I woke up this morning to find an email in my inbox--a post on a fiction writers loop of which I am a member--that contained a nifty little diatribe against The Hunger Games, touting it as horror and as a book that promotes teen gang violence.
Oh. My. God.
Seriously???
A story in which teens must hunt to survive, and are FORCED by a corrupt GOVERNMENT to participate in a brutal game in order to not have their district starve. Teens who are not violent by nature, and who want nothing more than to not have to participate. Sure, some are raised as warriors, but they have it drilled into them their whole lives--it is not a choice they make.
The biggest issue I had with this person's take is that she's judging the whole series based on the first book. If she continued, she'd see that the story turns to one of rebellion against this government that has oppressed the people for so long. It's about abolishing the violence of the Hunger Games, not encouraging it!
I recently posted on THE CHEESECAKE THICKENS about this very thing--people taking certain things, like violence and horror, out of context. Not reading the whole story, not listening to the whole song, not watching the movie through to the end--and then making the judgement that the book/song/movie is glorifying those things. Go check it out and tell us what your take is on the topic.
