Posted on 03/19/2012 7:03:50 PM PDT by Domandred
“The Hunger Games” by Susan Collins makes it to the big screen this week, meaning the audience made aware of the book’s dystopian sentiments is bound to expand from its already more than 23.5 million copies sold.
-- snip
The message board for “independent, grass-roots conservatism,” Free Republic,” also has a discussion on the ultimate political goal of the book. One commenter writes, “I‘ve heard some conservatives claiming that it’s a politically conservative message, but I’m not convinced.” Here are some of the responses:
Onelifetogive: The first two seem to have(at least) an anti-big-govt bent. Those opposing the big-govt are the heros.
IYAS9YAS: I took it as a struggle against oppression and a fight for freedom. I think the ending was a warning to not become that which you despised and fought against to begin with.
Albionin: I think the theme of the books is you can’t keep the human spirit down forever. Eventually the natural yearning for liberty will overcome any repression. I also think the world of the Hunger Games is a fictional representation of North Korea. People there are running the gauntlet not to entertain the elite but to escape, but everything else is eerily similar to that country.
Personal Responsibility: I’ve read all three books. The political commentary is not as cut and dried as “Conservative vs. Liberal”. It’s more like an all powerful state abusing its citizens, a spark ignites revolution and what the state will do to keep power. The message of the book is reminiscent of the message in 1984 — all powerful government is inherently corrupt and evil — but they don’t really get to that part of the story until the 2nd book and it’s not really emphasized until the 3rd.
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
Courtesy pings. You were quoted in this article.
“The Hunger Games is a young adult novel”
lol...Why bother?
I’ve read all three book, thought they were riveting, and am dismayed by these articles. I fear that Hollywood is going to try to play up the political angle and will obviously try to turn it into some sort of left-wing parable, but the books (particularly the first one) are simply flat-out action that should ordinarily translate well to the screen. The movie adaptation of the first book should be something like the first Terminator movie or Rambo 2; if there is any political element, we’ve been had.
Why bother for Hunger Games or for ‘young adult?’ Cause if for ‘young adult’ you’re dismissing quite a few established literary classics.
I’m not saying Hunger Games is on that level, I’m saying don’t laugh at the demographic targeted.
I read all three. Good read. I have to say that while written for teenage girls in the Twilight tradition, the books are very violent. As in...”I drew my bow and shot an arrow through his heart” . Death comes cheap and human life is expendable. I guess that might be part of the message.
On the other hand the book is totally non-sexual to the extreme. There is never a burning in her loins and while she is naked in a few passages, it’s void of any sexual context. In one strange passage her teenage boyfriend spends the night on a train just “holding” her. Can you say blue balls?
Surely you know that hundreds of literary classics fit that description at one time?
If not - don’t bother.
Both points I thought about while reading the books. Very violent for the age and gender target, but part of the story/message. Secondly there was AMPLE opportunity for the author to go down the young adult pre-marital sex route but she never went there. The characters were naked for some scenes, but as mentioned not in a sexual way at all.
I tortured myself trying to read the first Twilight book and couldn’t go on, the first movie made me want to gouge my eyes out for wasting my time.
I gobbled up the Hunger Games trilogy though. Granted while reading it I was thinking in the back of my head “this is written to catch movie royalties, not be a literary masterpiece”
I read all three. Good read. I have to say that while written for teenage girls in the Twilight tradition, the books are very violent. As in...”I drew my bow and shot an arrow through his heart” . Death comes cheap and human life is expendable. I guess that might be part of the message.
On the other hand the book is totally non-sexual to the extreme. There is never a burning in her loins and while she is naked in a few passages, it’s void of any sexual context. In one strange passage her teenage boyfriend spends the night on a train just “holding” her. Can you say blue balls?
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read all three. These are young girl romances with a dystopian setting. Every girl’s dream, two men who love her, and although death is horrificly portrayed, our heroine’s virtue remains unsullied.
Do you think Scholastic should be publishing porno’s or something?
Well, I'm hungry and watching a baseball game...is that what it is about?
No not at all. I was contrasting the violence to the sex (or the lack thereof). It’s like the sexual dimension of her personality was nonexistant, but the violence side was hyperactive.
Liberal or Conservative?
It is to laugh ... Katniss Everdeen is a 16 year old Sarah Palin. She shoots squirrels and rabbits through the eye with a bow and arrow and guts them in a couple minutes.
Most of the districts, including her District 12, just want to be left alone by an intrusive, tyrannical central government. The citizenry of the `Capitol’ is made up of pampered, affected/effete, barbarous modern Romans.
The Capitol, led by President Snow (Donald Sutherland who should be great in this role) requires that each district provide two `Tributes’—young people between the ages of 12 and 18—by lottery for the Games at which they fight to the death as punishment for defying the central authority 75 years earlier.
Most of the districts are extremely oppressed—severely disciplined for minor transgressions, subject to execution for possessing weapons or `poaching,’ even though many in District 12 are starving.
If the left is trying to say that the `Hunger Games’ is a parable for their cause (say, for the fine young Occupy brats) that’s simply risible. Poor people in this country sell food stamps for liquor and tobacco; there are no `hollow days’ for Obama’s 30%.
Finally, Katniss and her boyfriend Gale are survivalists, preppers and bow-strung `gun nuts.’ Her friend Peeta is a hard working baker and has courage, humor and fidelity, so it would be just as impossible for him to kowtow to a dictatorial central authority, to the evil President Snow. They would eat Occupy New York or anyone who showed up saying, “We’re from the Capitol and we’re here to help you.”
I’ve read them and they are a great glimpse of what a totalitarian state looks like-—much like The Brave New World and 1984——only people still reproduce the normal way and in families with a mother and father. Right now England is removing the words Bride and Bridegroom and wife and husband from all books and documents——so to re-eduacate and normalize the abolition of family as we know it and Marx envisioned-—that and the abolition of religion which is done in this book. Control words and you control the ideas.
Other than that-—it is a perfect glimpse of the total depravity of the rulers who use people for their “games” -—very much like the gladiator games in Rome with interesting technological twists. There is total control over everyone’s life. You have to “sneak” and break “laws” at many times to just eat and survive. Rulers have no humanity whatsoever and they watch grisly killings for entertainment—of children basically. Good picture of where obamanation is headed.
It is well written book and I know many older adults who love it as much as the younger ones.
I agree. I picked up the first book out of curiosity and read it straight through in a couple of days. There is a teenage rebellion theme that is played out with the government as the authoritarian power. Nothing wrong with that, IMO. Our youth need a heroine who knows privation, can excel in survival and who refuses to comply with insanity. Yes, violent and dystopian, but so is the world in which the kids today are growing up. There was grief and anger at some deaths and the main characters seemed mature enough to understand where their disgust should be directed. There was self-sacrifice and a strong sense of family, too. Much better as a role model than love sick drama princesses pining for over-sexed vampires. So far, the male protagonists also seem like decent role models. Competent, kind, insightful and self-controlled...not bad candidates to show up looking to go out with your daughter. I particularly liked that the District people mimicked and snickered at the Capital accents. I immediately thought of the typical NPR voice.
This is a light read, even for youth. But, given the world as it is today, I approve of this series if it sparks some serious thought about government, family, survival and competency among teenagers. I believe it may do so.
I will not only read the next two books, but I think Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss is brilliant casting and I will view the film. I was moved by her performance in Winter’s Bone. I could see Ree when I read about Katniss. However, I think I will wait until the next 2 books are out in paperback and the movie is available on DVD. Time passes quickly at my age and my circle of friends are not what would be termed *trendy*. LOL! I may be the only one I know who has read the book.
Sounds like the opposite of what publik skoolz want these days.
I’ve known people who have read Atlas Shrugged and 1984, and took them as validation of hard left libertarianism, essentially anarcho-communism, before. Some will only see what they want to see in any given literary or cinematic work.
In all my days of moving in those circles, I never could quite grasp how anyone ever though a totalitarian government would be anything but ... well, totalitarian? Some magical benevolence befalls the land, so they can get bombed and have sex to their juvenile heart’s content, while everything they’d ever want or need just materializes for free?
Huh?
Given all that, I have no doubt that this trilogy as described will also be misconstrued in the same twisted manner.
I’m reading book same time as just started SHTF prepped stuff
They sound like written by same person
The hinting etc is very Bosnia
Only liberal insanity could explain thinking Hunger Games is anything but anti leftist totalitarian.
As many have pointed out here, modern liberalism is a form of mental disease.
It requires an ability to `doublethink’ as in 1984: Winston Smith’s torturer OBrien was as mad as a hatter, but he had his hand on the rheostat.
How do you explain massive further spending to address a huge deficit (spending problem)? Or setting about to bring peace to the middle east—after winning the Nobel Peace prize, having been in office ten days—by starting more wars and encouraging insurrections?
“Hope and change” and freedom is slavery. They never learned critical thinking from their `cool’ professors and now they’re as crazy as s***-house rats.
You can find political cant everywhere, but `ignorance is freedom’ to sheep like left-wing idealogues: They will read somewhere a fatuous explanation that Katniss is actually a Che-like freedom fighter and will eat that with a spoon.
We were discussing this in my prayer group last week, because several of us have teenage children. My daughter is going with a group of girls (and some mothers) to see the movie on Saturday. (Dang, movies are expensive these days, if you don’t go to the cheap show in the crummy part of town!)
I would rather, in books or movies for “young adults,” have violence than romance/sex. Why? For one thing, because fiction-type violence is not available to them in real life - no shooting arrows through anyone’s heart, no gladiatorial combat. If they want to practice archery or martial arts, it’s going to be under controlled conditions with highly-trained adult supervision. Secondly, they universally recognize that the violence is dangerous and harmful, not fun and pleasant.
Romance and sex, on the other hand, are ubiquitously available even for young preteens. It’s consistently presented in books, music, and tv/movies as enjoyable, pleasant, and without negative consequences. I like to amuse myself by “translating” the popular songs into plain English ... “I’m a loser who won’t commit, but have sex with me anyway, okay?” ... while my 14-year-old yells, “You’re ruining it!”
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