David Duong

Soc 001

November 19th 2017

Professor Alvarado

Project 1: Video/DVD Analysis

The video that I chose to analyze is the trailer of the popular film/novel The Hunger

Games. Originally a book written by Suzanne Collins, it was made into a film released in 2012.

This book is about a poor family living in a place known as District 12. Its corrupt government

has an annual survival competition where two random people from each district participate and

fight to the death. The last one standing is then rewarded and showered in riches and a luxury

lifestyle. Based on the trailer you can clearly see that most of the people are part of a low class,

while the rich feed off of the poorer people. However, the main protagonist of this film is

fighting the system and doing what she needs to do to survive for her family.

Auguste Comte founded a discipline known as Praxeology. This is the study of human

action, and is believed that the way humans behave and act is on purpose through their own

choices, contrary to reflexive behaviors out of their control, such as burping, sneezing, itching,

etc. Based on what I know about Comte, I believe he would interpret this video as.

Karl Marx being the founder of conflict theory, meaning competition in social standards

and how the rich or more powerful people can control the poor and less powerful people, would

probably see this video/film as just that. This film is a perfect example of his theory, displaying a

broken government feeding off of the lives of the poorer people living in it. It clearly shows how

some people need to work/labor in order to find food, while others can have no worries about

when their next meal will be.

 Emile Durkeim wanted to find out how society could maintain and continue with all the

different changes in the world, ranging from political change, social change, technological, etc.

He wanted to discover how things stay together in society, and how things fall apart. I feel that

Durkheim would interpret this film as a way society can fall. With this film displaying a point of

view on a corrupt government, hell use it to demonstrate how social status can cause a downfall

in society if the rich continue to dominate and exploit the poor.

The paradigm that is most and clearly represented in this video/film is of course the

Conflict theory paradigm made by Karl Marx. It is shown by the main protagonist and her family

living in a poor and broken down society, where they must participate in a drawing to see who

will fight to the death for the entertainment of the rich and the public. It shows the journey of this

young girl and her ways of fighting through the system and getting her own way despite her poor

social status.