current time (based on some fan estimates). Katniss tells us that much of the coal had already been mined, so they had to dig further. This ignores a couple of facts of reality. First, machines are now responsible for the environmentally destructive “mountaintop removal” approach, along with traditional strip mining. In high-tech Panem, there would be other ways to extract the coal. Secondly, why rely on the Appalachians or carbon-based energy at all? The Capitol is somewhere in the intermountain West, so the Montana coal fields would be much less expensive enterprises. But this is not the story that Collins wished to tell. She likely wanted Katniss and District 12 in the central Appalachians for her own personal interests and reasons. Still, the Capitol relies heavily on hydroelectric power, so relying on 1920s coal mining approaches is anachronistic for her world of Panem. But who cares? It’s the story that counts. Another geographic oddity is Panem’s reliance (in Katniss’ time, not in the prequel) on high-speed, magnetic levitation trains. Sure, the technology is likely available at this time in the future, though why devote such enormous costs on high-speed rail? Flight is already the most efficient approach, unless shipping bulk commodities. Our own nation has struggled to produce a high-speed rail system because of the vast distances it would be forced to network. In smaller places such as Europe and Japan, it makes more geographical sense. So, as a “rail fan” myself, I have been puzzled—if also amused—by the focus on high-speed rail. A final note on this is that such a network is not yet built out in the prequel, some 64 years prior to Katniss’ time. They travel by conventional railroad trains, requiring 3-4 days to move across the country! It remains to be seen whether Collins will provide yet another prequel that explains the transition from a capitalist economy with conventional rail travel to the authoritarian regime and high-speed technology we find in the original series.

In your book you highlight how Suzanne Collins gave District 12 specifically Appalachian names and characteristics, including the importance of coal and the impact of mining it on those who live there. For fans of The Hunger Games who don’t know this part of American history, what are a few key points they should be aware of to better appreciate the connection between fictional narratives and real life (which will hopefully lead them to read your book to learn more)?

  • First, I think it’s normal for readers or viewers to assume that the almost unimaginable degree of oppression found in Districts 11 and 12 is exaggerated beyond reality, and that we would never find actual communities (in North America) living under the heavy hand of such an authoritarian regime (despite the Capitol’s lackluster fence maintenance and related mistakes). And perhaps not. However, what might surprise many people is the extent to which the Seam quite accurately parallels the centralized control of mining corporations throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. My own students are often shocked when, during an assignment on this very topic, they discover that company-controlled mining towns of the Appalachians (and elsewhere, of course) were in numerous ways just as oppressive and anti-democratic, if not more so, than what Collins envisioned for District 12. It is simply the source of the oppressing force that is different—that is, a totalitarian government and dictator in Panem, versus the corporate-controlled mining operations of the central Appalachians. Just like District 12, entire communities of mine workers and their families often lived in austere conditions and were subject to corporate overseers. In the harshest conditions, mining families could not own their own property and were barely paid a living wage. Families were obligated to use special company currency, shop at company stores, live in cheaply built company housing (sometimes without water, electricity or sewer), and even be entertained by corporate-sponsored holiday events. Corporate owners doubled as landlords for these families and their properties. There was no civic representation or otherwise democratically elected municipal body. Health care and hygiene were likewise minimal, and corporations hid the truth of black lung disease, nor did they pay compensation to miners afflicted after years of coal dust affecting their lungs. And if the miner in the family could not work or was killed by any type of common mining accident, the family was evicted from company housing and forced to move elsewhere without compensation. How different is all of this from District 12? Of course, conditions gradually improved through the second half of the 20th century with the formation of the United Mine Workers of America. Not all mining towns, or companies, approached such inhumane conditions, of course, though such a way of life was more common than not especially for minority populations and people of color. Thus, Collins was perhaps too realistic in this respect, and is pointing back to historical reality of what life was like in these places during the early 20th century. All she had to do was replace a local mining company with the Capitol and President Snow.

As a scholar of religion, I noticed the passing mention of Cherokee religion in chapter 4. I confess that I am one of those people who has seen the movies but not read the Hunger Games novels. The impression I get from the films is that religion doesn’t make much of an appearance either in the districts or in Panem. Is that also true of the novels? Either way, how do you think religion likely would show up if this were a real society akin to ones that you’ve studied? (Perhaps someone will write some fan fiction exploring this…)

  • Great observation, and largely accurate as well. There are moralistic and philosophical overtones, and even breadcrumbs from Collins, but no obvious religious ones (I fear that I am treading now into your own academic arena—pun intended—so take my language here with a grain of salt.) This is true for the novels and films alike. Collins seems to have strategically omitted any reference even to remotely spiritual topics as well, let alone those of organized religion. Her focus is more on social inequality, politics, and economics—though this latter topic is more of an underlying one. That said, there have been plenty of scholarly and fan-based interpretations of how various religious figures or messages might appear in the novels, depending upon one’s perspective. For instance, self-proclaimed “Hogwarts Professor” John Granger wrote a lengthy blog post—one I’ve used within my FYS course—outlining the four layers of meaning that he and others have interpreted from the original series: namely, the literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical meanings. This latter realm of meaning is where various religious-based interpretations have surfaced, whether Collins had intended these meanings or not (I personally think not, though there are good arguments to the contrary). One of the more common interpretations actually involved Peeta (or Peter) as an icon of Christ, who is received as Bread in St. Peter’s Church, and who loves the world and every soul within it. The Peeta-as-Christ analogy can go further, with Peeta’s several suicidal-type sacrifices and his resurrection in Catching Fire. There is more beyond this, though I defer to fans and scholars alike to determine the extent to which such interpretations might be overreaching. But who knows, as Collins has embedded so much hidden meaning into this series that is nearly impossible to rule out such intentions unless she actually decides to tell us. I suppose a “postscript” to this (or Coda?) is that while there may be no obvious religious references within the saga, we certainly see a strong intersection between culture, religion, place, and music within the actual history from which Collins draws. For instance, in the early history of country and bluegrass music that I detail in my book, many of those early songs and singing groups were rooted firmly in a Christian faith. This is highly apparent with such iconic and trendsetting groups as the Carter Family (whose theme song, “Keep on the Sunny Side,” makes a direct appearance in Collins’ prequel) and Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Many of the early country and bluegrass tunes are either direct gospel pieces or rooted in that Christian genre. There is much more to uncover here as well beyond this post, of course, such as the animist faith of the Cherokee and various Native-American peoples of the Appalachians, and various African spiritual and religious traditions that certainly influenced mountain culture. So, the underlying cultural history of the central Appalachians provides us with a rich tapestry of faiths and religions that influenced the people and life ways from which Collins draws, even if this never overtly appears in her stories.
  • How might religion have shown up in the series? To hazard a couple of guesses, Collins would have needed to integrate some sort of church congregations into District 12, perhaps compared or contrasted with those of District 11 from Rue’s southern heritage. It would be cool to see contrasts in religious or spiritual traditions that might show up in different districts across Panem, ones which have developed and evolved largely on their own with little communication allowed between the districts. Collins does this with cultural geography in several ways, showcasing how some traditions and ways of life transcend the districts across Panem, while each district still maintains its own distinctive cultural ways—often closely rooted to their own livelihoods and district specialties. It was fun for me, as a cultural geographer, to notice subtle cultural differences and realize why one district may not completely understand the cultural traditions of another. A blatant example would be Finnick’s wedding in District 13, when the District 12 folks need to teach 13 how to dance and celebrate a traditional 12 wedding. In the recent prequel, the character of Sejanus practices strange rituals that leaves others bewildered, such as sprinkling bread crumbs on the deceased tributes, which his mother describes as something they do back in District 2. So it would make the series all the more colorful, I suppose, if Collins were to integrate some contrasting spiritual beliefs more directly into the diverse cultural experiences of the districts.

I didn’t know it before reading your book, but we apparently share an interest in music as well as dystopian speculative fiction. Not only music but sound more generally is a major part of the novels and the movies (obviously birdsong in particular). I mention in passing in a forthcoming textbook on the Bible and music that the soundtrack for The Hunger Games features a song by Arcade Fire called “Abraham’s Daughter.” There is obviously an interesting resonance there around the theme of the sacrifice of children, which is in essence what the districts are required to do in more ways than one. Briefly (once again directing people to your book to learn more) how does music feature in the Hunger Games stories in ways that parallel real life? Was there anything in the novels that really came into focus or took on new significance when you examined it through the lens of your work on how music functions in real life situations of socioeconomic inequity and hardship? (Do also share any particularly interesting examples of Appalachian music related to the Bible that you think I should know about and that ought to be in my book – if I can’t still include it, perhaps it can go in the second edition!)

  • Ha – yes, I have noticed your own musical interest and skills as well, sometimes shared at Butler! I nearly majored in music education at one time, and with an obsession for the trumpet and marching bands, I had at least thought of going in that direction. But all of that music training and experience has certainly helped me appreciate music history, such as what clearly shows up within this saga. This is yet another cultural and artistic realm that Collins deftly portrays, more subtly in the original series, then like a brick over the head in her prequel! In her Ballad, I like to say that Collins goes “full Covey” or “full Appalachia” in the final third of the novel, which is one thing that encouraged me to write my own book on these topics. While some fans have found themselves bored to tears with the prequel, I found it absolutely stunning and delightful. To think that Coriolanus—the future President Snow himself—was actually attending Hob concerts and tapping his foot to bluegrass music is just funny (and Coriolanus’ absolutely horrid reactions to the singing mockingjays is downright hilarious).
  • Then there’s the incredible array of Appalachian musical heritage that Collins pulls from throughout her saga, and in a big way within The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Given all I’ve written about the geography above, I’ll leave it to potential readers to enjoy this realm of regional culture that plays out in the novels. In a nutshell, though, Collins essentially takes us on a historical tour of the evolution of Appalachian folk songs and ballads into the realms of early country music, and later the bluegrass genre. Her entire prequel is set up in the pattern of a traditional Appalachian ballad, hence its name. And perhaps the centerpiece of these traditions within her novels is found in The Hanging Tree song, which has been interpreted by music historians as a pretty classic “murder ballad,” the likes of which were commonly sung and passed down through generations of rural Appalachian families. We learn much more about the origins of The Hanging Tree in the prequel, in the guitar-playing hands of Lucy Gray Baird. And we cannot ignore the absolutely splendid inclusion of the Covey within the prequel (keeping in mind that “covey” means a flock of birds), which essentially becomes Collins’ own version of a standard Appalachian bluegrass band—right down to the precise instrumentation of the founding bluegrass outfit itself, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Collins is simply a brilliant writer, and beyond that she is right on point with her smattering of geography, history, culture, music, and demographics of the central Appalachians.
  • With respect to the second part of your question about the role of music in real-life situations of hardships and challenges (to paraphrase), this is probably yet another full layer of meaning within her stories, and there is probably too much to unpack here. For starters, many Appalachian ballads and related folk songs were focused extensively on musically portraying the hardships, tragedies, crimes, and lost loves of mountain people, themselves adapting even earlier traditions from Scots-Irish or Celtic folk traditions, and blending those with the musical diversity of Native-American and African traditions that were also blending within the mountains for centuries. I uncover more of this history within my book, and the underlying theme of these historical interpretations and research is the often underestimated extent of ethnic and racial diversity that has contributed to “mountain music”. More recent research on Appalachian music history has attempted to address the earlier lack of scholarly focus on the multi-cultural roots of musical traditions and genres found in the central and southern Appalachians. I purposely pulled from relatively recent scholarship to better inform my own interpretation of “what is mountain music” and who has been responsible for its development over time. What earlier historians had left out (unwittingly or otherwise), for instance, was very clear influences of African-American musical traditions on Appalachian folk music, string bands, early country music, and then the high-octane bluegrass genre itself. The first recorded banjo players in Appalachia, for instance, were black (the banjo is derived from a similar African instrument). Many of the early country music and bluegrass stars were directly taught or influenced by black musicians who have only recently been given their rightful places in history. For instance, Bill Monroe himself owed much of his style on the mandolin to Arnold Shultz, a black guitarist and fiddler with whom Bill had played and learned from extensively as a teenager. There are many other such examples of how black and white musicians intermingled extensively even within society’s attempts at segregation. And back to “The Hanging Tree,” this has largely been interpreted as a call for traditionally oppressed populations, including black people, to rise up against power and, earlier, against slavery, as the song has serious cultural undertones to the protest songs of the Civil Rights Movement. (John Granger, for one, claims that it is difficult to think about “The Hanging Tree” without also considering the Civil Rights protest song, “Strange Fruit,” which is also themed around the lynching of black men at the hands of white southerners.)

How has teaching a class on The Hunger Games at Butler University impacted and/or been impacted by your work on the book?

  • First, I enjoyed writing about my first-year experience course in the Preface of my book, as you are correct to presume that this book is symbiotically linked to my class. Since I began teaching the course here at Butler four years ago (2017), the course has evolved to the point where I focus our first semester on the saga’s literary origins and various influences on (and within) pop culture and the YA genre, during which I inflict on the students a virtual tour of social-science and humanities disciplines that can be useful for first-year students who don’t quite know what to major in yet. Much has been written already about how the Hunger Games saga can be interpreted through various lenses of political science, psychology, sociology, and related disciplines. Then in the second (spring) semester I intently come home to my own discipline of geographical perspectives, the topics of which largely mirror those of my book’s Part 1. I tested out various draft chapters or sections on my students last year (2021) prior to its publication, which is when I discovered that students were both shocked and intrigued by the whole problematic history of Appalachian coal mining and company-built towns. Most of them had never been exposed to the realities of this history and culture before. Basically, this book encapsulates additional research and perspectives on the main topics I share with the students, namely the timeless question of just where is District 12 located, and the relevant spatial topics of place attachment and sense of place, urban patterns and settlement, cultural diffusion and immigration, world systems theory and the core-periphery model, and of course the First Law of Geography, which I hit early on in this book as well. The First Law basically states that “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than far things”. It’s basically the fundamental rule about the role of geographic distance and how proximity of places and people can influence us. Probably the most relevant application of this concept that students consider is how Katniss was able to move about her home on both sides of the fence without raising the ire of the Capitol—at least prior to Catching Fire. The First Law of Geography plays to this quite well, in that the Capitol was less concerned with strict oversight in the faraway districts, much like the Roman Empire had often looked the other way on its own northern periphery in Europe and elsewhere. Even Collins admits in an interview that Katniss should never have existed, but it was due to poor oversight and even worse fence maintenance that allowed District 12’s culture, the Hob marketplace, and various illegal activities in the woods proliferate until Katniss herself had been well trained by her father to defy the Capitol. In any case, the main themes of the chapters in Part 1 of this book largely parallel the main geographic lessons and assignments that the students undertake in various ways within my second semester. If someone essentially wishes to take my FYS class, the first part of the book is a useful substitute. As for Part 2, the Music of Appalachia, I finally have an approach to integrate that as well, though it is based on more practical, hands-on student projects rather than merely reading my chapters. For instance, I provide for them any number of detailed geographical, historical, and musical topics for which they research more on their own and become “experts” on their particular area of focus (such as the Roman origins of the Corso grand avenue within the prequel, the architectural history of the President’s House, or Covey and its replication of bluegrass instrumentation and sound). Then they teach the rest of us in brief “teaching presentations” to help them develop not only their research skills, but their public presentation skills as well. I would never have them read my full book, as that would be the ”kiss of death” for student involvement. But it can certainly be used as a jumping-off place for further inquiry and exploration of various student interests. Overall the course is a blast, and I look forward to integrating the book largely as I’ve done this past year for the first time—that is, in strategic bits and pieces.

What’s your next project?

  • My current project has nothing to do with YA fiction or the Hunger Games, I’m sorry to say. I am working on a book about the development of Singapore and the parallel upbringing and adulthood of one of the prominent tour guides there. This is getting me back to my typical scholarly interests in urban development and history that might be useful for educated visitors to this island nation.

Thank you so muchTom, for providing such detailed answers about your fantastic new book, which I hope will get lots of attention from scholars and fans alike!

A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in The Hunger Games is published by McFarland. Visit the publisher’s website for more information:

A Place Called District 12

 


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