The Ratings Game

Realistic violence in The Hunger Games vs. the real-world threats of Bully

Lionsgate

Lethal weapon. Jennifer Lawrence takes aim in The Hunger Games .

In the Hunger Games, children kill other children because a tyrannous government orders them to do so in a grotesque TV spectacle. In Bully, children torment other children because, as one official tells parents at a town hearing, "kids will be kids." The first movie is dystopian fiction and is based on the initial volume in Suzanne Collins' best-selling trilogy of young-adult novels. The second is painful reality: Lee Hirsch's documentary details the abuse that too many young people suffer at the hands of their peers. The Hunger Games is likely to follow the movies of the Harry Potter and Twilight...

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