By Angelia Roggie
Features Editor
Independence, strength, courage, overcoming adversity and standing up for what you believe. These are some of the brilliant themes that resonate within “The Hunger Games.” But parents could care less about these ideas when it comes to their children.
They choose to focus on the violent aspects of the movie, instead of having optimism in literature and the power of cinema.
The question throughout the country this week is whether or not the much-anticipated film adaptation of “The Hunger Games” is too violent for some young vie, according to a March 23 Fox News article.
The article describes how parents don’t want to turn away their children from the movie, but they don’t feel comfortable letting their kids watch a movie where children kill other children.
Some parents do not understand the basic premise of the book: the adolescents in the dystopian world do not want to kill each other, but they are forced to by the government. The whole plot is about the citizens trying to deal with the obstacles the government is putting them through and how to outsmart the ones who wrong them. This is something I believe children need to comprehend as our world becomes more cynical.
There is violence in the film, but it effectively shows how tyranny and evil can take over if no one is willing to speak out. I thought we want to teach future generations to live the life they want and to not let anyone take that away from them. But some parents look over these great themes because they fear their children will be upset by certain images.
I can admit some children are not ready to see these violent images, but we cannot generalize all children or tweens are so weak that some blood will leave them scarred.
Cartoons show animated creatures tearing each other down or children building destructive robots, yet parents are OK with these because they open up their child’s imagination to new worlds.
“Harry Potter” was also deemed to promote witchcraft and violence, but as adults realized its popularity and magical concepts the tension from parents seemed to decrease. But why is it when a book/movie series comes along to teach lessons through a more realistic lens, people call it violence.
This franchise offers a female heroine for girls to look up to. Too many times at the movies we see superheroes or boys with swords conquering the world, but we rarely see a lead girl doing something grand.
In “Twilight,” a teenage girl is supposedly finding what she wants, but it just turns into her being submissive and wanting nothing more than to be with her vampire-man. Some hopeless romantics flock to movie theaters to watch a woman fall in love, yet they are scared or turned off by allowing their children to watch a girl stand up for what she believes.
Violent images may be too much for children under 10 and can affect their development.
“‘For the youngest readers, the violence and the concepts in this book may have been largely lost on them,’ explained developmental psychologist Shoshana Dayanim, Ph.D., ‘A movie experience is completely different. It becomes tangible, imaginable and the visceral response one most certainly experiences at the movies may be terrifying for these children,” said the same Fox News article.
However, children who have graduated from “Nick, Jr.” and are interested in “The Hunger Games” should not be prevented from seeing a film that could teach them great lessons and inspire them to take action within their own life. If some parents prevent their tween or teenage children from understanding and developing a sense of self-preservation, how can they expect them to respect life and others? How can we allow them to judge what is right or wrong for themselves when we don’t allow them to see what we would consider to be immoral to begin with?
Some parents need to realize the reasons and lessons behind the violence before they critique a film they don’t even understand. “The Hunger Games” may have some scary images, but the overall themes of a work and what it gives to us outweighs a couple quick scenes.
roggieac10@bonaventure.edu
