MA Thesis
A New Teenage Heroine in Dystopian Action
Interrogation and Validation of Traditional Femininity in The Hunger
Games, Divergent and The Maze Runner.
Eva Bakkum 10206558
Media Studies: Film,
Beroepsgeoriënteerde Specialisatie
Dr. Maryn Wilkinson
Second reader: Dr. Erik Laeven University of Amsterdam 26-06-2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 3
Chapter 1: Introducing the Teen Girls 12
1.1 The System and the Very First Introduction 12
1.2 The Gaze, Agency, and Confinement 18
Conclusion 28
Chapter 2: Transforming the Teen Girls 30
2.1 Transformation Sequences, and Gender Performance 31
2.2 Locations, Gazing, and Heterosexuality 37
Conclusion 43
Chapter 3: Fighting, ‘Romance’, and the Conclusion 45
3.1 Activity Versus Passivity and the Loss of Parental Figures 45
3.2 Surveillance, and Heterosexuality 50
3.3 The Climax and the Last Scenes 54
Conclusion 59 Conclusion 61 Abstract 64 Acknowledgements 65 Filmography 66 Bibliography 67
INTRODUCTION
Current cinema itself is aware of its role in the social production of gender, and commonly represents, and deliberately reflects upon, the dilemmas that face the contemporary subject.
Hillary Radner and Rebecca Stringer
[Postfeminist cultural] texts demonstrate a selective approach to feminist sensibilities, selecting certain aspects of normative models of gender and sexuality to interrogate, while validating others.
Katherine Farrimond
Men, I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue, too.
Emma Watson
On the 20th of September 2014, actress Emma Watson gave a speech on feminism and gender inequality at the United Nations headquarters in New York to launch the “HeForShe” campaign. In this speech, Watson addressed and disputed the common idea that all feminists hate men and asked everyone, but men in particular, to join the movement and bring about real change. Besides addressing the fact that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating, in this speech Watson states that the word feminism is an unpopular one1. The closing words of Watson’s speech point out that while feminism is struggling for a uniting word, there is a uniting movement. She concludes her speech with the following sentence: “I invite you to step forward, to be seen and to ask yourself, ‘If not me, who? If not now, when?’” Watson’s speech immediately went viral and reached a wide audience of men, women, boys, and girls all over the world. While this was important and telling for the feminist movement, it also brought attention to a (new) development in feminism and media coverage. Aside from the fact that the mainstream media increasingly propagate the word feminism in general2, mainstream media
1 When writing their book Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement in 2010, Catherine Redfern and Kristen
Aune soon came to a similar conclusion. Many of the 1300 self-declared feminists in the United Kingdom that had taken part in their survey stated that they would not say they are feminists “because they associate it with an image of 1970s-style feminism that they think is no longer relevant to their experiences of life in the twenty-first century” (7).
2 According to Kimberly Roberts, the phrase ‘girl power’ perpetuated in the mainstream media that feminism had
evolved into a politics of pleasure in the nineties (219). Now, similar accusations are being made and some feminists are concerned by the mainstream media’s ‘appropriation’ of the word feminism.
outlets targeted at a tween audience and self-proclaimed feminist celebrities like Watson, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Ellen Page, Ashton Kutcher, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga are making feminism approachable for a tween (and teen) audience3.
Not only celebrities – with a predominantly young female following – and mainstream media outlets are introducing feminist sensibilities into the everyday lives of tweens. This trend can be discovered in the realm of film as well. In some of the biggest and most popular
Hollywood franchises, targeted at a (predominantly female) tween audience, a new type of action heroine can be seen. Young heroines like Frozen’s Elsa, Brave’s Merida, The Mortal
Instrument’s Clary Fray, Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger, Tomorrowland’s Casey Newton, The Maze Runner’s Teresa, Divergent’s Tris Prior and The Hunger Games’s Katniss Everdeen, are
increasingly depicted as the main characters of these films4. These films have had great, and often unprecedented, box office successes5 and most of these new action heroines have been lauded by the mainstream media6 for being strong, independent and (emotionally) complex role models for tween (boys and) girls7. They do not put up with oppression and possess both masculine and feminine characteristics. The narrative trajectories of (most) of these female characters do not depend on markers of femininity; they do not simply stand around looking pretty, but they are physically and mentally active in saving themselves, their loved ones or even their worlds. Thus on first glance, these films seem to be progressive in their portrayal of girls and femininity. However, while these films ‘allow’ these teen girl figures to show masculine behaviour, their freedom is often limited. The representation of these new young heroines thus deserves further exploration.
Interestingly,Hillary Radner and Rebecca Stringer argue that current cinema itself “has become more self-conscious in its treatment of gender. […] [The films as constructions] are aware of their role in the social production of gender, and commonly represent, and deliberately reflect upon, the dilemmas that face the contemporary subject” (5). However, while some films might reflect upon the dilemmas that face the contemporary subject, Katherine Farrimond adds to this argument by arguing that (post)feminist cultural texts demonstrate a selective approach
3 These celebrities integrate feminist sensibilities in their work, which ispredominantlyaimed at a tween (and teen)
audience, and/or explain feminism to their audience in interviews, for instance. An example of this could be seen in the song “Flawless” by Beyoncé, which includes parts of a feminist speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – explaining whatfeminism stands for.
4 According to Gateward and Pomerance, in the 2000s, the most profound shift in mass media was seen in the film
industry. Girls were more prominently featured in commercial films than ever (15). Now, these girls increasingly fall under the category of this new young action heroine.
5 According to the BoxOfficeMojo most of these films are among the highest grossing films of all time. (See “All Time
Box Office: Worldwide Grosses”for a full list of the highest grossing films of all time).
6 See for example the Marie Claire article on “Pop Culture’s Most Badass Heroines” or The Guardian’s article “Why The
Hunger Games’ Killer Katniss Is a Great Female Role Model”.
7 The fact that these films are so successful might not be so strange, since the female tween audience and their older
counterparts have been one of the most sought-after demographics of the entertainment industry for the last couple of decades (Gateward and Pomerance 15).
to feminist sensibilities, “selecting certain aspects of normative models of gender and sexuality to interrogate, while validating others” (44). Thus, it is important to explore gender and the ways in which it’s interrogated and/or validated in (some of) the abovementioned films. In this thesis, I will focus on contemporary dystopian action films, because of their popularity and the fact that this genre portrays a lot of teen girl figures that can be seen as new action heroines. M. Keith Booker describes dystopian fiction as in direct opposition to utopian thought, warning against the potential negative consequences of arrant utopianism. At the same time, dystopian fiction also generally “constitutes a critique of existing social conditions or political systems” (Booker 3). Sara Day, Miranda Green-Barteet and Amy Montz state that qualities of redefinition, resistance and rebellion colour dystopian fiction (8). More importantly, they argue that teen girl figures in dystopian fiction recognize their liminal situations and use their in-between positions as a means for resistance and rebellion (3). However, as I have mentioned above, (post)feminist cultural texts demonstrate a selective approach to feminist sensibilities, interrogating certain aspects of normative models of gender, while validating others. The ‘images of women’ mode of analysis – popular in second wave feminism – thus remains both pertinent and necessary. Therefore, the primary research question I will attempt to answer in this thesis is the following:
How are teenage girls portrayed in contemporary (dystopian) action films and do these films interrogate certain aspects of normative models of gender, while validating others? I want to
examine this through close readings of two contemporary dystopian action films with a female protagonist by using textual analysis and feminist film theory.
Historical Positioning: The Third Wave.
My current project will be based on the legacy of the third wave (or postfeminism) that occurred from the mid 1990s onwards. Although third wave texts adopt wide-ranging positions in
relation to feminist theory and praxis, many share the keenness to signal a break from an earlier generation (Gillis, Howie and Munford xxiv). According to Stacy Gillis, Gillian Howie and Rebecca Munford, the “first documented mention of the term ‘third wave’ can be traced back to an
anthology by M. Jacqui Alexander, Lisa Albrecht and Mab Segrest, entitled The Third Wave:
Feminist Perspectives on Racism” (xxiv). However, they also state that the first canonical
enunciation of the term as a call for action is attributed to Rebecca Walker. In her article
“Becoming the Third Wave”, she declared the following: “I am not a postfeminism feminist. I am the Third Wave’” (41). This statement reflects the double character of third wave feminism and the (term) postfeminism in general. Postfeminism is a complex and somewhat confusing term, because the prefix ‘post’ can be understood as suggesting either a period after feminism or a new tradition with a familial resemblance to feminism. Joel Gwynne and Nadine Muller point out that the term can represent “both a repudiation and a affirmation of feminist politics, depending on how it is deployed” (2). The double address within postfeminist theory brings some
complications. Angela McRobbie, for example, argues that postfeminism positively draws on and invokes feminism as that which can be taken into account, to suggest that equality is achieved, in
order to install a whole repertoire of meanings, which emphasise that it is no longer needed (27). In contrast, Sarah Gamble defines postfeminism as a “flexible ideology, which can be adapted to suit individual needs and desires” and an ideology that refuses “any definition of women as victims who are unable to control their own lives” (44). Gamble thus draws attention to the seemingly empowering aspects of postfeminism. With a focus on the individual, the ideology becomes more personal and applicable to everybody’s lives, including those of younger girls and boys and people of colour, for instance, while (second-wave) feminism is often seen as ‘hegemonic feminism’ that marginalised the activism of women of colour8. However, even though some aspects of postfeminism could be seen as empowering, scholars like Gwynne and Muller still argue that this focus on the individual is a part of a less progressive process whereby the “social constraints placed upon contemporary girls and women are deemed inconsequential” (2).
The third wave’s focus on the individual can also be seen in the discourse of ‘girl power’. ‘Girl power’ was originally a slogan developed by the Riot Grrrl movement in the 1990s to refer to the resistance of patriarchy and passive consumerism that this movement advocates (Sawyer Fritz 18). According to Sonya Sawyer Fritz, It has now become a complex and contradictory discourse used to name cultural phenomena and social positioning for young women (18). This discourse re-writes the passivity, voicelessness and sweet-naturedness linked to some girlhoods and it refers to “girls’ socio-political empowerment and capacity for self-determination” (Sawyer Fritz 19). Thus, Sawyer Fritz argues that girl power as a rhetoric can be understood as framing girls as individuals with personal, cultural and socio-political power who can claim the right to change the world around them (19). In the decades following the Riot Grrrl movement, however, the term has been criticised for being formulated around individualism, a common critique for the third wave in general, and for the way it has been exploited by the mainstream media and commercial industries9 (Sawyer Fritz 19). However, while the discourse of ‘girl power’ and the third wave of feminism might seem to be in the past, it begs the question whether and/or how these sensibilities and ideologies are still evident in recent (dystopian) action films. Throughout this thesis I will explore the ways in which the films relate to or interrogate third wave
sensibilities, since the postfeminist tradition has yet to bridge the gap between feminism and film theory. As was stated above I will analyse the ways in which these dystopian action films interrogate certain normative models of gender while validating others, a trait that is common in postfeminist cultural texts.
Teen Films, ‘Action Babes’ and the Introduction of the Corpus.
8 For an extensive analysis of the way in which hegemonic feminism deemphasised or ignored class and race analysis,
see Becky Thompson’s “Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave feminism”.
9 The Spice Girls, for instance, brought out a book and manifesto called Girl Power! in 1997 after releasing their single
“Wannabe” – in which the phrase ‘girl power’ is mentioned several times – in 1996. The popularity of this single is often seen as the reason for the phrase ‘girl power’ exploding onto the common consciousness.
In the introduction to their book Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice: Cinemas of Girlhood, Frances Gateward and Murray Pomerance state that the female subject in contemporary films about girls are usually an exemplification of hegemonic attitudes and values about girlhood (14). While they wrote their book more than ten years ago, we are still building on the legacy of the nineties now. However, there are always exceptions to the rule. I will explore to what extent the new young heroine (in dystopian action) is an exemplification of hegemonic and/or postfeminist attitudes about girlhood. In her book Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema, written in 1993, Yvonne Tasker states that action films often operate as an almost exclusively male space, “in which issues to do with sexuality and gendered identity can be worked out over the male body” (17). She points out that heroines of the Hollywood action cinema tend to be fought over rather than fighting, that they have been avenged rather than avenging (17). However, in her book, Tasker examines the action heroine – a female fighter as centre of the action – that was emerging in American films at that time. She argues that this action heroine represents “a response of some kind to feminism, emerging from a changing political context in which images of gendered identity have been increasingly called into question through popular cultural forms such as music video” (15). Mary Celeste Kearney examines this trend in the representation of female empowerment in the 1980s and 1990s as well. She similarly argues that this trend can be related to a strategy of female liberation advocated by second-wave feminists. Some films, she states, display an adult female character in male-oriented genres and roles, exhibiting
‘masculine’ traits like independence, leadership and physical strength10 (131). Mark O’Day highlights a similar development in the nineties and the early 2000s. Namely, he states that one of the most striking developments in popular cinema in the nineties and early 2000s has been the wave of action-adventure films featuring attractive, sexy and tough women as capable heroines or ‘action babes’ commanding their narratives and fighting in fantasy-oriented worlds11 (201). However, as I have argued before, a new type of heroine can be seen in recent (fantasy and dystopian) action cinema. While the ‘action babe’ is an adult woman, the new heroine is a teenage girl. It will thus be interesting to examine the differences between these two female figures in action cinema. Moreover, despite the fact that a lot of scholarly research has been done on action women in film, films with young, strong, female protagonists still comprise an interesting and underexposed category for critical analysis.
The films I have chosen to analyze in this thesis are Gary Ross’s The Hunger Games (2012)12, Neil Burger’s Divergent (2014) and Wes Ball’s The Maze Runner (2014). These three
10 Similarly, Mary Beltrán notes that physically assertive female characters became protagonists in their own right in
the late 1980s and early 1990s (189).
11 These beautiful action heroines, or ‘action babes’, were seen as a new development in cinema in de last 20 years of
the last century, they have actually surfaced periodically in Hollywood genres before that time and they have long been a staple of eastern film culture, of Hong Kong martial arts films for instance (O’Day 202).
12 I will also look at Francis Lawrence’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay
films are big budget dystopian action films with great box office successes13 and they are primarily targeted at young adults14. All films feature a strong, skilled, teenage girl as a
protagonist or in a leading role. In all of these films the protagonists are being tested or attacked by a governmental or political force. Moreover, The Hunger Games, Divergent and The Maze
Runner are all adaptations of young adult dystopian fiction. It is thus important to note that all of
these films are Hollywood’s translations from text to film and all of these films are the first installment of a trilogy. I have mentioned before, Day, Green-Barteet and Montz state the desire to resist the limitations of gender can be found in many contemporary girl protagonists, but particularly in dystopian stories. They go on to state that the “female protagonists of
contemporary young adult dystopias occupy liminal spaces as they seek to understand their places in the world, to claim their identities and to live their lives on their own terms” (3). This is especially true for the The Hunger Game’s Katniss and Divergent’s Tris, and this thus makes these dystopian films an appropriate site to explore gender limitations and the resistance thereof. Importantly, the primary focus of The Maze Runner does not lie on an adolescent female protagonist. The heroine in this film is cast as the hero’s sidekick (and love interest) who is introduced about one third into the film, and it is precisely for this reason that this film will prove to be a valuable site of exploration.
In my close readings of the films I will focus primarily on The Hunger Games and
Divergent, because the protagonists of these films fit the category of the new teenage heroine,
because all of the female figures are shown in roles that are typically reserved for teen boys, actively fighting against a ‘governmental power’. The Maze Runner will predominantly serve as a touchstone because, while Teresa could be seen as a strong, skilled character, she is not the main character who drives the action and I will argue that she is framed in the more traditional role of the female sidekick and love interest of the male protagonist. By analyzing and comparing these films, I will be able to conclude whether these films interrogate or validate aspects of normative models of gender. These case studies, however, are not meant to be presented as exhaustive or all encompassing and while the films have a didactic role I will refrain from examining this role.
Moreover, the limited scholarly research that has been done on any of these films has usually focused on the story itself instead of on the filmic representation of the events and the heroines in these films. However, since film is a visual medium and a lot is conveyed in images, I think that it is necessary to critically analyze the way that these heroines are portrayed
filmically. In their article “’She’s More Like A Guy’ and ‘He’s More Like a Teddy Bear’: Girls’ Perception of Violence and Gender in The Hunger Games.”, for instance, Laura Lane, Nancy Taber
13 In 2012, The Hunger Games was the third highest grossing film in the United States. Divergent and The Maze Runner
were the 19th and 30th highest grossing films in the United States, respectively, in 2014 (BoxOfficeMojo).
14 While The Hunger Games and Divergent primarily attract young girls, the films are targeted at both boys and girls.
Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for the box office tracking firm Rentrak, states that the opening weekend for Hunger Games skewed females and then started drawing more boys who were intrigued by its reported intensity, violence and action (Brennan). He also states that “no one thinks of [The Hunger Games] now as a film aimed at young females. Divergent reminds me more of Hunger Games and is not a gender-based film.” (Brennan).
and Vera Woloshyn document the experiences of four girls with reading disabilities throughout reading The Hunger Games. They were especially interested in “how the girls might view characters and plotlines that presented and challenged various forms of masculinity and femininity” (“Girls’ Perception” 1022). In “Discourses of Masculinity and Femininity in The Hunger Games: ‘Scarred’, "Bloody’ and ‘Stunning’”, they revisited the topic of gender roles in relation to The Hunger Games. In this article they focus solely on the way in which characters in the film are portrayed relative to Connell's gendered discourses of hegemonic masculinity, marginal masculinity, and emphasised femininity. They conclude that Katniss’s female body marks her as a woman with elements of emphasised femininity while her actions encompass elements of hegemonic masculinity (“Discourses” 152). In this thesis, I will examine the ways in which the teen girl figures are marked as typically feminine and/or masculine as well. Do their bodies mark them as women while their actions encompass elements of (hegemonic)
masculinity? I will also go deeper into the nuanced gender roles and performances in The
Hunger Games, among other films, while I will also look more closely at the filmic representation
in specific sequences of the films. Lastly, Rachel Dubrovsky and Emily Ryalls also explore gender roles in The Hunger Games, but they focus on racial issues and interestingly state that, while Katniss’s agency and desires suggest a feminist protagonist who diverges from conventions of feminine behaviour, the way Katniss is presented as heroic is not feminist, since her heroism is premised on her authentic whiteness, naturalised heterosexual femininity and her ‘effortless’ maternal abilities15 (407). Although Dubrovsky and Ryalls’ focus is on race, their analysis of her naturalised heterosexual femininity is useful for my project, especially because it is partly based on textual analysis. For example, similarly to what I will do in this thesis, Dubrovsky and Ryalls examine the camera placement and framing of the teen girl figure.
Review of the Literature: The Final Girl and the Warrior
In this article on the ‘action babe’, O’Day argues that one of the defining features of action-adventure film is its simultaneous re-inscription and questioning of the binary opposition of gender. In other words, in action–adventure films (featuring an ‘action babe’), qualities of masculinity and femininity are “traded over the bodies of action heroes and heroines (O’Day 203). While I will argue that this is also the case with most dystopian action films featuring a new young heroine, this can also be seen in another, and possibly more unexpected, genre: horror. Although they are often seen in a more deviant context, some typical female horror or slasher characters are as beautiful, active and dangerous as the ‘action babe’ and the new young heroine. One of these characters is the Final Girl, a trope that Carol Clover introduced in her
15 By looking at the film in light of the conventions of contemporary reality television – where surveillance verifies authenticity
book Men, Women and Chainsaws. Gender in the Modern Horror Film16. On this legacy my current project will be based as well. Clover argues that the categories of monster, hero and victim are not evenly distributed over males and females in horror. She states that males far more
frequently represent the function of monster and hero, while females more frequently represent the function of the victim (12). This seems to suggest that there is “something about the victim that wants manifestation in a female, and something about the monster and hero functions that wants expression in a male” (Clover 12). Moreover, when female heroes do appear, they are masculine in dress and behaviour (and often even in name). Here Clover introduces the term Final Girl; the one girl left standing to confront the killer. The one girl that does not die, but finds the strength to stay alive long enough to be rescued (through male agency) or to kill the killer herself. From 1974 on, this victim-hero has always been female (Clover 35). While the new young heroine’s life in recent dystopian action films is usually threatened by a governmental power (whether or not embodied by one person), instead of by one lone killer, the Final Girl and the new young heroine are similar in a lot of ways. From the outset, for instance, the Final Girl is presented as the main character. She is unavailable or not sexually active, she is watchful to the point of paranoia and intelligent and resourceful in extreme situations. She is the first character to sense something amiss. The Final Girl is not fully feminine and her smartness or competence in practical matters sets her apart from other girls. Lastly, her boyish character is usually reflected by her name (Clover 39-40). All of these things are applicable to (most of) the new young heroines. However, what is interesting is that while the Final Girl might be seen as empowering or at least as a strong female presence in a ‘masculine’ genre, Clover does not see it that way. She argues that, during Final Girl’s victory, her incipient masculinity is not opposed but realised through reconstituting her as masculine (50). Clover goes even further by arguing that the Final Girl is a congenial double for the adolescent male: “she is feminine enough to act out in a gratifying way, a way unapproved for adult males, the terrors and masochistic pleasures of the underlying fantasy, but not so feminine as to disturb the structures of male competence and sexuality” (51). If this is the case in relation to the Final Girl, it might also be the case with the new young heroine. I will explore the way in which these heroines are portrayed at different points in the film. Are these new young heroines reconstituted as masculine during their victory as well? Do they have to limit their femininity (or their masculinity) in order to win their battle? So, the main questions that came to mind while reading the abovementioned literature, concerned the way in which these young heroines are portrayed. How are they introduced? How do they transform? How are they portrayed in the conclusion of the films? (How) do they have to change in order to restore order or win their battle?
The teenage body and the teenage girl in general are by definition in a state of
transformation. Films with teenage girls in a lead role often portray a rites-of-passage narrative trajectory (that usually concludes with the heteronormative union). Therefore, like all other teen
16 Clover’s book has become a paradigm for understanding horror as a genre and the masochistic side of watching
girls in film, the new young heroines in dystopian action films undergo a transformation. While a lot has been written on the transformations in chick flicks for instance, Williams discusses another kind of bodily transformation, namely that of the boot camp narrative. She argues that boot camp narratives are essentially transformation stories in which a rookie soldier endures bullying of a superior, either (literally) grows or falls and then ‘graduates’ by becoming a warrior in a real war. Williams analyses films like Ridley Scott’s G.I. Jane (1997) and states that these kinds of films rework their male-centred counterparts that focus on physical preparation (172). In a way, the films that I will analyse do the same. In The Hunger Games and Divergent, for instance, the main characters are shown in training. Moreover, most of the new young heroines are situated in wars or in similar violent or life threatening circumstances so they usually undergo a similar physical transformation. Hence, Williams article, in which she explores women in war and in training, will be useful for this project, both theoretically and methodologically.
In the next three chapters I will look at the way in which the teen girl figure is introduced, the way in which her transformation is portrayed, and the way in which she is portrayed at the conclusion in order to examine the ways in which these films reflect upon the dilemmas that face the contemporary subject, and to explore whether these cultural texts interrogate certain aspects of normative models of gender, while validating others – a characteristic of postfeminist cultural texts17. So, firstly, I will explore the way in which these films first introduce these heroines to the audience. How do the films set up the teen girl
character? Do the teen girl figures connote passivity or activity and how is this highlighted in the image? Then, in the second chapter, I will explore the ways in which the films construct the representation of femininity (or masculine femininity) in the physical transformation of the teen girl. In the third and final chapter, I will examine the way in which these films portray the teen girl at the conclusion of the film. In this chapter, I will also go into the way in which these teen girls are framed in the context of a heterosexual relationship. Do these relationships render the teen girl passive and, if so, (how) does the film neutralise or normalise this? By examining this, this thesis provides a contribution to the previously discussed work of Radner, Dubrovsky and Ryalls, Gamble, and Lane, Taber and Woloshyn, among others,because it bridges the gap between (post)feminist theory, film theory and textual analysis. Moreover, it links film theory and (post)feminist theory to the teen girl figure in contemporary dystopian action films, an interesting and underexplored category for critical analysis.
17 As I have stated before, Farrimond argues that (post)feminist cultural texts demonstrate a selective approach to
feminist sensibilities, “selecting certain aspects of normative models of gender and sexuality to interrogate, while validating others” (44).
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCING THE TEEN GIRLS
In this first chapter I will explore the way in which different teen heroines are introduced; the starting point from which they will later transform. How do these dystopian action films set up the character and how do these films present teen girl femininity as a construction? In other words: are the films conservative, progressive or both in presenting the teen girl in the introduction of the film? Ultimately, most of the dystopian action films with a teenage main character are coming in age films and thus present the teen girl character in transition; she is becoming a woman. Therefore, it is important to examine how the girls are introduced in the different films to be able to determine how these female characters are set up to go into their transformation and also to be able to compare these portrayals to one another and to the way the teen girls are portrayed in the conclusions of the films. I will argue that the construction of femininity (and masculinity) in these films is complex: some aspects of these films will be more conservative, while other aspects will be more progressive, mirroring an aforementioned trend in postfeminist cultural texts. These texts demonstrate a selective approach to feminist
sensibilities, according to Farrimond, by selecting “certain aspects of normative models of gender and sexuality to interrogate, while validating others” (44).
1.1 The System and the Very First Introduction
Before the teen girl characters are introduced in both The Hunger Games and Divergent, the first scenes of both of the films give the audience insight into the system in which these characters are situated and the relations of power within this system. In this way, the films as constructions communicate that the settings and an understanding of the ‘system’ will be key to the audience’s understanding of the teen girl characters and the situations they are in. Firstly, Divergent opens with a shot of the sun shining through high grass in an open field. The camera then moves towards and over a high fence surrounding a city – already hinting at the confining nature of the system in which the characters are situated. However, the camera moves through the city and shows groups of people dressed in different coloured clothes – each person in each group wearing the same colour – walking peacefully across a square. The lighting in this scene gives the settings a warm glow, visually highlighting the idea that the society is peaceful and successful. The film thus initially depicts the story world’s society as a communal utopia.
Moreover, the image and an accompanying voice-over then introduce another important aspect of the story world: the faction system. The system is introduced one that connotes equality. Namely, when the voice-over gives the audience insight into the values that the different factions represent, the images show an equal number of male and female people working in these factions. The image also shows that men and women in the story world equally have both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ jobs. However, it is important to note that the film does not address the (unequal) power relations of the story world and thereby ensures that the existing power structures in the film, between femininity and masculinity for instance, are neutralised.
Figures 1a-d – These shots of the different factions in Divergent show anequal number of male and female people working in these factions. These shots also show that men and women in the story world equally have both
‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ jobs.
It soon becomes clear, however, that the different factions are gendered, and that each has its dominating discourse of language and action based on the values that the faction members value most. The Abnegation, for instance, is gendered ‘feminine’ because it values selflessness above all else. Amity, for those who value kindness and harmony, is gendered ‘feminine’ as well, while Candor, for those who value honesty and order, and Dauntless, for those who value braveness, are gendered ‘masculine’. This ensures that both male and female
characters are limited to fit into one of the (gendered) factions. Importantly, the film seems to favour the masculine factions over the feminine ones. The film depicts the male and female members of the feminine Abnegation faction as demure, compliant and subservient, while the members of the masculine Dauntless faction are depicted as physically active, loud and daring. The image depicts the latter characters that connote masculinity as active figures – running around, shouting, and jumping off of trains. By contrast, the image depicts the former characters that connote femininity as (more) passive by often portraying them being compliant and/or averting their eyes (see figures 10a-b). This unequal depiction remains unquestioned and is
consequently neutralised. This ensures that the film partly perpetuates the traditional passive/feminine, and active/masculine binary.
The story world in The Hunger Games, on the other hand, is introduced as a dystopia and this film does comment on the inequalities between the rich and the poor by visually contrasting these groups. The film opens with a black screen on which an excerpt of the ‘Treaty of the Treason’ appears, informing the audience on the existence of the Hunger Games18. Then, the image shows two men from the Capitol: the ‘game maker’, Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley), and a talk show host, Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci). Both men wear suits and look artificial, with blue hair and an artfully shaped beard, respectively. The setting is a high-tech studio. All of this ensures a stark contrast with the next shot of the living conditions of the teen girl character in District 12: dilapidated wooden houses, dry grass and old power lines. The film thus positions the Capitol and the Districts as the ‘have’ and ‘have-nots’, respectively, on the levels of class and technology. Moreover, later on in the introduction, very short images of District 12 show female characters, other than the main character, in traditional gender roles, being ‘trapped’ inside the house, washing clothes and dressing their children. Male characters, on the other hand, are shown in their mining gear. The film thus does emphasise the traditional gender roles in the district, but, at the same time, these images contrast with the previous images of the more ‘metrosexual’ males in the Capitol. It will later become clear that this contrast does not remain unquestioned.
Figures 2a-d –A selection of shots from The Hunger Games shows that male and female characters in District 12, aside from the main character, perform traditional gender roles.
18 This text explains that each of the 12 districts in Panem, the United States in a dystopian future, need to offer up a
male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 at a public ‘Reaping’ in penance for their uprising. These tributes will then be delivered to the custody of the Capitol and, after training, transferred to an arena where they will fight to the death in the Hunger Games until one victor remains.
After the films have introduced the system in which the characters are situated in the story world, the teen girl characters are introduced to the audience. The first interesting
difference between the films’ introduction of their main character is that the audience first sees this character as a child in Divergent and as a teenager in The Hunger Games. Thus, in Divergent, a sense of progression and transformation is already present from the very first time that the main character, Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior (Shailene Woodley), is introduced; the girl figure is
introduced as an ‘object of becoming’19. She is shown in a short shot running along at the back of a group of Dauntless people, the camera panning along with them, highlighting their movement. However, while the girl is introduced as physically active, her portrayal in the next shot
connotes confinement. A medium close-up shows her wandering away from a group of Abnegation people walking in one direction behind her. The framing in this shot is important because it ensures that the other characters that are visible from the waist down, connoting compliance and unanimity, frame the girl. This shot thus counteracts the first shot and highlights the confining and passive connotation that the film assigns to the main character and the
feminine faction in which the main character is situated (see figures 3a-d). As was stated above, the main character in The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), is introduced as a teenager. This film introduces the teen girl in a typically maternal or feminine role, comforting her little sister Primrose (Willow Shields). The teen girl is shown in (medium) close-ups and the lighting ensures that the rest of the room is dark, while her face is illuminated. The way in which the film portrays the teen girl thus connotes passivity and confinement as well. I will explore this confinement of the teen girl in more detail later on in this chapter. However, while the teen girl in The Hunger Games is introduced as ‘passive’, the way she is depicted after that strongly connotes activity. So, as opposed to the girl figure in Divergent who is introduced as active, but then becomes passive straight afterwards, the teen girl in The Hunger Games, who is introduced as passive, becomes active. It is interesting to compare these introductions to the introduction of the (only) teen girl character in The Maze Runner, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario). This film constructs the most conservative portrayal of the teen girl. She is first shown in a fleeting image in the main character’s dream, but then, around thirty minutes into the film, she is introduced in the same location as the other characters. At this point, she is asleep and wakes up to utter the name of the main male character, just to slip back into a coma again (see figures 5a-d). The film thus introduces the teen girl figure as completely passive, only waking up to exclaim a boy’s name. By first showing the teen girl as an image in the teen boy’s dream, the film defines her by his vision of her – she is defined in his terms.
19 Similar to the main character in Divergent, the female figure in Jupiter Ascending, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), is
Figures 3 a-d – Shots from the main character in Divergent show that she is introduces as physically active, while the next shot connotes confinement and passivity.
Figures 4a-d – The teen girl in The Hunger Games is introduced in a typically maternal or feminine role. The framing and the lighting in this first scene ensure that the portrayal of the teen girl figure connotes passivity and confinement.
Figures 5a-d - The teen girl in The Maze Runner is introduced in the teen boy’s dream and is subsequently introduced into the same location as the teen boys as completely passive, only waking up from her coma to exclaim a boy’s name.
I have stated that the main character in Divergent is introduced as a child, but the first time that the teen girl figure is introduced to the audience is in a mirror scene, a common trope in teen films in general20. Most teen films aimed at a (predominantly) female audience, including films like Mark Waters’s Mean Girls (2004) and Nick Moore’s Wild Child (2008), feature a scene in which a character or multiple characters look into a mirror. Mirror scenes illustrate the process of becoming of the teen girl(s) in film. While the girl figure in Divergent already connotes progression and transformation because of the introduction of this figure as a child, this
connotation is emphasised the first time the audience sees her as a teenager, framed in a mirror after her mother (Ashley Judd) has done her hair. Framing the teen girl in a mirror thus reflects on the process of becoming and, simultaneously, it functions to confine the teen girl in the
mirror, to contain her passive, to-be-looked-at image21. This shot thus connotes passivity, while it also hints at a process of becoming – a transformation that takes place over time. In this first mirror scene, the teen girl is shown inspecting her own image. She even cranes her neck a little when the mirror gets covered again, suggesting that the teen girl is unfamiliar with herself, her body and her mind. Narratively, this sentiment is mirrored, because the dialogue centres on the fact that the teen girl does not know who she is and where she belongs. This scene thus presents the teen girl as passive and unfocused again. In The Hunger Games, mirror scenes occur less frequently than in Divergent, but the teen girl is shown via a mirror in the introduction of this film as well. In this shot, Katniss is framed in a full-length mirror after she has been transformed into a slightly more feminine version of herself (she has bathed and has dressed herself in a sundress). Her mother (Paula Malcomson) has braided her hair and they both look into the
20 In her PhD thesis “Wonder Girls: Undercurrents of Resistance In the Representation of Teenage Girls in 1980s
American Cinema.”, Maryn Wilkinson argues that the mirror is the singular most recurring prop in teen girl rite-of-passage narratives (109).
21 The first time that the female figure’s face is introduced to the audience as a young woman in Jupiter Ascending, she
is framed in a mirror as well. We first see her from the back, standing on a balcony overlooking the skyline. Next, a panning shot shows a desk full of perfumes, pictures and jewellery, and stops at Jupiter’s face, framed in a small mirror, grabbing an earring. Similarly, in this scene, the framing of the female figure in a mirror reflects on the process of becoming and, simultaneously, it functions to confine the teen girl in the mirror, to contain her passive,
mirror in a two shot. Again, the teen girl is captured in the mirror to contain her (more feminine)
to-be-looked-at image. In addition to this, this mirror scene also reflects on the teen girl’s
maternal role and the relationship between the teen girl and her mother. By framing the two in the mirror, the film suggests a link between them. This is important because, in this way, the film partly defines the teen girl figure by the her mother’s image22. In a way, the film suggests that the teen girl is similar to or even a replacement of her mother. This is subsequently emphasised on a narrative and visual level. For instance,when the little girl states that she wants to look like her sister, the teen girl immediately walks up to her to comfort her, fulfilling the maternal task in this situation and thus rendering her mother superfluous. This is important because the film hereby seems to suggest that the teen girl figure has already become her mother – she is shown to take on both the maternal and paternal role. The teen girl walks away from the mirror, while her mother’s image is still contained in it, highlighting her passivity. In both of the films, the teen girls are framed by (the image of) their parents on a visual and narrative level, albeit not to the same extent23. Later on in this thesis, I will further discuss why this is important by examining the way in which the absence or passivity of parental figures relates to the portrayal of the teen girl figure (as active).
Figures 6a-b – The teen girl in Divergent is framed in the mirror. These shots simultaneously reflect on her process of becoming and function to contain her passive, to-be-looked-at image.
22 In a similar way, in Divergent, the mother and the teen girl figure are also framed in a mirror together, partly
defining the teen girl figure by the image of her mother. However, in this shot, the affectionate relationship between them is highlighted, because the mother is shown kissing the teen girl figure on her forehead.
23 The young woman in Jupiter Ascending is framed by her parents as well. A montage sequence that shows how her
parents fall in love even precedes her introduction. After this sequence, the film shows the girl’s parents as they name the baby in the mother’s belly.
Figures 7a-b – In The Hunger Games, the teen girl character and her mother are framed in the mirror. In this way, the film suggests that the teen girl could be seen as a replacement of her mother.
1.2 The Gaze, Agency, and Confinement
In her article “Visual Pleasures and the Narrative Cinema”, Laura Mulvey argues that the pleasure of looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. In relation to this sexual imbalance, she states the following: “The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styles accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role woman are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (837). The woman displayed on the film screen traditionally functions on two levels, namely as an erotic object for the characters within the film and for the spectator of the film. These two looks are usually unified technically without any apparent break in the diegesis (Mulvey 838). The third look associated with cinema is that of the camera as it records the pro-filmic event. However, according to Mulvey, the camera’s look and the look of the spectator become one. They are “disavowed in order to create a convincing world in which the spectator’s surrogate can perform with verisimilitude” (Mulvey 844). The voyeuristic camera and it’s assumed male desire of which Mulvey speaks in her article, are often present in teen films. Moreover, this voyeuristic camera is often neutralised in these films as well because it remains un-criticised. The
normalisation and/or neutralisation of this construction in which girls are the passive objects of
to-be-looked-at-ness is also achieved at the level of the camera, which often takes on the male
perspective through point-of-view shots. However, I will argue that many dystopian action films rarely construct the teen girl as a passive object of to-be-looked-at-ness that caters to the (erotic) desires of the male characters in the film, and the male (and female) spectators by extension. In the introduction of Divergent, for instance, the audience is not equated to the position of the male perspective; the film does not show any male point-of-view shots. The teen girl, by consequence, is not gazed at by any male (or female) characters in the story world and, in turn, does not become a passive object of to-be-looked-at-ness. A similar statement could be made about the teen girl in The Hunger Games. While this film does align the spectator with a male character, Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth), through a couple of point-of-view shots in the introduction of the film, these point-of-view shots are brief and are thus more of a ‘look’ or a ‘glance’ rather than a gaze. Moreover, this look does not go unnoticed by the female character and it is not presented as a point-of-view shot that caters to any sexual desires. Progressively, the teenage boys are thus not presented as active ‘lookers’ in the introduction of the film whilst the teenage girls are not portrayed as passive sexual objects. On the other hand, as will become clear in the next chapter of this thesis, it is important to note that the teen girl figure in The
Hunger Games is placed in the context of a television show, highlighting her to-be-looked-at-ness
The ever-present alignment24 that Mulvey suggests to be evident between the male characters on screen and the audience does not occur in these films. However, the question of whether the film invites the spectators to identify with these girls by equating them to the position of the female perspective then comes to mind; are the spectators invited to align themselves with the teen girl through the use of point-of-view shots? And if so, what do we see the teen girl looking at? In the introduction of Divergent, the camera is often placed near the main character’s head, showing what she is seeing, but not fully equating the audience to the position of the female perspective (see figures 7a-b). This ‘gaze’ differs from the male gaze in the way that it is not as all encompassing. However, this look arguably does assign some agency to the teen girl. Another way in which the camera shows what the teen girl is seeing is by first showing a medium close-up of the teen girl looking at something off-screen and then quickly panning the camera to show the object of her look. However, the film does show one ‘real’ point-of-view shot in the introduction. In this scene Tris is shown looking at the Dauntless jumping out of a train and running towards where she is standing. The teen girl is shown in the centre of the frame, looking at the approaching train. Then, a point-of-view shot shows the Dauntless people jumping out. After short shots from other angles, the camera cuts back to the teen girl looking and the camera pans with her, as she follows the running group with her eyes. Then, a ‘near point-of-view shot’ shows the group of people running past (see figures 8a-h). This time, the (near) point-of-view shots show what the teen girl desires on a narrative level, namely belonging to the Dauntless faction and being physically active. So, while the teen girl is not granted many ‘real’ point-of-view shots, the camera does show what she is seeing and desiring. Similarly, in The Hunger Games, the teen girl figure is granted a few (more) point-of-view shots as well. The most salient point-of-view shot occurs while the main character is hunting, and thus performing a typically masculine or paternal task. Shots of her seeing something off-screen, drawing her bow and pulling it back are juxtaposed with point-of-view shots of a deer (see figures 9a-d). Later on in the film, the audience is invited to align with the teen girl character when she is fulfilling the typically feminine or maternal task of caring (and sacrificing her own freedom) for a loved one. This point-of-view shot shows Katniss looking for her sister before the reaping. The point-of-view shots in this film thus align the audience with both the
paternal/masculine and maternal/feminine ‘sides’ of the teen girl. However, in the latter case, the point-of-view shot connotes anxiety and terror, because the reaction shots emphasise the teen girl’s anxious expression. It has become clear that, while the teen girls in these films are granted point-of-view shots, or something similar but less powerful, these shots are not fuelled by sexual desires. While this is the case with the male gaze, these ‘looks’ of the teen girls are not capturing their (male) objects in an erotic hold. These shots are not sexual, but they do relate to the teen girls’ desires and concerns. Because the use of point-of-view shots differs in both films,
24 The concept of alignment is complex. In this thesis, I will use this concept to describe the moments in whichthe
camera eye takes on the perspective of a character through a point-of-view shot, equating the audience to this position.
it will be useful to explore the way in which the extent to which the audience is equated to the position of the female perspective, relates to the extent of ‘active’ agency assigned to the teen girl in the film. Does this construction of the teen girl as passive or active relate to the ‘gender performance’ of the character as well? Is (some of) the power that’s attributed to the teen girl through these (near) point-of-view shots disavowed by the film’s presentation of the teen girl’s appearance or gender performance?
Figures 7a-b – In Divergent, Beatrice’s older brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) helps an older lady who has dropped her bags, shown in an over the shoulder shot. The subsequent ‘near point-of-view shot’ shows him asking Tris if she wants
to get the other bags.
Figures 8a-h – In the introduction of Divergent, the teen girl figure is granted one ‘real’ point-of-view shot (which is followed by multiple near point-of-view shots) that shows what the teen girl desires (in a nonsexual way).
Figures 9a-d – A selection of shots from a hunting sequence in The Hunger Games shows the most salient point-of-view shots of the teen girl aiming for game.
Teen girls in mainstream films, targeted at a younger (predominantly female) audience, often represent conservative gender connotations25. They are often preoccupied with looks and pursuing a heterosexual romantic relationship. This is also the case in films like Mean Girls and
Wild Child that I have mentioned before. However, as has been hinted to earlier in this chapter,
this is often not the case in recent dystopian action films. These teen girl characters are not shown to be preoccupied with dressing, beauty and looks and they are often shown to take on masculine traits and aspects of the appearance of a (teenage) boy26. In The Hunger Games and
The Maze Runner, for instance, it becomes evident during the introduction of the characters that
25 As I have argued in the introduction of this thesis, Frances Gateward and Murray Pomerance state that the female
subject in contemporary films about girls are usually an exemplification of hegemonic attitudes and values about girlhood (14).
26 It is, however, important to acknowledge the status of these teen girl figures as ‘natural beauties’. This status is
highlighted by their ‘natural’ makeup and long (flowing) hair, among other things. Moreover, as I have discussed before, the teen girls are framed in mirrors, and they are also shown to change clothes, have their hair done by their mothers, and the teen girl figure in Divergent is even shown to get a tattoo. While the teen girls are not shown to be preoccupied with dressing and beauty, the films do associate the teen girl figures with these (whether or not typically feminine) ‘altering acts’ to varying extents.
these teen girls are party masculine or androgynous in dress and appearance27. Namely, the main (and only) girl character in the latter film wears old sneakers, dark jeans, and a loose fitted light blue t-shirt. These parts of her appearance connote masculinity, while her long (albeit slightly unkempt) hair and the fact that the top buttons of her shirt are undone to show her bare neckline connote femininity. The appearance of Katniss, the main character of the former film, is more androgynous. In the first part of the film, she wears pants, a loose dark blue shirt and a loose fitting leather jacket28 – clothes that are not typically feminine, especially compared to the clothes of the other women in District 12. Her hair, which she wears in a practical, messy braid, connotes both masculinity and femininity. The fact that teen girl figures in (dystopian) action films are often shown to take on masculine traits and aspects of the appearance of a (teenage) boy ties in with the argument that Tasker makes about tomboy figures in her book Working
Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema, which I have mentioned before. In this book,
Tasker states that the tomboy has become a staple of the action and adventure narrative (81). She also points to some evident similarities between the tomboy figure and the figure of the ‘Final Girl’, a figure that I have also discussed in the introduction of this thesis. These two figures share a peculiar gender status, and an ambivalent relationship to sexuality, for instance (Tasker 81). Contrary to the tomboyish appearance of the teen girls in The Hunger Games and The Maze
Runner, the appearance of the teen girl character in Divergent is more typically feminine. While
the girl’s baggy grey clothes might not immediately connote femininity because this outfit is does not highlight the female body, the film does introduce the teen girl in a robe that connotes (feminine) demureness.
According to Tasker, the tomboy is an ambivalent, transitional figure that captures a sense of incomplete development (82-4). Like the ‘feminine’ teen girl, the tomboy is
permanently ‘in between’ childhood and adulthood. The tomboy, however, is permanently in between masculinity and femininity as well. In an in-between gender performance, similar to the constructed gender performance of the teen girl in The Hunger Games, teen girls in film are often granted powers that are normally only assigned to the representation of teen boys or other masculine identities, precisely because they are permanently in-between categories29. The alignment with the character through point-of-view shots that I have discussed above is one of
27 The female figure in Jupiter Ascending also wears gender-neutral clothes, like loose, grey, V-neck shirts and a blue
lumberjack shirt, in the introduction of the film. However, contrary to the teen girls in The Hunger Games, The Maze
Runner and Divergent, the female figure in Jupiter Ascending is shown to be more strongly preoccupied with dressing
and beauty. Aside from the fact that she is introduced behind a dressing table, montage sequences also show her cleaning toilets and changing bedding, thus performing ‘typically feminine actions’.
28 In the book on which the film is based, it is said that this leather jacket belonged to Katniss’s father before he died.
This further reinforces the masculinity of her clothing and the fact that she has taken on the paternal role of providing for the family. It could even be argued that the teen girl thus has to wear her father’s clothes to become more
masculine in order to be ‘allowed’ (by the film) to become physically active.
29 According to Tasker, the tomboy is granted these masculine powers because the transgression of the
masculine/feminine boundary can be contained due to the sense of ‘in-between-ness’ that is captured by the tomboy figure (84). I will come back to this in the second chapter of this thesis.
these powers, but some of the ‘power’ that the teen girl might have gained through the gaze is simultaneously disavowed because she is presented as androgynous. The more androgynous and more typically feminine appearances of the teen girls in The Hunger Games and Divergent respectively, thus also relate to the fact that the teen girl in the former film is granted more point-of-view shots than the one in the latter film. Later on in this thesis I will come back to the tomboy figure and its function to ultimately reinforce traditional gender norms and
heterosexuality30.
Another power that teen girls in an in-between gender performance are often granted is the connotation of (physical) activity or agency. This thus leads us to expect that the teen girl in
The Hunger Games, with the most androgynous appearance, will be portrayed as the most active
figure, while the teen girl in Divergent will be portrayed as connoting passivity rather than activity31. Earlier in this chapter, I have already argued that the teen girl characters of the dystopian action films that I am exploring in this thesis are not all introduced as connoting activity. I have shown that the film The Maze Runner constructs the most conservative portrayal of the teen girl, while the initial introduction of the (teen) girl in Divergent and The Hunger
Games is a little less conservative. However, the question whether these teen girls stay passive
or active during the rest of the introduction of the film, remains. In teen films, teen girls are often confined in space (on a narrative and visual level), while teen boys are in control of their
environments and have access to (new) spaces. In Divergent, for instance, the teen girl often does not have independent access to spaces in the introduction of the film. Male characters, most notably the father and the brother, chaperone the teen girl whenever she leaves her faction to take the Aptitude test or visit the Choosing Ceremony, for example. The teen girl thus seems to require some kind of male help in order to move around. Furthermore, when the film ‘allows’ the teen girl to move independently, she is confined on a visual level by the linear play within the frame. Later on in this chapter I will discuss this visual construction of linear confinement in greater detail. Aside from the fact that the film limits the teen girl’s (independent) movement, the teen girl is confined on a narrative level as well by a patriarchal ‘gaze’. This gaze is not presented as sexual, but as a gaze that observes and corrects32. While the patriarchal or authoritarian gaze is not present in the introduction of The Hunger Games, it does confine the teen girl in Divergent. The father and the older brother in this film are shown to keep the girl in check on a narrative level, keeping her in the gendered confines of the faction33. The first and
30 As will further become clear later on in this thesis, the function of the tomboy to ultimately reinforce traditional
gender norms and heterosexuality is proposed by Barbara Creed (1995) and Judith Halberstam (1998), among others.
31 The (more typically feminine) costume of the teen girl character in Divergent seems to support this claim, since this
character’s robe complicates active movement.
32 Wilkinson makes the same argument about a non-sexual patriarchal (fatherly, authoritarian) gaze that monitors
and corrects teen girls in the dominant locations of 1980s teen films (63).
33 In most dystopian action films, including the films I am exploring in this thesis, the authoritarian gaze of the
government especially will become increasingly present throughout the film. This gaze closely relates to the use of diegetic screens or surveillance camera’s in these films. I will come back to this in more detail in a later chapter of this thesis.
only time that the teen girl has agency in the introduction of Divergent is when she eventually has to make a choice; she has to decide which faction to choose. While it could be seen as progressive that this decision is not ‘pre-ordained’, in this case it also means that the teen girl is portrayed as weak, unsure and indecisive throughout the introduction of the film.
Figures 10a-f – In Divergent, the teen girl is kept in the gendered confines of her faction by her brother. In these shots, Caleb holds Beatrice back and reminds her to avoid confrontation.
In the introduction of The Hunger Games, on the other hand, the teen girl has just as much – if not more – access to different spaces as the teen boy. While the teen girl character is introduced within the (passive) confines of the home – a place that is traditionally seen as ‘feminine’ – fulfilling the typically feminine or maternal task of comforting a child, the teen girl is shown to fulfil a typically masculine or paternal task afterwards. Namely, when the teen girl leaves the confines of the house in which she is introduced, she goes outside to hunt outside of the boundaries of the district to provide for her family. The teen girl then is immediately portrayed as physically active, running towards the forest. During the following hunting sequence, the film constructs the teen girl as a physically active, skilled and confident figure – traits that are usually assigned to male characters in film34. Moreover, while the boundaries of
34 It is important to note, however, that the film reminds the audience of the fact that this situation in which the teen
the story world of both The Hunger Games and Divergent are clearly set, the former film shows the teen girl crossing these boundaries. One of these boundaries that the teen girl crosses is the physical boundary of District 12. The fact that the government in the story world does not allow people to cross those boundaries is highlighted in the image by multiple close-ups of signs on a fence saying “district boundary: no access”. The film, however, constructs the teen girl’s active agency by ‘allowing’ her to (swiftly) cross this boundary anyway (see figures 11a-b). However, although it is progressive that the film portrays the teen girl figure as active and ‘allows’ her to access spaces in the introduction of the film, it is important to note that the teen girl figure is marked as active when she is shown fulfilling the typically masculine role of hunting to provide for her family, whereas she is positioned as (slightly) more passive when she is shown fulfilling the more typically feminine role of caring for a loved one.
Figures 11a-b – In The Hunger Games, a close-up of a sign on the fence highlights the fact that the inhabitants of District 12 are not allowed to cross this boundary. However, the second shot shows that the film does ‘allow’ the teen
girl figure to cross this boundary.
The fact that the teen girl figure is portrayed as more physically active in a masculine role, and as more passive in a feminine role, is highlighted on a visual level. When the teen girl figure in The Hunger Games is introduced to the viewer, fulfilling a typically maternal or feminine role, handheld (medium) close-ups of the two girls are juxtaposed, while the main character keeps comforting her little sister. The lighting in this scene ensures that the two girl’s faces are illuminated, while the rest of the room is extremely dark. This use of (medium)
close-ups and lighting highlight the emotional closeness between the characters on screen and the
audience, but more importantly, the tight framed images and dark surrounding visually confine the teen girl in the frame and in the ‘feminine’ location (see figures 4a-d). Therefore, this
sequence, in which the teen girl performs a ‘female’ task, connotes confinement and passivity on a visual level. By contrast, immediately after this scene, the main character leaves the house and starts running – thus becoming physically active. The camera highlights the physical activity visually by framing the teen girl in medium shots and (medium) long shots as she keeps running towards the forest to hunt. In the forest, the teen girl is still portrayed in (medium) long shots and medium shots (see figures 12a-d). The frame does not confine the teen girl when she is
constant narrative reminders of the fact that Katniss’s father has died in a mining accident, an event that has left her mother unable to take care of her children, which forces Katniss to provide for her family.
