The first season of American Idol debuted on June 11, 2002. It took the entire nation by storm. This was the beginning of the end of any sort of good television. This show helped mark the distinct beginning of reality TV. American Idle has so many eerie similarities to The Hunger Games.
People have this strange fascination on betting on the success of a singer, with no regards to if they lose. It’s all about winning on this show. Another connection I noticed is the “Sponsorships” and the extreme makeovers the contestants in both shows undergo. In American Idol, People are told that by texting to vote a certain name, this will help the contestant in their chance of winning. This struck me as similar to the Sponsorships sent to Katniss and the other tributes. It seems to me that the illusion is meant to be seen as the people being in control, and not anyone else.
Both groups undergo an extensive makeover according to their genre of music. They go from normal people that blended in, to someone with Brand name everything, right down to their socks. I think maybe that’s also why people have found some appeal in these shows. They are normal people, not these seemingly untouchable celebs. I think that when Suzanne Collins wrote the Hunger Games, She had this intention of how we watch these cruel things on TV, these ridiculous things that never used to be appealing, for reasons unknown to ourselves. We somehow feed into the drama that these shows are literally drenched in. Half the time, they’re all staged anyways. But this also goes back way longer then Reality TV. Remember the Romans and the gladiator games? Things like these have been around for a long long time, and since we aren’t learning from our past, they are bound to show up in our future.
