Katniss Everdeen is inspiring young girls to try archery. (Photo from IMDB.com)
A series of news articles (such as here, here and here) report that The Hunger Games movie series, among some other popular shows, have contributed to an uptick of young girls learning archery.
John Shappel teaches at Tri-State Archery in Dubuque in Iowa was quoted in THOnline.com saying:
“Most of the new archers I’ve seen myself are young ladies,” said Shappell, who is on the Dubuque Field Archers board of directors. “Most of the younger girls, say 13 and down, are looking to get into sport. They’ve seen ‘Hunger Games,’ and say, ‘Yeah, I have to go and shoot archery.'”
As it seems we most often hear of negative effects of popular culture, we say this comes as welcome news. Archery increases your upper body strength, improves hand-eye coordination, teaches patience and focus – as well as enhances general badassery. Case and point: The NPR article quotes Alicia Christopher as seeing a definite boost in self-belief in her daughter.
“Watching the way that she’s developed confidence in what she’s doing — she’s very confident,” Alicia says. “She used to be a really shy person, but now she’s opening socially.”
Katniss wasn’t the inspiration for getting co-founder Heather into archery, but we are happy to see strong female leads as role models for young girls.
Have any movies inspired you to try a new outdoor activity?
Another terrific entry!