Gendered archetypes and political violence: A critical approach to character representations in The Hunger Games film series

The Hunger Games film series impacted audiences globally and was aimed at adolescents as the primary audience. I looked at this film series as an important site for cultural production and examined representations of women who engaged in political power and political violence, along with representations of the military, in The Hunger Games film series. I used a postmodern framework and analyzed the text from a feminist perspective. Furthermore, I contributed to the existing literature of women and war by applying the gendered archetypes, the warrior hero and the woman as mother, to a popular culture fictional text instead of a news media text. I found that there was a shift in the overarching meta-narrative that allows women to act traditionally masculinely and exhibit warrior hero attributes as long as they finish traditionally feminine, with woman as mother attributes. I argue that although Katniss behaves in a traditionally masculine/warrior hero way, she abandons that in the end for a traditionally feminine/woman as mother role. I also found that this film series reinforced a strong military force and sanctioned political violence as the only way to effect substantial government change.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Grimmer, Kristen E.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Barnett, Barbara

• Journalism
• Mass communication
• cultural studies
• feminist
• film
• media
• representation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:14946

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/37368