The Theme of Violence in Hunger Games Movie - Essay Example

The theme of violence however is already pervasive in the mass media.  If parents will automatically disallow their children to read books or watch movies or any components of media that have the violence that would be tantamount to unhealthy censorship to shelter the child from the reality of violence which could do more harm than good.  Themes in media be it in books, or movies tackle social realities and part of it is violence.  True there are movies, and TV shows that glorify violence to the point that it is already disturbing but not all the narratives of violence in books and movies are undesirable.  According to Dr. Gerbner of the Center for Media Literacy, not all violence is alike.  It is a “legitimate and even a necessary cultural expression”.   Themes of violence in books and films “help define our strengths and vulnerabilities, our powers and risks” which was Katniss Everdeen’s saving grace in Hunger Games where the “game” transformed her from being a regular girl who just likes to hunt to an icon of the uprising against the brutal President. 

Of course, the discourse of violence can be taken to the extreme as commercialist media also do but it does not automatically tantamount that all narratives that contain violence are undesirable.  Even Shakespeare’s plays are littered with violence but no one complains about the gore of the murder and mayhem involved in his tragedies.  The fairy tales that parents feed to their children and the mythologies taught in school also has murder are even considered desirable and a required part of our cultural and intellectual growth.

The contention that violence in media morphs into real-life aggression among its audience to become predisposed to violence is also unclear.  Many social scientists and behavioral experts concluded that there is a “weak correlation between watching media violence and real-life aggression” (Justinecassell.com).  Almost everybody has had exposure to violence in books and movies and yet only a few are predisposed to violence.