I hope the most iconic photograph that comes out of the Nov. 3 election is the one of Jennifer Lawrence walking down a New York City street flashing the three finger salute from “The Hunger Games” series of movies: “If we burn; you burn with us.” She then posted on Instagram with the words: “Midterms BB. Don’t forget who burns with us. Go vote.”
There was no irony in her expression. Just a slouchy, red, white and blue outfit, dominated by blue, with a t-shirt boasting what looks like a child’s drawing of Sesame Street’s “Ernie.” Her hair was in a braid as worn by Katniss in “Hunger Games” and a jacket that had the utilitarian look of Katniss’s hunting jacket. There was no mistake she was projecting the theme of the trilogy: tyrants are not welcome here.
I went back and watched the clip of the movie where Katniss first gives the salute in response to the raised fingers of the myriad of people (old, young, different races and occupations) who had gathered for the spectacle of the reaping, a blood sport involving children. And then the quote, after shooting down a jet that had just bombed a hospital — “…you burn with us.” If only we had such super-charged arrows and the ability to use them against tyrants.
Reddit says (better than I), “The Hunger Games” is like a wake-up call about real-life power dynamics. It’s all about how the rich control everything, just like in our world. And that, to me, was what the election was about: the have and have nots. Wealth and poverty, power and violence — not Republicans and Democrats.
A Pew Research Center report that looks at statistics from 1971 to 2023 states Americans are more apart than before financially. Lower income families increased from 27% to 30% and the middle class shrunk from 61% to 51%. The upper class grew by less than the middle class lost — we’re slowly moving to a binary system of have and have nots.
And the election protest was not just in America. In Colombia, Chile, Belgium, Germany, India, Brazil, Albania, Serbia, Portugal, Italy, Spain and France, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of citizens, mostly students and young people, protest inequality and inexcusable wealth.
So I see the raised three fingers as not so much a congratulatory salute as a warning. “Don’t forget who burns with us.” Those that erroneously believe they are flame proof when desperation flicks the Bic.
Elizabeth L. Hodges lives in Concord.