Anyone else horrified at the subject matter of the Hunger Games? I saw a movie preview last

[applegrove]

week and I am horrified. Saw some mom's being interviewed on the tv talking about how their nine year old loved the book and it's better that a mom know about it than have the kids read it on the sly. I'm so old. I don't get zombies either. What will it mean for kids growing up that they are so desensitized to murder as sport?

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. No more horrified than Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". ***spoliers inside***

The plot is about rebellion against a regime that allows for games like the Hunger Games. As the series continues, the rebellion grows. The book (and I am sure the movie is the same) is more about the goodness of Katniss and Peeta and less about the killing.
It's kind of like "The Running Man" with an actual plot.

[Phentex]

23. I thought about The Lottery after I read this book...

One of my boys had read The Lottery in school, the other had not. In my memory, The Lottery was a short story that I read and discussed in class in maybe 8th grade. When I looked it up online, I found the entire story could print on one page! That story haunted me when I was a kid!

I think The Hunger Games is more the way you describe it. The topic is hard to relay to someone without sounding extremely violent, but the story itself doesn't "read" that way.

I will be going to see this movie with a friend of mine and a pack of her daughter's teen friends. I would not be going except my friend needs help corralling this group.

Otherwise, I would have waited for uverse to show it.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Yup.

It's why I don't think this is going to be strictly for children.

There are going to be some very heavy themes that will attract adults and the sci-fi groups.

[siligut]

3. You mean the way we were desensitized?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/

The Running Man (1987)

A wrongly-convicted man must try to survive a public execution gauntlet staged as a TV game show.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/

TRON (1982)

A hacker is literally abducted into the world of a computer and forced to participate in gladiatorial games where his only chance of escape is with the help of a heroic security program.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/

Logan's Run (1976)

An idyllic sci-fi future has one major drawback: life must end at 30.

I agree with you, there is just so much violence in entertainment, and it gets a pass while conservatives are worried about sex. Crazy world we live in.

[bluedigger]

6. It boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Queen Pasiphae slept with a bull sent by Zeus, and gave birth to Minotaur, a creature half man - half bull. King Minos was embarrassed, but did not want to kill the Minotaur, so he hid the monster in the Labyrinth constructed by Daedalus at the Minoan Palace of Knossos.

According to the myth, Minos was imprisoning his enemies in the Labyrinth so that the Minotaur could eat them. The labyrinth was such a complicated construction that no one could ever find the way out alive.

Son of Minos, Androgeus, went to Athens to participate to the Panathenaic Games, but he was killed during the Marathon by the bull that impregnated his mother Pasiphae. Minos was infuriated, and demanded Aegeus the king of Athens to send seven men and women every year to the Minotaur to advert the plague caused by the death of Androgeus.

The third year, Theseus, son of Aegeus decided to be one of the seven young men that would go to Crete, in order to kill the Minotaur and end the human sacrifices to the monster. King Aegeus tried to make him change his mind but Theseus was determined to slay the Minotaur. http://www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/myth-of-theseus-and-minotaur/

Clearly violence in entertainment is a scourge of modern society.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. the premise behind Hunger Games

has twelve districts giving up two children each as sacrifices. They are taken to a recreated environmental arena where game keepers set up situations to force the players to fight with the intention of killing each other. We are talking about eleven year olds to eighteen years of age.

The kids form alliances and hunt each other down. Meanwhile, the people at the capitol are entertained, watching on televised screens. Nobody from the capitol has to give up their children.

I think that we're pushing the envelope. However, it was the next logical step.

[knitter4democracy]

12. My students often make the connection to reality tv and high school.

The high school theory is rather interesting.

[Baitball Blogger]

14. Actually, the author got the idea from

flipping channels. She combined reality t.v. with what she saw on some news channel that was reporting on a battle scene.

She also used what she new of mythology (I believe it had something to do with feeding children to the Monitor) as well as the Roman gladiators. Panem, the name of the capitol, comes from the latin: "Panem itself comes from the Latin expression 'Panem et Circenses' which translates into 'Bread and Circuses'". This term refers to the techniques used by the Roman Empire to keep the masses happy and docile."

[siligut]

25. This makes bluedigger's point

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and interest. I am not disagreeing with Applegrove at all, I am just reassuring her that we have been exposed to extreme violence for ages, since recorded human history, and most of us remain civil.

[Baitball Blogger]

26. I never saw bluedigger's post. Thanks for pointing it out.

[siligut]

27. This is a great discussion of Dystopian fiction . . . and the bible

I just hope it addresses Applegrove's concerns.

[jmowreader]

19. Everyone but the people at the capitol have to surrender children so they can kill each other?

Is this a teen's book or the House Republican Caucus?

[av8rdave]

28. It's a real life story then

In the real world, it's called the war in Afghanistan.

[hlthe2b]

4. Seems like a "wet-dream" for Republican audiences, frankly....

No offense to those DUers who may disagree, but I am speaking only to the premise and the preview I saw.

[ScreamingMeemie]

5. I would agree only if I didn't know how the story ends

[Withywindle]

17. Well, except that it's supposed to be a very dystopian world

and it's kind of a super-dark satire, and the heroes are the characters who rebel against it. We're not supposed to be GLAD these games are happening, after all.

Haven't seen the movie yet, but I've read the first book. I think it's definitely too dark and scary for young children, but I think teens can definitely handle it. I also think the values in the book are not RW AT. ALL. Very much the opposite.

Also, the book has more intense awareness of class issues than you see in most YA lit. The protagonist is a poor girl from Appalachia who learned how to hunt to feed her family (it's not a coincidence that the same actress from 'Winter's Bone' was cast in the role, IMO), and she is very acutely aware of many gradations of have- and have-not; it's a running theme throughout the story.

[MiddleFingerMom]

7. Stephen King said the most horrifying novel he knows is Shirley Jackson's, "The Lottery".

.
.
.
It probably makes the top 5 or 10 of every list of horror fiction down through the centuries.
.
.
.
Me? What I can (only) surmise about "The Hunger Games" seems much less horrifying than
Margaret Atwood's, "The Handmaid's Tale" (both movie versions sucked, but the book is amazing)
mainly because it's really not out of the realm of possibility -- look at what the Conservatives
are trying to do once again).
.
.
.

[applegrove]

11. We read "the Lottery" in high school. It was appropriate then because it teaches you

the horror that groups of human beings can be. I was just thinking that the hunger games seems geared towards younger kids. Now that I know the kids rebel against their masters I'm put a little more at ease.

[Chan790]

9. Yes.

The literary theme of public execution for public entertainment is a tired one. Write something original.

[femmocrat]

10. I agree, applegrove.

It sounds way too violent. I don't get the fascination with vampires either. Or violent video games. I'm glad my "kids" are now adults!

JMO.

[knitter4democracy]

13. No more so than Lord of the Flies or Brave New World.

If anything, it's less scary than many of the books we make them read in high school, and considering how my reluctant readers have literally fought over copies of the book (never had to break up a fight over a book before), I think it's a great thing.

[Arugula Latte]

15. I liked The Hunger Games and I'm taking my daughter to opening night.

And here are some sick, twisted stories from the Bible recreated in Legos:

http://www.inspirationalchristians.org/just-for-fun/10-gruesome-bible-scenes-recreated-in-lego.html

Disclaimer: I don't agree with the plug at the end about "believing" the Bible ... It's fiction just like The Hunger Games.

[Catma]

16. For something really messed up

Check out an older movie and manga called battle royal. From what I've seen in the previews for the hunger games it's just a much lighter and less gruesome version of battle royal.

[nolabear]

18. No, it's a typical dystopian YA series. It's pretty good.

It's just like fairy tales, you take away the responsible adults, leave the kids to be heroic against a huge danger and bring up some fairly easy to absorb moral and philosophical questions. It's somewhere between Harry Potter and Brave New World with a little Lottery thrown in for good measure.

[Kablooie]

21. And don't forget Lord of the Flies. A great, horrifying dystopian world.

[Kablooie]

20. The books are very good but there are haunting and horrifying moments.

Some characters you get to know and love are killed.
Moments are sad, touching and shocking.
It's an extreme emotional rollercoaster.
And each of the three books raise the stakes and create larger obstacles.
But ultimately good triumphs but it has to work extremely hard to get there with many sacrifices along the way.

All this is what makes the books so effective.

Good stories are based on conflict. The more intense the conflict the more involving the story becomes.

Kids who are not enemies but are forced by society to kill each other for the public's entertainment is a damned intense story.

[MrScorpio]

22. Ever check out BATTLE ROYALE?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266308/

[sarge43]

24. You mean like Grimm fairy tales, Lord of the Flies, classic Disney animation, Wizard of Oz

Speaking of the Wiz, the first time I saw that classic, it scared the hell out of me.