I really liked the comparasion of American Idol and The Hunger Games that we discussed in class this week. It is strange to think that a show as innocent as American Idol has any type of relation to something as brutal as the Hunger Games. In both you have contestants and people who control your fate. On American Idol, you have the contestants, battling out the competition by singing and trying to convince America that they are worthy of being the winner. In the Hunger Games, you have contestants who are battling through acts of violence to eliminate their competition while also winning over the crowd. In the beginning of both shows, you can see innocence among the contestants. They are unique and come from completely different backgrounds. Throughout the course of the show you can see their appearance and sometimes even there humbleness change. Depending on what genre the contestants in American Idol belong to, their clothing changes. The country singers slowly progress into wearing flannels, holey jeans, cowboy hats, or southern bell outfits. The rockers begin to wear leather for every performance. During the Hunger Games, Cinna and the other prep team members changed the appearance of Katniss so that she would win over the people of the different districts.
Another thing that relates directly to both American Idol and the Hunger Games is that the contestant’s fate is completely in the hands of the people being entertained by the show. You vote for your favorite singer and you sponsor your favorite tribute. Your interest in the individual is what keeps them in the competition, and alive.
I like the idea that American Idol and the Hunger Games we're very similar. I noticed in the Hunger Games that what got Katniss better sponsors were not always things directly related to her survival in the games. Even though the sole purpose of the games was to survive, she had to pull on the heartstrings of the audience in order to really get their attention. We see this in American Idol as well. It's not always the person with the best voice that people like the most. Sometimes the most charming, unique, attractive, etc. wins out even though that's not what the show is about.
ReplyDeleteI also wrote about "The Hunger Games" in relation to American Idol. It is pretty crazy to relate the two, because we think that the games are so barbaric and we would never want anything that extreme to occur, but in reality, when we compare the two, they are extremely similar. And because our society enjoys violence and competition, I hope that the games do not become a reality.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is very compelling that the Hunger Games and American Idol can seem so similar. It is actually kind of scary like missy says I hope that our society never chooses to take reality TV to that extreme. As of now entertainment companies keep having to increase the violence so we actually like watching it, and so we get that so called "shock" that Lasn mentions in Culture Jam. What if shows keep increasing the violence to the can keep viewers shocked and it gets to the point of Hunger Games. As we can see with American Idol it may be possible and I think that is what is really scary about reality TV, that is has such a huge impact of people's lives.
ReplyDeleteIt is shocking how similar the two are. I agree with Missy I hope that producers or our even society never take it to that extreme like how it is in Hunger games. I think if you would combine violence and reality tv you would get the Hunger games. The closest things I've seen to it though would be Real World Road Rules series where they compete for money. Reality. . .and violence.
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