Pennsylvania Game News - December 2012 - 54

HOLLYWOOD has renewed archery interest with the ladies.

deadly heart shots destined to dispatch the villainous Colonel Miles Quaritch in the movie’s finale. Released last spring, the animated Disney-Pixar film Brave features a young, bowbending redhead named Merida whose mastery with the longbow is the key to saving the kingdom. One critical scene involves an archery competition wherein a cluster of hopefuls vie for Merida’s hand in marriage. The animation that depicts this motley crew of scruffy suitors nocking arrows, drawing their bows, and flinging arrows is excellent and often rendered in slow motion with precise and accurate details of the mechanics of shooting a bow, right down to the flexing motion of the arrow as it leaves the rest. Parts of this film could serve as an archery clinic on the do’s and don’ts of handling and shooting a bow. Brave’s archery competition continues until, through a freak accident, one of the slovenly suitors lands a perfect bullseye, thus ostensibly winning Merida’s reluctant hand in marriage. But the independentminded young redhead fights back, emerging from a disguise, bow in hand as, over the protests of her parents, she launches an arrow of her own that splits the arrow of her would-be fiancé. It’s a classic Robin Hood (depicted in slow motion, of course), which releases the young lady archer from any obligation to marry any of her unworthy suitors. As with Avatar, a woman’s archery agility is essential to her ultimate success. Want to motivate your youngster to pick up a bow? Rent this film. This fall, a new TV show hit the airways on NBC, the post-apocalyptic Revolution, where, in a world without power, the weapon of choice becomes the bow and
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arrow (both longbows and recurves), but the featured female character, a heroine named Charlie, prefers not just a standard crossbow, but a compact crossbow model with reverse-draw technology like the Horton Vision that I’ve been shooting the past few years. The series also features vertical format bows and other primitive weapons including swords. But in the end, no movie has done more to spur an interest in archery — particularly among young teen and ’tween girls — as the super-popular The Hunger Games. On the occasion of the movie’s premier last fall, I took my daughter, Erin, to see it. Although I hadn’t read the book, I enjoyed the movie and could certainly see how it would provoke bow and arrow interest in the younger set. In fact, following the film’s release, archery shops and archery instructors reported a substantial uptick in sales of archery equipment and inquiries about instruction in shooting the ol’ stick and string. By the time the 2012 Olympic Games were completed in London, interest in the fortunes of American Olympians shooting for U.S.A. Archery gold was at an all-time high. In fact, thanks to films like The Hunger Games and Brave, archery was considered the breakout sport of the games. Interest may have also been fueled by the fact that USA Archery team member Khatuna Lorig, herself a 5-time Olympian, was involved in The Hunger Games
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Pennsylvania Game News - December 2012

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