More than gender: a gender analysis of The Hunger Games’ action heroine and reality TV star Katniss Everdeen

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More than gender

A gender analysis of The Hunger Games’ action heroine and reality TV star Katniss Everdeen

Hanne van de Vuurst 10409718

Television and Cross-Media Culture (professional track) University of Amsterdam

Supervisor: dr. Joke Hermes

Second reader: dr. Leonie Schmidt Date of completion: 1 September 2016

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Abstract

This thesis is focused on the way Katniss Everdeen, main character of The Hunger

Games film series, is represented in relation to gender and gender conventions. The

research is focused on the way Katniss is represented as an action heroine and also focuses on Katniss’ representation as a reality TV star, which is located on a meta level. These two analyses are further interpreted by means of theories and concepts of third-wave feminism and post-feminism. This thesis argues that The Hunger

Games films avoid traditionally gendered signs in Katniss’ representation which

makes her significantly different and more progressive than other action heroines. Furthermore, an emphasis is placed on how these movies simultaneously underwrite how other media platforms can oppress women based on their gender. This analysis in combination with theories and concepts of third-wave feminism and post-feminism ultimately leads to the conclusion that Katniss Everdeen is a progressive action heroine and female character since The Hunger Games films express that girls and women and their problems are characterized by more than just their gender, and that they should be represented as more than just girls and women.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Joke Hermes for all the insights and feedback throughout the process. Without her encouragement and overall supervision I would not have been able to realise this thesis.

I would also like to thank Anneke van de Vuurst for the enormous amount of moral support, for listening to all my (often far-fetched) thoughts on the subject and for making sure I did not starve during the process of writing.

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Introduction

Research on the representation of girls and women in popular culture is anything but an uncharted area. There is an overwhelming amount of literature written and

research done on women’s representations in popular media and on feminism in popular culture in general, and one could wonder what yet another analysis of a female character could possibly add to this already substantial amount of research on similar topics. However, at the same the abundance of literature clearly shows that this area offers a great deal of topics to be researched and that it is constantly in motion and rapidly changing. Moreover, every now and then a specific case surfaces that raises eyebrows; a female character represented in a way that seems different somehow than other representations of women and girls in popular culture and that therefore is worth investigating.

Katniss Everdeen, the main character of The Hunger Games film series, is one of those characters: she is a teenage girl, but she isn’t occupied with any ‘girly’

problems like her appearance or boys, and instead spends her time hunting in the woods to provide for her family. And, she is a heroine; when she is forced to

participate in the dreaded Hunger Games, she does not just save her own life, she saves the lives of many other and ends up causing- and participating in a war against the bad guys. Also, Katniss looks different than many other women and girls do in action and adventure movies; she doesn’t look all that strong, she does not carry oversized guns or wear tight costumes.

Both of these things – Katniss as a teenage girl without the presumed

problems of a teenager and her neutral appearance as a female action hero – make her an interesting subject for research on the way gender is deployed in these movies. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the question how Katniss is represented, and how this representation relates to other action heroine’s representations and to feminism in popular culture in a more general sense.

Moreover, these films contain another element that cannot be left out of the equation when analysing Katniss’ representation in relation to gender. That is, The

Hunger Games movies are about a televised event, the Hunger Games, in which

Katniss has to participate which makes her a reality TV star. The fact that Katniss (against her will) is on a reality TV show influences the way she looks (or, rather is made to look) and the course her narrative takes: she has to dress a lot more

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feminine than she normally does and has to pretend to be occupied with certain (girly) affairs that normally don’t interest her. Therefore, it wouldn’t be correct to consider her appearance and narrative in this reality TV layer of the movie as a direct part of her representation in The Hunger Games film series: the element of Katniss as a reality TV star is located on a meta level in which the movies represent what influences television genres such as reality TV could have on the representation of women.

So, in other words, the movies do not ‘just’ represent a girl, they also offer the topic - representation of women in popular media - itself as a theme. And since the representation of reality TV influences Katniss’ representation, the reality TV layer in these films should be considered in order to thoroughly analyse Katniss. Moreover, examining this theme also offers an extra dynamic to the research topic: if the films represent- and therefore say something about - the way women are represented, then how does this relate to the way the movies themselves represent women? In short, the research question of this thesis can be phrased as follows:

How is The Hunger Games’ main character Katniss Everdeen represented as a reality TV star and action heroine, and how does this relate to the discussion about feminism and popular culture more generally?

In order to formulate an answer to this question, all four films of The Hunger Games film series will be taken into account. Not all four movies will be analysed wholly, but significant sequences from all four films will be highlighted in the analyses.

Chapter 1 contains of an outline of theories and concepts about reality TV and its deployment of gender and gender conventions. These theories and concepts will then be applied to the reality TV layer in the story of The Hunger Games with an emphasis on how reality TV influences Katniss’ physical appearance and storyline. In chapter 2 an overview will be given of theory on other present-day action heroines and on the critical interpretations of these heroines concerning gender and gender conventions. Since most gendered characteristics of action heroines derive from their appearance, from the way they are framed and from their narratives, the following close analysis of Katniss as action heroine will be focused on those elements.

Lastly, chapter 3 presents an overview of theory on third-wave feminism and post-feminism in popular culture, which is then used to critically analyse the way

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Katniss - as a reality TV star, action heroine and female character - is represented. This will then lead to a conclusion on Katniss’ representation and its relation to the discussion about feminism in popular culture today.

Method

This thesis consists of a critical reading of The Hunger Games film series based on various theories and concepts from literature about reality TV, action heroines and feminism. Based on these concepts and theories, several moments, scenes and sequences from all four movies have been selected as relevant examples for the analysis. The analysis is based on specific parts of the four movies that are telling and relevant and deployed as illustrative for all four movies concerning the

researched topics (reality TV, action heroines and feminism) in order to answer the main question of this thesis. Although this means that various parts and elements of the films are left out of account (amongst which other relevant examples), there are no scenes or sequences left out that would contradict the analysis of the used examples.

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1. The Hunger Games and reality television

This chapter consists of an outline of theories and concepts about reality TV and its deployment of gender and gender conventions. The reality TV layer in the story of

The Hunger Games will be analysed by means of these theories and concepts, which

will show how Katniss is represented as a reality TV star in The Hunger Games films.

1.1 Reality TV

Originally, ‘reality TV’ as a category or genre was used to describe television

programmes that showed real-life footage of law enforcers (for instance police men) on the job (Kavka 77). Throughout the 1990s and 2000s however, the genre quickly expanded. Programmes like Big Brother (1999), Survivor (2000) and American Idol (2002) were introduced and became instant successes (ibid., Andrejevic 1), and all kinds of other formats featuring real people were developed in that period. Now, about twenty years later, reality TV has become a formalized genre that comes in all kinds of shapes and forms, about all kinds of topics and that seems to be evolving constantly. Annette Hill’s definition of reality TV sums this up quite clearly: “Reality TV is a catch-all category that includes a wide range of entertainment programmes about real people. Sometimes called popular factual television, reality TV is located in border territories, between information and entertainment, documentary and drama” (2). Yasmin Ibrahim identifies comparable characteristics: “While the term ‘reality television’ has invited various interpretations, there is an implicit and overarching recognition that it claims to represent reality to some degree by depicting ordinary people and lives” and is characterized by “its ability to cross boundaries and to blur demarcations between bounded genres” (48). As these definitions emphasizes, reality TV is not a clear-cut genre: not only does it have a lot of different forms and topics, it also touches on other formats and genres like documentary and drama. As Joanne Morreale emphasizes: “Reality television programs have now infiltrated virtually every area of the medium, and they occupy a significant portion of the televisual terrain. Like viruses, reality programs reproduce themselves by hijacking pre-existent forms: cop shows, dramas, soap operas, sitcoms, game shows, and self-improvement shows” (2).

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forms and topics of the genre – there seem to be certain aspects that are distinctive and characteristic for this particular genre. In this theoretical chapter a number of these aspects will be outlined (which will be applied to the representation of reality TV in The Hunger Games film series later on): firstly, it will be discussed how ‘real’

people on reality TV are treated and portrayed. This aspect is closely related to the broader question of why audiences find reality TV so attractive and why audiences keep watching these shows even though they are about people that supposed to be just as ‘normal’ as the viewers themselves.

Secondly, the way in which reality TV deals with the reality it exposes, will be discussed. Although these shows claim they show ‘reality’, they of course do not do this in a neutral way. After all, reality TV has to present reality in a way that is

attractive for the audience and that will keep the audience watching. The mechanisms behind this claiming to show reality on the one hand, and

simultaneously representing reality in attractive ways on the other hand, will be discussed.

1.1.1 Reality TV – characters

Just as every other television genre, reality TV shows have to deal with uncertainty concerning viewership and ratings. As Ien Ang explains, the audience is the biggest uncertainty in the managerial aspect of television’s economics. She states:

A constant sense of uncertainty thus haunts television’s persistence and continuity as an institution. The audience, sine qua non for both television’s economic viability and cultural legitimacy, forms its ultimate insecurity factor because in principle there is no way to know in advance whether the audience will tune in and stay tuned (15).

In other words: there is no way of knowing for certain that audiences will watch a certain television broadcast, let alone knowing for sure that the audience will tune in every time a certain programme airs since, as Jan Teurlings stresses, watching television is a voluntary activity that has to compete with other leisure activities and there is simply nothing forcing the audience to watch television (133).

This uncertainty is a major problem for all television programmes, but according to Teurlings reality TV shows have to deal with a second managerial problem that is interrelated with the first: in order to make their shows interesting to

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watch - that is, solving the first problem-, these shows have to find participants that are interesting to watch (134-5). Teurlings calls these two problems combined the ‘double and interrelated managerial problematic’ that production teams of reality TV have to deal with (135). The first problem is especially pressing in reality TV shows that are highly formulaic and of which each episode is a self-contained story, and therefore offer no possibilities to build story-arcs and create viewer involvement over a longer period of time as, for instance, soap operas can do (133-135). This makes solving the second problem for these formulaic shows even more important in order to solve the first problem (ibid.). But, even for reality TV shows that do offer

possibilities for creating story-arcs, finding and managing interesting participants is still extremely important. As Teurlings stresses, the participants of these shows are the subjects and therefore they have to be interesting in order to make the show interesting i.e. making the audience watch the show:

How to make the participants interact so that they become interesting “material” to watch? Because interesting participants make a fascinating “view”; a view that will make audiences endlessly return to the programme like moths around a flame. Just like the flame’s fascination resides in its structural constant while changing endlessly, [these] shows feed us “more of the same” while being highly particular in each and every instance (135).

In short, it is very important for reality TV shows to find interesting participants and to manage them in such a way that they make for interesting television. As Teurlings goes on to explain, in line with the double managerial problem, reality TV producers have to do with two types of governance (136). The first type of governing is the governance of the ‘absent actor’ the audience (ibid.). As implicitly mentioned before, the producers can’t manage the audience directly or immediately. The only means they have to reach the audience is the programme – the text – and therefore they can only govern the audience ‘at a distance’; by creating a show the audience finds interesting to watch (ibid.). In contrast to the first type, the second type of governance does involve a direct, immediate kind of control: while the producers cannot influence the audience directly, they can directly and immediately control the participants who are physically present actors to them (ibid.). So, the real people who are participating in their shows, offer producers more controllable and manageable means to ‘fix’ the double managerial problem.

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Richard M. Huff also stresses how important the cast is for producers of reality television: “[…] ask any reality-show producer what is necessary to create a hit show and the answers are usually the same: an interesting cast and good storytelling” (32). Furthermore, he emphasizes that even though the producers hold power over the storytelling as they create everything surrounding the cast and edit the show, it

nevertheless will only work with a good cast (ibid.). Leigh H. Edwards also underlines the importance of the right cast and identifies character “as one of the main driving engines for the success of a reality show” (17).

The question remains though, what exactly makes participants interesting so audiences will want to watch them, and how the producers accomplish making these participants interesting. Based on interviews with producers of reality TV shows, Teurlings argues that the best definition of what makes participants interesting, is when they perform ‘strong identities’ (137). With strong identities Teurlings means identities that stand out, that are out of the ordinary (137-8). He further explains: “This can mean basically any performance that tends towards the extreme and the clear-cut. […] ambivalence is not a valued quality: one needs clear-cut identities and frank statements, high passions and painful details, not boring nuances or talks free of engagement.” (138). Teurlings refers to the creation of strong identities as ‘identity extraction’. He explains that the aim of the producers is:

to take out those elements of the participants identity that set him or her apart. In this sense identity extraction is a process of purification, of filtering out those elements the production team deems “interesting to watch”. In short, identity extraction is a way of streamlining “the raw material that participants have on offer. (161-2)

So, producers try to make their participants into more explicit and more one-dimensional versions of themselves. But, to bring these identities to the surface to make them visible, they also have to be performed by the participants. To accomplish these performances of the strong identities, emotional moments have to be incited and, even more importantly, these moments have to happen in public i.e. on camera (ibid, 155.). After all, interesting performances by the participants are only of value for the producers if they can use it to pull in the audience in order to secure their

viewership. In short, as Teurlings emphasizes; the aim of participant management is to make them publicly perform strong identities (ibid.).

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Leigh H. Edwards also emphasizes how reality TV cast members are often turned into specific versions of themselves and stresses how much these reality TV identities coincide with characterizations in other (fictional) television genres, and also how these shows create narratives around their participants/characters. And although Edwards is focussing specifically on docusoaps (in which real people are documented during their daily life for a longer period of time), her arguments can be applied to other kinds of reality TV subgenres. According to her, characters in reality TV shows are often presented as certain ‘types’ of characters that one could also find in sitcoms or soap operas; for instance ‘the hero’, ‘the villain’, ‘the girl next door’, ‘the perfectionist’, ‘the caretaker’ etc. (28, 31). The narratives that are created for these characters are also similar to narratives from fictional genres such as sitcom, drama or soap opera and follow narrative conventions; for instance a couple having

relationship problems, children rebelling against their parents, or characters

overcoming insecurities or anxieties (ibid.). According to Edwards these plotlines, or

character narratives, are the engines the engines in reality TV that drive the

connection to fans (27). She also emphasizes that the practice of editing is often used to amplify or emphasize character traits and events, and to create story arcs (33). As will become apparent in the analysis, these mechanisms of identity

extraction and character narrative are represented in the reality TV storyline in The

Hunger Games and are an important factor in the way Katniss is represented as a

reality TV star.

Furthermore, strong identities alone aren’t enough to make reality TV shows successful or appealing. Something else is necessary which, at first, seems to be contradictory to the necessity of strong identities and narratives: authenticity. As Annette Hill states: “At the heart of the debate about the reality of reality TV is a paradox: the more entertaining a factual programme is, the less real it appears to viewers” (57). As mentioned earlier, reality TV – and especially the docusoap – uses elements from fictional genres to make sure the programme is entertaining, but these entertaining elements have a downside as well. Based on audience research, Hill explains:

Viewers of reality programming are attracted to various formats because they feature real people’s stories in an entertaining manner. However, they are also

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distrustful of the authenticity of various reality formats precisely because these real people’s stories are presented in an entertaining manner (58).

Viewers are especially sceptical about the authenticity of the behaviour and reactions of reality TV cast members (67). Often they feel that cast members are performing instead of ‘just being themselves and, moreover, audiences are aware of editing and staging practices (ibid.). Because of this, according to Hill, “there is a common mode of engagement […] that is characterised by discussion that goes back and forwards between trust and suspicion of the behaviour of ordinary people” (ibid.). In other words: audiences make a distinction between the performed selves and true selves of the cast members and look for ‘moments of truth’ in the constructed television environment (68). And those moments of truth are quite important since, as Edwards stresses, for the reality cast member to appeal to audiences and to draw them in, they have to seem genuine i.e. authentic (30, 48).

It is important to note here that the exact meaning of ‘authenticity’ remains unclear. Hill stresses that, firstly, viewers “are far more likely to question the authenticity of ordinary people and their behaviour in highly constructed reality programming […] where the format is designed to encourage self-display” (77) and, secondly, that “audiences draw on their own personal experiences of social

interaction to judge the authenticity of the war ordinary people talk, behave and respond […]” (78) and that the question whether people are behaving truthfully is a matter for audiences to debate (ibid.).

In spite of the absence of an exact definition of authenticity however, there are clearly two paradoxical mechanisms at play in reality TV and in its appeal to the audience; on the one hand, these shows are considered entertaining with their strong characters and dramatic narratives; on the other hand, the viewers are aware and sceptical of the staging and editing practices in these shows and are therefore always looking for real and authentic moments in order to be emotionally invested in the characters and the show.

1.1.2 Reality TV – reality

In the previous section it has become clear that reality TV programs can manipulate the representation of their characters and that audiences are aware of the staging and editing practices through which the characters are portrayed. The question then,

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is how reality TV can still claim to show reality while audiences know about the

construction of the content of these shows. According to Edwards, this has to do with the form of reality TV rather than with the content. She explains that reality TV is a hybrid genre that uses several elements of the style and form of the documentary genre; it borrows elements like the fly on the wall style from observational

documentary, and elements like talking head interviews and voice-over from

expository documentary (52). But, while documentary and reality TV share a visual style, there is an important difference between the two genres when it comes to the relationship between the visual style and claims of truth. As Edwards explains:

Reality TV cannibalizes documentary. But most interesting is that it tries to reendow documentary with the status of truth. While theorists and filmmakers have long remarked on the inevitable merger of fact and fiction, witnessing and interpretation in the nonfiction film form, reality TV wants to change course and make documentary synonymous with authenticity. (53)

In other words, while there is an ongoing discussion in the documentary genre about truth-claims and the role of documentary in reality, reality TV seems to ignore this debate and uses elements of documentary style simply as markers of the truth. As Edwards goes on to explain, reality TV wants to downplay the knowledge the

audience has of the construction of the content by deploying these visual elements, and therefore asks the audience to believe in the documentary form as authentic rather than in the authenticity of the content (53-54). So, even when content is clearly scripted or inauthentic, audiences can still enjoy reality TV and experience it as ‘real’ since the visual form gives it truth value (58).

The claims of truth in the visual form have other consequences for reality TV as well. As became clear in the previous section, reality TV needs interesting, outstanding characters to make its shows appealing to watch. In other words: since reality TV is often about ‘ordinary’ people and/or their ‘ordinary’ lives, there needs to be something extraordinary to make these ordinary subjects interesting to watch. Meanwhile, as Micha Kavka stresses, reality TV shows have to try to reach as broad as possible an audience at the same time which means they have to take into

account what is broadly accepted as well (220-1). So, as Kavka goes on to explain, just as was apparent in Hill’s previously mentioned ‘paradox’ of reality TV , there is a contradiction within reality TV: on the one hand, it needs to show something that is

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interesting to watch (the extraordinary) and on the other, it needs to show that what is already accepted i.e. the status quo (the ordinary) (Kavka 221, Hill 57). And at the same time, since reality TV deploys its visual documentary style in order to give truth value to its content, it also has given itself the ability to expose what lies outside the traditional norms and status-quo (the extraordinary) as ‘real’, and could therefore potentially push those boundaries of what is accepted as real and ‘normal’ (Kavka 221-2). This mechanism of showing what lies outside the status quo as ‘real’, is what Kavka calls ‘queering the pitch’. As she explains:

Queering the pitch is my term for the in-built, often barely controlled effects of excess in reality TV programmes—too much emotion, too much information, too much visibility. These levels of the “too much” constitute the raison d’être, though not the formatting concept, of reality shows. Indeed, to perform

intimacy in the public space of television viewing, as reality TV participants must do, is by deﬁnition to parade an incoherence of norms that in other contexts is closed down, or at least regimented, by the status quo. (221) Kavka is quite optimistic about the potential of these moments of excess not only because they show what is normally suppressed, but even more so because these moments at the same time reveal that the norms of the status quo are incoherent (222).

Leigh H. Edwards has written about the same mechanism of exploration of changing ideologies and new realities, but interprets it in a different way than Kavka. Like Kavka, Edwards states that reality TV offers moments in which generic

conventions are broken (moments of ‘queering the pitch’), but according to her, reality TV pushes those moments back into traditional frameworks simultaneously (226). As she explains:

[…] This process of questioning and then returning to norms allows production companies and networks to fetishize social changes but revert to a safety position that stops short of imagining real social alternatives, testing

conventional boundaries but only in a limited way. These shows thus try to have it both ways—they picture possible new-found realities but limit them by upholding the framework of traditional norms. (227)

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So, while Kavka and Edwards both recognize the same moments of excess in reality TV, they have somewhat different views on them. While Kavka identifies them as signs of the “incoherence” of the status quo and traditional frameworks (221) - and therefore as positive effect, Edwards stresses how these moments seem to be signs of this at first sight, but are in fact represented as “exceptions that prove the rule” (228).

1.2 Reality TV in The Hunger Games

In this section, the representation of reality TV and Katniss as a reality TV star in The

Hunger Games film series will be analysed on the basis of the characteristics of

reality TV outlined in the sections above. This analysis will be focused on the first movie The Hunger Games (2012) and second movie The Hunger Games: Catching

Fire (2013) of the film series.

1.2.1 Katniss as reality TV star

Several of the characteristics of reality TV characters as mentioned above, can be found in the first movie. In this movie, Katniss is chosen to participate in the Hunger Games: a live broadcasted survival-contest which turns her into a reality TV

character. To avoid any confusion in the following analysis, it is important to clarify beforehand that the movies of The Hunger Games series are not (like) a reality TV show, but that the reality TV show The Hunger Games is a storyline in the movies and is represented on a narrative level.

Firstly, identity extraction and the creation of characters is an important narrative theme in especially the first movie. In the first part of this movie, Katniss is introduced as a tough teenaged girl: she lives in a very poor district and she has to provide for her family which she does by hunting and trading her stock on the black market. She wears no makeup, wears comfortable clothes and only has one male friend. Once Katniss and Peeta have been chosen as tributes for the Hunger Games and become reality TV characters, this all changes. As soon as Katniss arrives in the Capitol, a team of beauticians wash and scrub her, wax her legs and eyebrows, dress her in an extravagant costume and put heavy makeup on her. After this, when Katniss and Peeta are presented to the public during the ‘tribute parade’, Katniss’ identity is extracted for the first time. During this parade, Katniss and Peeta –

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because they are from a coalmining district - are wearing costumes that seem to be burning. The television presenters who are commenting on the broadcast of this parade immediately dub Katniss ‘the girl on fire’. The nickname sticks, and is

reinforced in another important scene, in which all the tributes are interviewed on live television and in front of a live audience. During Katniss’ interview, the presenter introduces her as “the girl you know as the girl on fire” and she is once again given an extravagant dress with flames to wear to the pleasure of the audience and the presenter, who keeps identifying her as ‘the girl on fire’ to the audience. Furthermore, while Katniss waits for her interview, some of the interviews with other tributes are shown and it becomes clear that the other tributes also try to present themselves in a certain way, which is encouraged by the presenter. One girl is clearly very optimistic about her chances of winning, and the presenter tells her and the audience how much he loves her confidence. Another girl emphasizes her own intelligence, and one of the boys describes himself as vicious, after which the presenter calls him “a fighter”.

In the scenes that follow after this one, when Peeta gives his interview, The

Hunger Games makes the need of reality TV for strong identities becomes truly

concrete, and, secondly, the need for a strong narrative in reality TV is introduced. Up until this point, Peeta and Katniss haven’t had a lot of contact, but during his interview he suddenly declares his love for her. Katniss is infuriated by this strategy and attacks Peeta as soon as he comes offstage. The conversation that follows is quite significant concerning identity extraction:

Haymitch: He did you a favour. Katniss: He made me look weak!

Haymitch: He made you look desirable which in your case can’t hurt, sweetheart.

Cinna: He’s right.

Haymitch: Of course I am right. I can sell the star-crossed lovers from District Twelve.

Katniss: We are not star-crossed lovers!

Haymitch: It’s a television show! And being in love with that boy might just get you sponsors which could save your damn life.

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In the scenes previous to this one, the movie already emphasizes that reality TV shows try to give its characters a clear-cut identities like ‘the girl on fire’ or ‘the fighter’, but this scene explicitly exposes the need of reality TV for interesting

characters and especially the need for an interesting narrative. As Haymitch literally says, there is a need for stories that can be sold to a big audience. Whether these stories are true is insignificant. Moreover, this particular character narrative of a tragic love story of a young, heterosexual couple that is doomed from the start, is a very traditional narrative and clearly ‘borrowed’ from fictional genres as drama and soap opera.

So, identity extraction and the construction of character narratives in reality TV characters identified by Teurlings, Edwards and Huff are present in The Hunger

Games. And moreover, the movie seems to be critiquing these mechanisms. After all,

the movie emphasizes how Katniss is slowly losing her ‘real’ identity: first, her outer appearance is altered and made glamorous and girly. Then, her character is reduced to one single label – ‘girl on fire’ – that is not based on her personality but rather on her costume. Finally, even that description has to make way for a more traditional and sellable narrative – star-crossed lover – which is based on a lie. Furthermore, it is emphasized that Katniss has no control in this process, even though it concerns her representation. When she tries to revolt – as in the scene above – it is made clear to her that she does not have a choice but to go along with the narrative, since being a traditional, appealing character will offer better chances to stay alive than being her real self will. Moreover, it is emphasized that Katniss, as a girl, won’t be able to win the audience over on her own, but that she needs a boy to do so. In other words: in these scenes, The Hunger Games represent reality TV as a suppressive, patriarchal environment where real identities have no value and are taken away from the cast members and then replaced with character narratives that can be sold to a big audience.

Furthermore, the film keeps highlighting the construction of reality TV as the story progresses. Once the games have started, there are several scenes in which the ‘gamemakers’ are seen to be manipulating the arena so Katniss ends up in a confrontational situation that will be interesting to watch. In one certain scene, the exposure of the construction of reality TV is converged with exposure of the need for a good narrative. By the time of this scene, only a few tributes are left and there is a sudden announcement that these Hunger Games can be won by two tributes instead

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of one, provided that they are from the same district. Up until this point, Katniss and Peeta have been separated throughout the games, but this alteration of the rules is an incentive for Katniss to team up with Peeta. It is clear that this alteration by the gamemakers is meant to reawaken the narrative of Katniss and Peeta as star-crossed lovers and steer it in a certain direction so it will be interesting for the audience to watch. Moreover, this scene also exposes the need for the public performance of strong identities as mentioned by Teurlings. After all, in this scene it becomes apparent that strong characters with a strong narrative have no value as long as they aren’t publicly performed: the knowledge of the romance between Peeta and Katniss alone apparently is not enough to entertain the audience. Something concrete needs to happen between the two to grasp the audience, and it needs to happen on camera.

The need for authenticity in reality TV is exposed shortly after. Once Katniss has found Peeta, it turns out he is badly hurt and needs medicine from sponsors. Katniss is well aware that she needs to play out the narrative in order to win over sponsors, so she kisses him. After the kiss, mentor Haymitch sends her a message that says: ‘you call that a kiss?’. Apparently, the kiss didn’t seem authentic enough to convince the audience to sponsor them. In this scene, the movie clearly exposes the paradoxical mechanism of reality TV concerning audiences: one the one hand, the audience wants to be entertained by strong characters and narratives, but on the other they are also sceptical of the authenticity of the content. After all, the message Haymitch sent, implies that the audience is making a distinction between Katniss’

performed self and true self as identified by Hill. Secondly, Haymitch’ message also

seems to imply that the need for authenticity itself is incoherent. After all, Haymitch knows that Katniss is not in love with Peeta, but he still encourages her to pretend she is. Therefore, as Hill also stresses, he seems to argue that in reality TV it does not even matter whether an authentic moment is truly authentic for the character, but only whether the audience experiences it as authentic and that it is up to the

audience to debate and decide whether a moment is authentic or not.

1.2.2 Reality TV and reality in The Hunger Games

At the end of the first movie, in a climactic scene, the movie quite clearly exposes a moment of excess, a moment of ‘queering the pitch’ as identified by Kavka and

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Edwards. In this scene, the last tribute has died and Katniss and Peeta are the only two tributes left and so it seems as if they have won the Hunger Games. Then, it is announced that the alteration of the rules is being withdrawn and that there can only be one victor. Because neither one of them wants to kill the other, Katniss suggests that they both commit suicide, knowing that the gamemakers will not let that happen. And just when they are about to kill themselves, it is indeed announced that they both can win the games. In this moment, the movie represents how reality TV can reveal what is normally suppressed and can expose the incoherence of the status quo. That is, by threatening to kill themselves, Katniss has found a loophole in the games and by doing so, she shows the public that it is possible to take control and defeat the power of gamemakers and the Capitol. In other words: she exposes the status-quo, the framework of the Hunger Games – the idea that the Capitol holds absolute power over the tributes and the districts – to be incompatible. In short, with this scene, the movie clearly represents such a moment of ‘queering the pitch’ or ‘breaking of conventions’ as identified by Kavka and Edwards.

What is notable as well, is that in the following scenes the two views of Kavka and Edwards on the effects of such moments are both represented. In these scenes, when Katniss and Peeta have returned to the Capitol, Haymitch explains to Katniss how serious her actions have been taken up by those in power in the Capitol. He tells her “they are not happy” with her, and that she needs to downplay her defiance and pretend that her actions were motivated by her love for Peeta instead. In the last scene, in which Katniss and Peeta give an interview about their victory, Katniss follows the instructions. Once again dressed in a very girly dress and wearing a lot of makeup, she tells the presenter how much Peeta means to her, and that she only wanted to kill herself because she couldn’t bear the idea of not being with him. With these scenes, the movie represents both theories of Kavka and Edwards: on the one hand, these scenes show that reality TV offers possibilities to push the boundaries of what is accepted and gives insight in the presence of a certain framework, on the other hand, these scenes show how reality TV also tries to push those moments back into the already existing, traditional frameworks and to limit the power such moments could have.

What is interesting furthermore, is that Katniss’ gender is deployed in order to push her moment of defiance back into the traditional framework in an attempt to limit the damage that has been done. This is apparent in the scene mentioned above, as

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Katniss is forced to play the role of a naïve young girl in love who does not think her actions thoroughly through during the interview, and it is exposed even more in the second movie.

In the first part of this movie, that is set roughly a year after Katniss and Peeta have won the games, political unrest has come up in the districts due to Katniss’ moment of ‘queering the pitch’ as not everyone believes she did this solely out of love and instead interpret as a sign of rebellion. As she and Peeta are about to go on a ‘victory tour’ through all of the districts that will be broadcast on television, president Snow personally orders her to invigorate the act of the naïve girl in love and convince the public of her all-consuming love for Peeta to suppress the political unrest. As he phrases it: “When you and Peeta are on tour, you need to smile, you need to be grateful. But above all, you need to be madly prepared-to-end-it-all in love.” President Snow clearly is trying to neutralize her act of defiance to uphold the framework of traditional norms by making her present herself as a stereotypical, shallow teenaged girl who is only occupied with her boyfriend and does not care about politics. With this strategy Katniss is deprived of having an identity of her own, and is instead given a personality that is completely based on her (fake) relationship with a boy. Katniss has no choice but to go along with this strategy, and so she and Peeta proceed the

narrative that was created for them: they keep on acting to be in love, announce their engagement shortly after and later on even pretend that Katniss is pregnant in order convince the public of their love for each other.

With these scenes, the films confirm Edwards’ theory about how reality TV tries to push moments in which conventions have been broken back into

conventional frameworks. And what the movies expose as well, is how this process can be linked to gender and that the norms of the desired framework, in this case, are not only about politics but also about traditional gender norms. After all, the two films emphasize that the image of Katniss as a rebel is suppressed and replaced with the image of a girl that is solely characterized on the relationship with her boyfriend, her engagement to him and her pregnancy. So by exposing how reality TV covers up undesired moments these films also expose that the status quo (or framework)

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Conclusion

Quite obviously, The Hunger Games film series represents reality TV in a rather negative way: the films represent the representation of women on reality TV as highly inauthentic and oppressive. It has become clear that The Hunger Games first and second films represent Katniss as being oppressed by the laws of reality TV. That is, Katniss is not allowed to be who she is, but has to pretend to be a certain version of herself based on her gender. In line with this, the movies also clearly represent reality TV as based on contradictory notions of reality and authenticity: The Hunger Games films underwrite that while viewers of reality TV want good stories, they also want those stories and events to look authentic and that they are in control of deciding whether a moment is authentic. In other words: The Hunger Games films emphasize that reality TV has little to do with ‘real’ reality and is all about performed reality. Furthermore, that performed reality is constructed by means of Katniss’ gender in order to make her fit into traditional frameworks. All in all, Katniss’ reality TV stardom - in combination with her gender – prohibit her to be who she is, and is therefore represented as a confinement.

In addition, it should be emphasized that The Hunger Games films are fictional and that they represent a certain fictional reality TV show. The Hunger Games films are clearly critiquing reality TV in their representation of this particular show, but this analysis is not meant to imply that these points of critique as represented by the films are (necessarily) indicative of real reality TV programs.

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2. The Hunger Games and its action heroine

This chapter consists of an overview of theories on other present-day action heroines and on the critical interpretations of these heroines concerning gender and gender conventions. Katniss’ representation will be closely analysed by means of these theories, which will show how she is represented as an action heroine and what role gender plays in this representation.

2.1 Action heroines

Most research that has been done on female characters in action and adventure movies seems to agree that in the past, women have often been represented in passive roles as subordinate to male characters with active roles. Laura Mulvey’s concepts of the male gaze and to-be-looked-at-ness (Mulvey 838) have long

constituted the key concepts to analyse the representation of women in these genres and to expose how objectifying and sexualizing these representations were. The most eminent and well-known examples of this are the early Bond-girls: passive women who function merely as objects for the audience and James Bond himself to be looked at, and that have no active role in the narrative of the movies but rather stop the narrative by being represented as spectacle (Brown 3, Tasker 27). The last few decades however, the role of women in films and television shows has been changing. Since the 1990s and 2000s the presence of women in action or adventure movies in lead roles has notably expanded (O’Day 201, Brown 5-6, Inness 1). And, more importantly, these women have become much more active and no longer function solely as sexual objects. The present-day heroine can be best defined by her ability to “perform the same tasks as a man in an action-adventure narrative” (Inness 8) and by her (physical) ‘toughness’. This increase of- and change in the many modern-day representations of tough women in media has led to new theories on the representation of action heroines, and especially on their relation to gender and gender conventions (Brown 7). Modern-day action heroines come in many different forms and shapes with various kinds of characteristics and traits, and can be analysed and interpreted in many different ways. In the following section, an overview will be given of the most found types and traits of action heroines, and of

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the various ways these traits can be analysed and interpreted in relation to gender and gender conventions.

2.1.1 (Arche)types and characteristics

One type of action heroine identified by several theorists is ‘the dominatrix’. Rikke Schubart sees the dominatrix as an archetype of the representation of female heroines. As she explains, the dominatrix stems from male masochistic fantasy and is related to pornography and prostitution: she is a woman who punishes men and fulfils pleasures, but that “[…] is not really cruel, since she serves her victim, and he is not really a victim since he is a customer buying a service” (20). The dominatrix action heroines in cinema are easily recognized by their ‘bondage costumes’: they wear tight, revealing outfits made of black leather or latex, high-heeled shoes and carry whips or phallic weapons (22). As Jeffrey A. Brown, who also identifies the dominatrix as a distinct type of action heroine, stresses: the body of this type of heroine is explicitly sexualized and fetishized and often in an exaggerated, almost caricatural way (45, 56). Examples of the dominatrix can be found in, for instance, the movies Catwoman (2004), Barb Wire (1996) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) (Brown 56).

Another type, identified by Brown, is the ‘masculine heroine’ or ‘hard bodied heroine’. The masculine type of action heroine is mainly characterized by her muscular body, oversized guns, manly clothing and self-reliance when it comes to physical confrontations (25, 27-8, 30). According to Brown, the body of this heroine is not – solely – meant to be looked at, but primarily functions as a practical weapon (ibid.). As Mary Beltrán specifies, this type of heroine often has military skills as well, and her story is often set in some kind of military setting (189). Sarah Connor in

Terminator 2 (1991) and Ripley in Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) are the most

well-known examples of this kind of hard bodied heroine (Brown 125, Beltran 189). Marc O’Day focuses his research on the action heroine specifically on one type of female hero: the type he calls the ‘action babe’. What sets these action babes apart from other action heroines is that “[they] are beautiful, sexy and tough heroines who command their narratives, invariably driving vehicles, shooting guns, wielding weapons or fighting in hand-to-hand combat better than their (frequently male) adversaries” (201). Physically, this action heroine is both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’: she is

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beautiful and has a sexually attractive body, and is physically ‘fit’ and strong at the same time, though not overtly muscular so she has ‘the perfect body’ (205, 216). As Charlene Tung, who also distinguishes this type of heroine and calls her ‘the new heroine’, phrases it: “most of these new heroines are allowed to slightly push the envelope by exhibiting both superior physical strength (relative to earlier tough women characters and male characters they encounter), and traditional

femininity or sex appeal” (99). In line with this, these action babes all have some kind of special skill they master perfectly (O’Day 201, 208). Moreover, what sets these heroines apart as well, is that they are professionals; that is, they do what they do, because it is their job and they “are not pathologised or motivated by personal

revenge or gain” (O’Day 208). Furthermore, this type of heroine often moves within a patriarchal society, where institutional structures of patriarchy or patriarchal men are the villains that have be defeated or overcome (ibid.).

The action babe/new heroine as described by O’Day and Tung is comparable to the type of action heroine Brown calls ‘the feminine heroine’. While ascribing the feminine heroine the same characteristics as O’day attributes to the action babe, Brown adds and emphasizes the ability of the feminine heroine to smoothly shift between elegant behaviour (albeit they often have to be trained in being feminine) on the one hand and effortlessly handling weapons and killing cold-bloodedly on the other (38-9). Moreover, Brown also identifies another trait of these action heroines: they often deploy their femininity to trick others – mainly men – into thinking she is weak to eliminate them (36-9). Examples of the action babe/new heroine/feminine heroine can be found in Point of No Return (1993), Charlie’s Angels (both the original television series and the movies) (1976-1981, 2000, 2003), Catwoman, Lara Croft:

Tomb Raider (2001) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) (Brown 34, O’Day

201, Tung 97).

This type of feminine heroine is closely related to the girl heroine that has emerged in popular culture for children. These girl heroines vary in age (from toddlers to young adults) and ‘professions’ (from secret agents to robots), but have in

common “their exceptional abilities at fighting, intelligence, beauty – and a sense of humor. Even in their more serious moments, these girls manage to have some fun while beating up bad guys or blasting alien invaders” (Brown 142). The girl heroine shares inhibiting both feminine as masculine characteristics with the feminine heroine, but stands out because of her preference for ‘fun’, girlish activities such as

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shopping or going after boys. Animated television series such as The Powerpuff Girls (1998-2005), Totally Spies (2001-) and Kim Possible (2002-2007), and also non-animated series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars (2004-2007) all revolve around girl heroines (Brown 141).

Another type of action heroine is the avenging heroine. As O’Dawn phrases it,

this heroine is marked “by the rape or patriarchal abuse motifs” and is “obsessed with rage, resistance and fighting back against white male oppression” (216). Rikke

Schubart has identified the avenging heroine as well, and describes ‘the rape avenger’ as an archetype in the representations of action heroines. The avenging heroine is mostly characterized by her narrative, which is about transformation: “A woman who takes vengeance into her own hands, who turn the tables on those who attacked her, who picks the time and place for payback and who decides not to conform, but transform” (Schubart 23). Before being raped (literally or symbolically), the avenging heroine is sweet, fragile and unsexy, but after being raped takes up both feminine signs such as makeup and sexy dresses and male signs as violence and weapons to take revenge on her rapist (ibid., O’Dawn 202, Brown 123). So psychically this heroine has a lot in common with the action babe, but narratively she differs from the action babe heavily concerning her motivations – which are personal - and her development throughout the story – from passive to active whereas the action babe is active from the start. Moreover, Schubart emphasizes that rape or abuse in these cases isn’t solely about a physical act, but even more so about social power and masculinity: “as a victim of rape she is the victim of a certain kind of

masculinity” (24). The movies Kill Bill (2004) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

(2000) offer examples of the avenging heroine (Schubart 23, O’Day 211) As the examples show, these types of action heroine are not exclusive

categories. Action heroines can have characteristics of several types of heroine and can be identified as for instance both dominatrix and feminine heroine at the same time (like Lara Croft and Catwoman) or as feminine heroine and girl heroine at the same time (like Buffy). Moreover, it is noteworthy that the hard bodied heroine and the avenging heroine are mainly found cinema, that the girl heroine is mostly related to television and that the feminine heroine can be found in both cinema and

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2.1.2 Relation to gender roles and conventions

As is implicitly apparent in the descriptions of types of action heroines above, the action heroine is often characterized by certain gender conventions. As is explicitly apparent in the descriptions above, it is nearly impossible to describe an action heroine – whatever type(s) she may be – without using concepts as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’. As mentioned earlier, in the past the role of women in cinema, especially in action movies, has been passive and subordinate to male heroes. Since the roles of women and men in the adventure and action genres had been so conventionally gendered, the ‘invasion’ of women in the active roles naturally raises questions concerning her representation in relation to gender conventions. As Brown explains it: “The action heroine has […] become a much-debated ﬁgure among cultural, media, and gender critics because she both problematizes and reinforces some of the most basic tenets of ﬁlm studies and gender portrayal” (7). And as O’Day phrases it: “[A] defining feature of action-adventure cinema [...] is its simultaneous

re-inscription and questioning of the binary oppositions which structure common-sense understanding of gender in patriarchal consumer culture” (202). Those basic tenets Brown mentions, are the binary oppositions between men and women O’Day

identifies as:

[…] a more or less overt set of patriarchally deﬁned traits and qualities equating men and masculinity with hardness, strength, muscles, activity, rationality, decisiveness and power, and women and femininity, in opposition, with softness, weakness, curves, passivity, intuition, indecisiveness and powerlessness […] (ibid.)

As both O’Day and Brown note, the action heroine has a complicated relationship with these binary oppositions: as the representations of action heroine encompass signs of both the male and female stereotypes, they problematize the idea of a binary opposition between men and women. At the same time however, since these highly recognizable signs are still used to construct the action heroine, the action heroine seems to reinforce them as well: “The problem, at its simplest, is that this double bind constructs these emerging roles for women as both a heroic subject and as a sexual object” (Brown 7). But, this analysis itself isn’t unambiguous since the way the

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empowerment/progression and disempowerment/regression is a matter of debate as well.

Action heroines as men in drag

One common critical reading of the action heroine is the heroine interpreted as a man in drag. Especially the hard bodied action heroine is often criticized for being

represented as a man rather than as a woman. The characteristics of hard bodied heroines coincide with the most common traits of male action heroes: they are muscular, carry oversized guns and save the day without help from the outside

(Brown 27). In other words: their characteristics are signs traditionally associated with masculinity (ibid.). Critique of the ‘hard bodied’ heroine consists of the interpretation that these heroines enact masculinity, which doesn’t problematize binary oppositions between the understandings of gender, but enforces them since men and women simply ‘swop’ gender in these cases (Brown 48-30).

However, this representation of action heroines could be interpreted in a more positive way as well. According to Judith Butler, traditional gender categories aren’t based on biology, but are cultural constructions (32). She states that “there is no gender identity behind the behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results” (33). In other words; men and women are not born as men and women, but become man or woman through the performance of acts and gestures that are regarded as masculine or feminine. Brown uses this theory to argument that, on a meta-level, the hard bodied action heroine does confound the logic of binary opposition to some extent. That is, according to Brown, by taking up traits that are so heavily coded as masculine, the representations of these women demonstrate the performative nature of gender as described by Butler. After all, these women take possession of those signs that are traditionally signs of masculinity and therefor prove that these signs aren’t naturally masculine, but constructed as masculine (33-4). However, it is

important to note that while these representations emphasize gender as constructive and performative, they still do so within the confinements of the binary oppositions. That is, these representations don’t confound what is female and what is male, but only that what is male could be taken up by a woman as well. Therefore, the binary oppositions themselves as categories are maintained and reconfirmed rather than troubled.

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Action heroine as (too) feminine

Another point of critique on action heroines is that they are too feminine. This type of critique is mostly given on the feminine heroine, action babe or new heroine as identified by O’Day, Brown and Tung.

Mary Magoulick is one of the theorists who interprets this type of heroine negatively concerning emancipation. She stresses how – despite their physical strength – these heroines are constructed very conventionally concerning sexuality, physicality and emotionality both in their looks and their storylines (730, 743). In relation to the emphasis on their looks and sexuality, Magoulick arguments that their strength is represented as less important than their feminine characteristics:

These are warriors, but their warrior personas are never more important than their sexuality and are in fact often subsumed by it or made less believable because of it. Seeing women kick and punch in mini-skirts and tight leather pants may excite viewers, but it also emphasizes the improbability of these characters’ realities (743).

And furthermore, even though these women are represented as self-sufficient when it comes to physical strength and combat, narratively their success is consistently structured by men.

[A] pattern consistent […] is that these women are all controlled and formed by men. Men give them their strength, help them to channel whatever power they have, and are always lurking, either as potential lovers, as controlling father ﬁgures or bosses, as potential threats, or sometimes all three at once. These powerful, sometimes threatening men and troubled relationships with men emerge as insidious and potentially damaging hidden messages (734-5). The combination of the emphasis on the looks of these heroines with their narratively dependence on male characters, makes Magoulick conclude that this heroine does not fulfil feminist ideals (752-3). According to her, to reach the feminist ideal, their feminine characteristics should not be central foci and should not be linked to men in such a decisive way (ibid.)

Brown has a more positive view of these action heroines. He more or less ascribes them the same characteristics as Magoulick does, but interprets them highly different concerning emancipation and feminist ideals. He interprets the obvious

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signifiers of femininity these heroines carry out as positive because these

characteristics in combination with their physical strength and skills more directly destabilize the audience’s understanding of gender than the masculine/hard bodied heroine does (33-4). That is, by exhibiting both conventional/traditional signs of masculinity and femininity and successfully passing as both feminine ánd masculine, these action heroines demonstrate that masculinity and femininity are not mutually exclusive identities (36). Moreover, like the hard bodied heroine, the female heroine - because of these signs and her ability to use her femininity to trick others into

thinking she is weak - also emphasizes the constructive nature of gender:

[she] destroys the audience’s perceptions of biologically determined identity and role as determining biology. In other words – just because she looks like a woman does not mean she is one, and just because she acts like a man does not mean she is one (ibid.).

Therefore, Brown interprets the representation of the female action heroine as proclaiming that a biological female is free to exhibit/enact both stereotypical masculine and stereotypical feminine behaviour (39).

However, as Brown stresses himself, this is a certain interpretation of the representation of the action heroine, and not per se the way she is primarily presented to the audience and/or how the audience reads her (40). As Brown phrases it, these action heroine facilitate subversive readings of gender but do not necessitate them (41). The historical tendency of cinema to portray women as sexual object in combination with the stereotypical feminine characteristics of the feminine heroine leaves a lot of room for sexist readings of this type of action heroine (41) as for instance Magoulick reads her; rather than being read as equal to men, the feminine action heroine could also read as a contribution to male fantasies as an eroticisation of weapons and violence (ibid.). The reading of the action heroine as contribution to male fantasies via fetishization is especially dominant when it comes to readings of the representation of the dominatrix.

At the same time, Brown emphasizes that these kinds of negative readings – though grounded – pass off the more progressive aspects these heroines offer for cinema’s negotiation of gender (ibid.): he stresses the way the heroines still do challenge the notion of gender as biologically determined and still do push the limits of gender traits to be considered appropriate for women (42).

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Considering the several types of action heroines – the dominatrix, the hard bodied heroine, the action babe/new heroine/ feminine heroine, the girl heroine and the avenging heroine - and the critical interpretations of their characteristics, it becomes apparent that the modern-day action heroine – regardless of which type she is – is always to some extent defined by her relationship to gender conventions. Whether she is represented as a man rather than a woman (like the masculine heroine), or represented as both feminine and masculine at the same time (like the feminine heroine, girl heroine and avenging heroine), her characteristics derive from her gender one way or another.

2.2 Katniss as action heroine

In this section, Katniss Everdeen will be analysed based on the various

characteristics of action heroines mentioned above. Since most of the traits or action heroines concern their narrative, their physical appearance and the way they are framed, the analysis will be focused on those cinematic elements.

2.2.1 Physical appearance and framing

Concerning Katniss’ physical appearance and the way she is framed, it is most remarkable that Katniss is not overtly represented as either feminine or masculine. As will become apparent in the analysis below, any emphasis on Katniss as a woman or girl concerning her looks or in the framing seems to be proactively averted.

Physical Appearance

One of the clearest characteristics of Katniss concerning her outer appearance, is her preference for comfortable clothing. In the first scenes of the first movie - before the Hunger Games have started and she is still living her regular life – she is introduced while wearing comfortable and practical clothes: she wears pants, a long-sleeved shirt, flat boots and a leather jacket. Almost no skin is showing and none of her dark coloured clothes are form-fitted. Furthermore, her hair is in a side-braid and she does not seem to wear makeup. That she does not like feminine or girly clothing, is made overtly clear in a scene in which Katniss is getting ready for the reaping (the event where is decided who will have to participate in the Hunger Games). Katniss’ mother has laid a dress for her on the bed, and when Katniss enters her bedroom, a shot of

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the dress on the bed is shown, which is quickly followed by a low angle close-up shot of Katniss’s face; she is literally looking down on the powder-blue dress her mother wants her to wear. Her preference for comfortable clothes is consistently apparent as the story progresses. During her time in the Capitol, when not being presented to the public, Katniss is still wearing loose pants and tops, and during the Hunger Games her outfit is primarily practical and rather unflattering.

Framing

Besides Katniss’ preference for comfortable, loose clothes, the way her body and her overall physical appearance are represented and framed is very interesting. Namely, what is striking about her representation is that there is little to no emphasis placed on Katniss’ body or outer appearance in the mise-en-scene and editing - at least not in a way that could lead to an interpretation of her representation as an object to be looked at. This is apparent in the way she is frames in the beginning of the first movie, which is illustrative for the rest of the first movie and for the other movies as well. In the first scene of the movie, Katniss is comforting her little sister who had a nightmare. This scene consist entirely of close-ups, extreme close-ups and two-shots of the faces of Katniss and her sister Prim. The rest of her body is never visible. In the scenes that follow her body becomes visible, but in a rather indirect way that does not offer an opportunity to look at her physique. As Katniss runs through town to go hunting, she is framed in a lot of different mid-shots that follow up on each other very quickly, and in a few long shots that are very wide so that Katniss is too far away to be looked at.

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While hunting, Katniss is still mostly framed in mid-shots rapidly interspersed with close-ups and extreme close-ups of her face and hands. Furthermore, in the few long shots in this scene, Katniss is consistently moving; running, balancing on branches, climbing over a fence. Moreover, in all of these shots – whether close-up or long – Katniss is always tightly framed: trees, plants and leafs consistently limit the view on her body.

What these shots and this kind of framing seem to emphasize, is that Katniss’ body is not meant to be looked at. The sort of shots used, in combination with their short duration and Katniss’ inconspicuous appearance, put all the attention on Katniss’ face and her activities in such a way any potential attention on her body is proactively led away. That is, even if the audience wanted to look at her body, they couldn’t since there simply is no opportunity to do so. In short, the movie clearly represents her as an active subject and not as an object meant to be looked at, and even seems to proactively emphasize the latter.

This becomes even more apparent in the scene that follows after the hunting-scene, when Effie Trinket is introduced. Effie comes from the Capitol and is the escort for the tributes of district twelve. Her appearance alone forms a big contrast with Katniss’ appearance: she is wearing an extravagant bright pink dress and headpiece, high heels and an extreme amount of makeup. The way in which she is framed, moreover, further emphasizes the contrast; starting with a close-up of her feet, the camera moves up showing her whole body vertically until it reaches her head on which it stays focused for quite some time. Clearly Effie Trinket’s outer appearance itself presents her as a character is there to be looked at - or rather spectated, given the over the top outfit and makeup – and the framing confirms this. The framing basically forces the audience to thoroughly look at this character and spectate her body and appearance. In short; where the attention on Katniss’ body and appearance seems to be proactively diverted, Effie’s appearance is emphasized to such an extent it is actively encouraged to spectate her.