Hunger Games Trilogy: Questioning the Violence
What do you think? How do you decide what to read and what to stay away from? Do you think that there is a larger point to The Hunger Games Trilogy? Or does it glorify violence? Can you think of any books that are disturbing but worth reading? Should there be ratings for books? What about violence in movies and video games? Do you think that violence in media and art leads to more violent behavior in the real world?
Feel free to post your opinions and comments here!
Thanks for this article. I’ve been wondering about the very young kids reading it. For teens, though, I think it should be required reading in a nation that lets grumpy old men (and a few women) send their boys and girls with guns to kill other boys and girls with guns. Surely no one could pretend that we STILL aren’t sacrificing our children in a game where adults use them as pawns for their private and public posturing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with anonymous that questioning our society is good for us all and is an especially poignant task for teens because they are in the height of forming their personal values (apart from their parents) and because they will grow into the adults that are leading our world. The social/political issues that these novels bring up are invaluable and when applied to the real world may help us to see the atrocities that exist and give us the motivation to change.
ReplyDeleteThere is something masochistic, in the sense of glorifying and inviting misery, in the novels that is unsettling to me. We live in a world that is just as violent and horrendous as the novels and I worry that the novels reinforce a hero mentality to those who choose, or choose to be manipulated, to participate in violence. The violence was gut wrenching to me, I would develop a stomach ache while reading them. Do we need to get to that level of disturbing before we are motivated to take a stand and work for a more just society, free of violence?
Well said. I agree that it is disheartening that people seem to need a level of shock and even physical nausea in order to change their thinking. I hope that the brutality of it all doesn't cause people to feel paralyzed - like there's nothing we could do to change the world. I think that talking about these issues is really important and that's one of the reasons that I am glad so many people are reading HG at the same time.
ReplyDeleteof course they are...very violent. not any more violent than what kids are exposed to daily in the mainstream news, and mass marketed video games.
ReplyDelete