“I had already been trying to bring academic merit to what is hot in popular culture,” Woods says. “[‘The Hunger Games’] was inundating my various media streams, so I started to think about all the issues in the books — politics, food deserts, PTSD. It was kind of great to use the story as a springboard to discuss these larger issues.”
For her lecture, there is “no expectation people have read the books or seen the movie,” so she’ll spend part of the time bringing people up to speed on major plot points. Then, Woods says, the discussion will turn to “Why was it a success? What was the appeal? Why did it resonate?”
Part of the reason the “Hunger Games” films and novels have connected with so many people, Woods believes, is that the issues raised “are reflective of what’s going on in a smaller scale, even in our city. Though this is, of course, a post-apocalyptic world. We hope it never comes to that.” It’s probably best to start practicing archery now, though, just in case.
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