I found this disturbing article over at All News Pipeline…
My daughters read some or all of the three books in the Hunger Games series, and our family watched the first of the four movies. What concerns me is this trend in youth literature (often then made into movies) toward dystopian, post-apocalyptic, or post societal collapse themes. In The Hunger Games, Divergent/Allegiant/Insurgent, The Maze Runner, etc., primarily teen characters are placed in situations where they must often kill their peers just to survive, or even as mere sport. This process is often overseen by a malevolent group of “elites” or government-type officials, who convince the people of the necessity or benefit of what they are witnessing to their society as a whole.
Although this is not a completely new concept (1975’s “Rollerball” being a good example of the genre), the idea of reality “entertainment” that can literally result in the death of some participants at the hands of their competitors harkens back to the brutality of the Roman gladiators; blood spills and the crowds cheers, with no regard that the life of an individual has been taken. I cannot imagine that this desensitization of the masses to the pain and suffering of their fellow human beings can have anything but a deleterious and tragic effect on our society as a whole.
Read the article below and see if you agree:
