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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Homework
So, tonight, I have to proofread my son's book report on The Hunger Games. I have not had time to read it (I try to read along with them, but I am playing catch-up from my absolutely ridiculous laziness over the break). Description? Thesis? Trying to read about it online while skimming his copy, but I'm starting to give it the side-eye.
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I got to read a report on MLK which included the sentence MLK is a famous black American. I'm like ummm he ins't famous FOR being black, yet I'm quite sure that is what the teacher said to them. LE SIGH
Oh, I really like The Hunger Games. it's a young adult novel set in the post-apocalyptic US. Some decades before there was a failed revolution, and to keep the people in their place, the Capital requires each of 12 Districts to send 2 "tributes" - one teenaged girl and one teenaged boy - to compete in the "Hunger Games," a gladitorial fight to the death with one winner. The heroine, Katniss, volunteers as a tribute in place of her younger sister. The book is about the runup to the games and the games themselves. Katniss's counterpart Peeta, the male tribute from her district, is either in love with her or pretending to be for the cameras (if they impress people on tv they can get gifts in the arena from sponsors to help them win the games). She saves him and kills some people and does some other shit that makes it explicitly clear how messed up the whole concept is. Then at the end, it's down to her and Peeta and she comes up with some poison berries that will kill them both -- they're just about to eat them and suicide, the ultimate refusal to play the game, when they are declared joint winners. In the sequels it turns out that this gesture as well as other events have touched off a rebellion in the districts.
There is a ridiculous amount of make-over, staging and costuming to make the candidates vote-worthy while Katniss would rather not be doing this, she turns out to be just so spectacular that her looks are very important. The families depend on these children and Katniss is running dangerous forays into the forbidden areas to find food, even before she's caught in the Hunger Games.The central governing body is decadent, dissolute and cynical and the poor people in the provinces are all hungry. I'm sure it's big time interesting for alienated youth but I truly thought it was just sexism, cynicism, political corruption, danger and violence on speed.
Thanks y'all! This helped a lot.
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