Ep 50 From 1984 to Hunger Games, HOW DID WE GET HERE?! Dystopian Themes in Media and Literature

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This week is. The. Week. We’re officially back in mini episode bonus mode with The Hunger Games book 1, by Suzanne Collins dropping this Friday! So today Ashley and Liz are setting us all up for success in our dystopian sci fi series with an episode about the history of dystopias! Not surprisingly, there is a lot of ground to cover, so we do our best to take a whole lot of information and condense it down for you to put all of these stories we love so much into context.

First, we go over the list of media terms and ideas you guys sent in when we asked what YOU think of when someone says dystopia, and why YOU think we’re obsessed with them. Then we get into the history. Where did the idea of dystopias come from? When was the theme first featured in literature? When did the modern dystopian fiction era start? We discuss popular themes, real life events that inspired them, and how we got to where we are today. With many dystopian pieces of media marketed to everyone, including young adults, and how this has led to even more book bans.

And lastly, we’ve got a faves and fails featuring popular dystopian media like World War Z, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Giver, and a smash or pass involving Hunger Games characters that you wouldn’t expect.

Sources:

The Columbia Journalism Review - Dissecting Dystopia by Merrill Perlman

Dystopian Fiction A Brief History by Yvonne Shiau on Electric Lit

The British Library - The Fear of Dystopia by Mike Ashley

Wikipedia

Encyclopedia Brittanica.com

American aristocracy.com

NY Times

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YouTube | TikTok | Instagram | Podcast Platforms
@BestiesandtheBooksPodcast
Besties and the Book Club on Fable!
https://fable.co/bestiesandthebookclub-474863489358
Liz
Instagram | TikTok
@TheRealLifeVeganWife
Ashley
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@AshleyEllix