Caesar Flickerman

"*Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what’s her name?*"
―Caesar Flickerman asking Peeta whom he loves[src]
**Caesar Flickerman** is the host for the Hunger Games. He is famous for turning any conversation around for the positive, and is known to change the color of his lips, hair, and eyelids for each Hunger Games. He always wears a midnight blue suit with small lightbulbs decorating it. He has been doing interviews for over 35 years, and according to Katniss he remained virtually the same.

## Biography

### The 74th Hunger Games

In the 73rd Hunger Games, his color was crimson and he looked like he was bleeding. Katniss says that his look in the 74th Hunger Games looked much better. He is shown to help tributes in each district with their interviews. In that year, his hair, lips and eyelids were dyed powder blue. While Caesar interviews Rue, they discuss her chances of winning, because the odds are against her. Rue says that she is fast and if they can't catch her they can't kill her and to not count her out, to which Caesar replies "*I wouldn't in a million years*."

While interviewing Katniss, he helps her because she doesn't do well in front of cameras. For example, when he asks Katniss what she liked the most since she came to the Capitol, she answers, "The lamb stew." He remarks that he can eat it by buckets and makes a horrified face when he asks the crowd if it shows. The crowd reassures him that it doesn't.

When he interviewed Peeta, the two of them were described as a good team, feeding off of each other and bantering easily. It was to Caesar in this interview that Peeta first revealed his love for Katniss, shocking everyone. The interview was said to have gone down amazingly with the audience.

After the Games were over and they had an interview with Katniss and Peeta, he mainly conversed with Peeta since Katniss is not very talented when it comes to speaking for the cameras and televised interviews.

### The 75th Hunger Games

"*We have never seen anything like it before... And we will never see anything like it again.*"
―Caesar Flickerman in *The Hunger Games: Catching Fire*[src]
As he did with the previous Games, Caesar helped the tributes in the 75th Hunger Games with their interviews. This year, his hair, lips and eyelids were dyed lavender. While interviewing the tributes, his questions were met with snide remarks from tributes. Most of them were bad mouthing the Capitol as a sign of rebellion before they went into the arena for a second time. When he interviewed Katniss, he mentions her upcoming nuptials to Peeta. As per Snow's request, Katniss was wearing her wedding dress. Katniss was unaware that Cinna had made a

    few adjustments so that as she twirled, the dress would morph into a mockingjay outfit. Caesar then interviews Peeta, who claims that he had been unofficially married to Katniss for months and that she is pregnant. While both claims are false, they explain Katniss' sudden "breakdown"

    and obtain sympathy. This revelation caused the audience to go wild, upstaging all of the other tributes' interviews (as Peeta also did the year before). This also upset the Capitol audience enormously because they had grown to love Katniss and Peeta, and the thought that they would not both survive after being so close to each other, and that an unborn baby would probably be killed in the arena, overwhelmed them. This resulted in some of them supporting the rebellion, not the Games.

At the end of Caesar's interviews, all of the victors stood and held hands as a show of unity; this influenced the Capitol audience further still.

### Capture of Peeta Mellark

In *Mockingjay*, Caesar interviews a tortured Peeta. Caesar asks him questions like how he feels about the rebels and Katniss. While Peeta is explaining, he tells him and the audience how it feels to be in the Hunger Games, which fascinates them because no victor has ever spoken of this. Caesar tries to make Peeta as comfortable as possible during the interview. It is cut short when Peeta asks to go back to his cell, due to Caesar's comments on Katniss and her place in the rebellion.

Caesar interviews Peeta for the second time. This interview is short, during this interview the two exchange empty comments to each other. Caesar asks Peeta about the rumors of Katniss shooting a propo. Peeta tells him that she probably doesn't know what they are doing to her and to not trust them. The last thing Peeta says before the interview ends is for Katniss to find out what they are doing. Caesar interviews Peeta a third time. During the interview, Peeta states he thinks they should end the war with a ceasefire because if they have a war it could mean the end of all living things. Caesar questions Peeta's statement and asks him more on his thoughts of the rebellion. Peeta warns the rebels of the impending bomb attack from the Capitol on District 13. The interview is cut short when the Peacekeepers go on stage and beat Peeta and take him away to receive a punishment.

### Against the Rebellion

In *The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2*, Caesar is featured in a Capitol announcement about the alleged death of Katniss and Squad 451 in a Peacekeeper attack, when actually only Leeg 1 and Leeg 2 were killed. His ultimate fate is not revealed.

## Personality

    Caesar is known for being helpful and brings out the best in the tributes. Katniss also notes that she thinks Caesar acts like this so that the tributes don't get worried or nervous. He is also known to like the Capitol's lamb stew. He thinks of himself as a little on the "tubby" side and loves Katniss' interview dress in the first book and asks her to twirl. It says in the book that Caesar can make a weak response into a memorable one. Like most Capitol citizens and TV personale, Flickerman has had noticeable surgery done on his face as noted by Katniss, and is rather interested in the arts of fashion as displayed with his vibrant and colorful costumes and suits. He is well liked by the Capitol citizens audiences, yet seems to have some sympathy for the tributes of the Games.

Stanley Tucci remarked that he thought Caesar to be "creepy, with the sort of false generosity and duplicity." Others view Flickerman's deameanor more as that of an amiable talk show host looking only to make the interviews memorable to the audience.

## Relationships

In the novel, Claudius Templesmith and Caesar have no known relationship. But in the film adaptation, while watching the chariot rides and actual Hunger Games, Claudius and Caesar are shown to be agreeing on many things and laughing.

## Trivia

* It is unknown whether any particular real-world talk show hosts were inspirational to the character of Caesar Flickerman, though Stanley Tucci did suggest that some existed in a special feature on the Blu-Ray of *Catching Fire.* It appears that Caesar is a sort of conglomerate of them in general. For example, one might think his last name to be a reference to David Letterman. However, his portrayal is perhaps closer to Leno, which if intentional would mean that Ms. Collins is subtly mocking Jay. His personality seems to resemble Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, also known as Baghdad Bob. Just as Baghdad Bob lied about Saddam, he lied about Katniss being dead. He has the personality of White House press secretary Sean Spicer who lied about the crowd in Trump's inauguration. Just as Sean was known for lying, so was Caesar. It is highly unlikely that he was based on either one.
	+ Another underrated analysis of the character would be Flickerman's real life alternate, Ri Chun-hee, a North Korean broadcaster known as the "woman in pink". Chun-hee was both the face and voice of propaganda for Kim Jong-un's totalitarian government the same way Flickerman was for President Snow's totalitarian regime. Both are known for being flashy in terms of fashion and seemingly sympathetic and welcoming in terms of personality but menacing considering the figures and ideals they support. In November 2017, Chun-hee was the first to report North Korea's nuclear missile testing, which sent the international society--particularly that of the United States--into a panic. A few years before, she was the first to deliver the news that North Korea's former leader, Kim Jong-il, had died. In the second part of the adaptation of Mockingjay, Flickerman was the first to formally announce the supposed death of Katniss Everdeen. Another interesting parallel between the two would be the fact that Chun-hee was forced to constrain her grief when delivering the news of Jong-il's death while Flickerman had to constrain his sympathy for the tributes during the Quarter Quell special he hosted when the audience stood up to oppose the Hunger Games given Katniss' false pregnancy that Peeta announced.  In the first novel, Katniss notes that she remembers Flickerman hosting the games for a while, and that he had not aged. Chun-hee was also notable for her longtime standing as a broadcaster for the North Korean news network.
* Author Suzanne Collins stated in 2011, while the first film was in production, that Caesar survived the rebellion and fall of the Capitol as he was not directly affiliated with Snow.

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