The Monstrous Fantastic Conference Paper Abstracts - International ...

of cannibalism, ghostly seduction is almost exclusively sexually violent. The seductive engagement of ghosts and the sexual violenceaccompanying that engagement are the central points of exploration of this proposal.97. (CYA) Reflecting Reality: YA Dystopias and Their Real World Contexts Captiva AChair: Alaine MartausUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignThe Monstrosity of Humans in The Hunger Games: How We Got There and Why We're So EnthralledAndrew SeegerConcordia University WisconsinImagine a game of Tribond where you had to uncover the common bond between reality television, the Iraq War, and the Greek myth ofTheseus. What would you come up with? Author Suzanne Collins came up with The Hunger Games, a post-apocalyptic YA science-fiction trilogy.With this knowledge, one can certainly make connections not only with current reality TV shows like Survivor, Amazing Race, and TheBachelor/The Bachelorette, but also with stories like Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Stephen King’s novels The Long Road and The RunningMan. Other lesser-known works also share characteristics with the trilogy, including early reality show American Gladiators, Australian filmTurkey Shoot (Escape 2000) and Japanese films Battle Royale and Series 7: The Contenders. The Hunger Games reflects not only connectionswith literature and other media, but also with society’s real-life fascination with violence, all-too-real historic events, current protests anduprisings against authoritarian powers, and dystopian visions of the future. In this paper I would like to explore the different ways in whichthese novels capture the Zeitgeist and our addiction to violence that goes at least as far back as the Roman Colosseum.The Hunger Games as Social Commentary: Monsters R UsScott D. Vander PloegMadisonville Community CollegeThe Hunger Games concept is being regularly referenced in relation to dystopian societies. Reviewers and critics are commonly caught up inmeasuring the degree to which Collins is presenting us with the new Handmaiden’s Tale, or 1984. While that is a reasonably true perception, itis also a distraction from the main lines of development that Collins is working from, the scaricty-strife story. Instead of focusing onutopic/dystopic tropes, a Marxist-reading of Hunger Games reveals a strategy that is two-pronged: a condemnation of totalitarianism and anunderdog advocacy to build reader sympathy for the protagonists—who are emphatically class tagged. It seems clear in the first of the trilogythat Collins is more focused on establishing characters we care about, and jogging our sympathies by providing them with humble backgrounds,almost Dickensian—“please, sir, may I have some more…”. The dystopic Panem government is a faceless monstrosity, no doubt, but thenarrative is less focused on emphasizing this than it is in giving us the characters of Katniss and Peeta.We the Monsters: Feeding the System and Devouring Ourselves in M.T. Anderson’s FeedBrandi J. VenableRutgers University-CamdenThis presentation will focus on the young adult novel Feed (2002), written by M. T. Anderson. In his novel, Anderson presents a futuristicconsumer-driven culture controlled by corporations. Humans are implanted with “feeds” at an early age, which stream the latest trends andsway purchasing decisions. Natural resources are depleted or polluted, and environments are mere artificial creations. The plot follows thenarrator Titus and his relationship with Violet, a girl who resists the feed. Anderson shows what happens to their relationship when Violet’sfeed ultimately malfunctions, endangering her life. In Feed, Anderson illustrates how the natural world, privacy, relationships, free will, andlanguage are all susceptible to decay and destruction in a culture with a monstrous appetite for material goods. Although the book is gearedtowards a teenage audience, it is pertinent to more than one generation of consumers. The book serves as a fictional platform that encouragesdialogue about the horrifying possibilities of capitalism, corporations, and technology if left unchecked. Approaching the text from a Marxistperspective, I will argue that the monsters of today are more ambiguous than the monsters of the past, and are often disguised behind humanvisages. In this dystopian novel, fetishizing material culture comes at the price of objectifying each other and eroding human relationships.Perhaps the most adept function of Anderson’s work is to demonstrate the dualistic nature of media and consumption. It is at onceinhumane—breeding corruption and greed—and also incredibly seductive and alluring (a dichotomy which is present in other monstrousbeings). It is the latter characteristics that drive us to continuously feed the system. By doing so, we become our own monsters, consumed byan insatiable desire for material objects to such an extreme that we devour our humanity in the process of acquisition.