Met Gala vs The Capitol? – Is there much of a difference?

‘Garden of Time’ was the theme of Anna Wintour’s 2024 Met Gala, a night that gave us a lot of gorgeous dystopian looks. I don’t know about you but every year I look forward to the Met Gala, I love seeing who’s there and what they are wearing. This year felt different though, I was still excited for the Met Gala, but it felt like the Gala and its guests were all acting oblivious to the cost-of-living crisis, Palestine and everything else that is happening in the world right now. But that is just the way the world is going, – celebrities and influencers think they are so much better than the working class. We are living in the ‘influencer downfall era’. Influencers nowadays are becoming too out of touch with reality and their viewers. They really need to start acknowledging their privilege, or there will be an even bigger downfall of the ‘influencer’ than there already has been.

In the recent media, many people have been comparing the Met Gala, celebrities, and the working class to the Hunger Games ‘Capitol’, its people, and the citizens of the districts. But what is ‘The Capitol’? The Capitol is a fictional dystopian city from ‘The Hunger Games’ series where the wealthiest and most powerful citizens live. ‘The Capitol’ is also the name of the government that ruled over ‘Panem’ – a totalitarian nation that once was North America. The citizens of The Capitol tend to have very integral roles and are known for their very luxurious lifestyles. They are seen as the elite – the gods that power over the mortals. While the government in The Capitol take full control over Panem, celebrities decide what we should wear, how skinny we should be, what products we should be wearing etc. Kind of like a dictatorship where the celebrities are the dictators who hold all the power, and we are their little minions doing exactly what they tell us to do. There’s a scene in ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ where one of The Capitol’s citizens offers Peeta, a citizen of District 12, a liquid which will make him sick when he tells the man that he is full. This contrasts with celebrities giving weight loss advice, and glamorising smoking and the use of Ozempic to become skinny, but I will get into that another day.

Citizens of The Capitol enjoy lavish parties with endless food and drink while citizens of the districts are starving and try anything to find food. While The Capitol enjoy their parties, 23 children prepare themselves for a game of death, contrasting celebrities attending the extravagantly exclusive met gala while children and families all around the world are dying, not even able to put food on the table.

© Met Gala / Zendaya // The Hunger Games: Catching Fire