After hearing about the whole Hunger Games obsession, I first wrote it off as a bunch of crazy Twilight fans that needed their new "fix." However, after my cousin suggested them to me, I read them. They are very well done. I don't like to call things "art" too often, but when it is, it must be given proper credit. The storyline, the writing style, and the execution of the story is so good, it is breath-taking! The content of the story, however, is not good (in the moral sense of the word). These should not be children's books. I was at first quite upset for how dark it is, but when the author shared her reason for writing the books, it made much more sense. The reason for writing the books was to show how immoral and dark the media can be.
Yet once we know this, it begs another question: "Why are the Hunger Games books so popular?" I would like to say that it is because of the recognition of the great storyline and writing style, but I don't think that is all there is to it. It seems that the violence and the dark parts contributed to its success. If this is true, then that indicates that the whole point the author was trying to make (about the media being an atrociously and unnecessarily dark medium) was all but overlooked for the entertainment value that we get out of such darkness. In other words, we have become so desensitized as a culture that the shock-and-awe repulsion factor had no effect! That the whole point of trying to make people stop and realize the junk they are feeding their minds was never realized because they saw the even more twisted junk in the book as just more entertainment. This kind of thing makes me lose hope for American culture. But who is to blame?
And I would turn on the TV, but it's so embarrassing,
To see all the other people, I don't know what they mean.
And it was magic at first when they spoke without sound,
But now this world is gonna hurt.
You'd better turn that thing down.
Turn it around.
"Well, it wasn't me," says the boy with the gun,
"Sure I pulled the trigger, but it needed to be done,
Because life's been killing me ever since it begun.
You can't blame me, 'cuz I’m too young."
"You can't blame me; sure the killer was my son,
But I didn't teach him to pull the trigger of the gun.
It's the killing on this TV screen.
You can't blame me; it's those images he's seen."
"Well, you can't blame me," says the media man,
"Well I wasn't the one who came up with the plan.
And I just point my camera what the people want to see.
Man, it's a two-way mirror and you can't blame me."
"You can't blame me," says the singer of the song
Or the maker of the movie which he bases life on.
"It's only entertainment and as anyone can see,
Its smoke machines and make up man, you can't fool me."
It was you, it was me, it was every man.
We've all got the blood on our hands.
We only receive what we demand,
And if we want hell, then hell's what we'll have.
And I would turn on the TV, but it's so embarrassing.
To see all the other people, don't even know what they mean
And it was magic at first, but let everyone down,
And now this world's gonna hurt.
You'd better turn it around.
Turn it around.
- Song "Cookie Jar" by Jack Johnson
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