Recognise this?:
Yup. It's the three-finger salute that Katniss Everdeen uses in the YA dystopian thriller Hunger games (pic: wired ). It's being used not by a group of con-going fanboys, but by peaceful Thai protesters speaking out against the military coup in their country. When I saw this I was amazed by the power that one book could have on a generation of people. No raised-fist salutes here, a la Black Power, and no v-shaped peace fingers. A book reached out to them and touched them. They identified so much that they adopted the key symbol and made it their own And they're not the only ones.
The hacker group anonymous chose their familiar mask as it was based on Guy Fawkes, legendary anti-royalist and anarchist, right? Well...
The image of course comes from V for Vendetta, a comic by Alan Moore and David Lloyd which sees a future fascist state terrorised by a mysterious trickster in a Fawkes mask. Popularised by the movie of the same name, the masks went on sale as merchandise and were adopted by the group, who seek to bring down capitalism.
And then there's Harry Potter. In a large supermarket the other day, I did a double-take when the burly twenty-something assistant putting out the fruit and veg rolled his sleeves up to reveal a large tattoo that I recognised. It was the symbol of the deathly hallows from the Harry Potter book. I was amused that a tough-guy would have a children's literature tat on his arm, and quickly googled it when I got home. Then I found this:
The dates imply that the tat-wearer in question has lost loved ones, and has chosen this symbol, and the quote 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death' to memorialise them. To write something, create something that takes on such importance in a person's life is a big responsibility, and a reminder of why writers should always take their work seriously.
Yup. It's the three-finger salute that Katniss Everdeen uses in the YA dystopian thriller Hunger games (pic: wired ). It's being used not by a group of con-going fanboys, but by peaceful Thai protesters speaking out against the military coup in their country. When I saw this I was amazed by the power that one book could have on a generation of people. No raised-fist salutes here, a la Black Power, and no v-shaped peace fingers. A book reached out to them and touched them. They identified so much that they adopted the key symbol and made it their own And they're not the only ones.
The image of course comes from V for Vendetta, a comic by Alan Moore and David Lloyd which sees a future fascist state terrorised by a mysterious trickster in a Fawkes mask. Popularised by the movie of the same name, the masks went on sale as merchandise and were adopted by the group, who seek to bring down capitalism.
And then there's Harry Potter. In a large supermarket the other day, I did a double-take when the burly twenty-something assistant putting out the fruit and veg rolled his sleeves up to reveal a large tattoo that I recognised. It was the symbol of the deathly hallows from the Harry Potter book. I was amused that a tough-guy would have a children's literature tat on his arm, and quickly googled it when I got home. Then I found this:
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