Appropriating the Male Gaze in The Hunger Games The Rhetoric of a Resistant Female Vantage Point.pdf

Appropriating the Male Gaze
Texas Speech Communication Journal 38/1
© 2014 Texas Speech Communication Association 21
Appropriating the Male Gaze in The Hunger Games:
The Rhetoric of a Resistant Female Vantage Point
Alyse Keller & Katie L. Gibson
Abstract
The blockbuster Hollywood film The Hunger Games appropriates the male gaze and challenges
patriarchal modes of representation to advance a resistant female vantage point. This essay
demonstrates how the film refigures the dominant male gaze of Hollywood cinema to focus on
the power and agency of the female protagonist, to legitimate a female perspective, and to
encourage a questioning of patriarchal power. In the end, we argue that the narrative and visual
rhetoric of a resistant female vantage point can be transformative by summoning film spectators
to gaze upon gender, agency, and power through a resistant feminist consciousness.
Keywords: Male Gaze, Female Gaze, Feminist Rhetorical Criticism, Film
Originally published in 2008, Suzanne Collins’ trilogy, The Hunger Games, became a
worldwide phenomenon almost instantaneously. Narrated from the perspective of 16-year old
Katniss Everdeen, the story is set in the dystopian country of Panem, a post-apocalyptic version
of North America. Each year the Capitol of Panem forces two young representatives from each
of its 12 Districts to participate in The Hunger Games— a televised competition to the death—
to intimidate the subjugated districts and reassert the totalitarian control of the Capitol. The film,
The Hunger Games, was released to wide public acclaim in 2012, grossing nearly 400 million
dollars in the United States alone (McClintock, 2012)—prompting the production of a sequel
film and a widespread international franchise.
Film critics were quick to point out the film’s popularity with girls and young women,
leading one review to describe The Hunger Games as an “intergenerational female sensation”
(Petersen, 2012, p. 53). Popular communication texts, like The Hunger Games, are valuable sites
for feminist rhetorical criticism because they represent “a point of entry into societal gender
discourses” (Durham, 2003, p.24) and allow us to critically examine how the discourse of
popular culture may be constitutive of our cultural knowledge. Lorraine Gamman and Margaret
Marshment (1989) describe popular culture as a site of struggle—a space where meaning can be
contested— "with results that might not be free of contradictions, but which do signify shifts in
regimes of representation" (p. 4). Popular culture texts, therefore, along with their tensions
Author's Note: Alyse Keller is a Ph.D. student at the University of South Florida in the Department of Communication,
Akeller@mail.usf.edu, 4202 E. Fowler Ave, Tampa, FL, 33620. Katie L. Gibson (Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University) is an
Associate Professor at Colorado State University in the Department of Communication Studies, Katie.Gibson@colostate.edu,
1783 Campus Delivery Fort Collins CO 80523-1783 USA. A version of this paper was presented at the Western States
Communication Association’s Convention in Reno, Nevada, 2013.

and contradictions, are rich sites of inquiry for feminist rhetorical critics as they draw upon and
heavily influence our cultural understandings of gender, sexuality, and agency.
The Hunger Games was released in the wake of the popular Twilight series, another franchise
that is especially popular with girls and young women. Whereas the Twilight films have been
described as “post-feminist texts” (Petersen, 2012, p. 53), The Hunger Games is lauded by some
who describe the main character as a feminist heroine (Seltzer, 2011). Pollitt (2012) explains,
“Katniss is a rare thing in pop fiction: a complex female character with courage, brains, and a
quest of her own” (p. 10). We seek to explore how the feminist consciousness in The Hunger
Games is preserved in its translation to a blockbuster Hollywood film. Considering the strong
conventions of the male gaze that shape Hollywood’s representation of women, this essay
demonstrates how the rhetoric of film may advance a resistant female vantage point. We argue
that the narrative and visual rhetoric of The Hunger Games appropriates the male gaze and
challenges patriarchal modes of representation to constitute a transformative female action hero.
The Female Hero and the Male Gaze
Female characters such as Ripley from the Alien series, Sarah Connor from Terminator 2:
Judgment Day, and both Thelma and Louise challenge cinema’s traditional gender scripts and
refigure popular understandings of the action hero (Hills, 1999). While the gender ideals that
shape Hollywood films are routinely limiting and unimaginative, the growing presence of female
protagonists in action films may offer the opportunity to challenge these scripts. Hills (1999)
explains:
Action heroines constructed in Hollywood today are smarter, tougher and better equipped
than both the traditional heroines of the action genre and many of their contemporary
male counterparts, female action heroes are a new breed of protagonists in action genre
films. Aggressive, heroic and transformative characters transgress both cinematic genre
codes and cultural gender codes which position female characters as the passive,
immobile and peripheral characters of Hollywood action cinema. These powerfully
transgressive characters open up interesting questions about the fluidity of gendered
identities and changing popular cinematic representations of women (p. 38).
The Hunger Games provides an important opportunity to investigate the transgressive potential
of the female action hero and to demonstrate how traditional gender ideals may be challenged
through the rhetoric of film. Prividera and Howard (2012) remind us that the stereotypical hero
archetype of traditional cinema “renders woman and warrior as mutually exclusive categories”
(p. 54). Similarly, Stabile (2009) contends that superhero narratives routinely depend upon the
presence of female vulnerability in order to prove the strength and masculinity of the superhero.
Stabile explains, “Although superheroes today are more ethnically and racially diverse than in
the past, gender remains the third rail of superhero narratives—to touch it is to undo the whole
edifice of protection upon which these stories are erected” (p. 87). We argue that The Hunger
Games disrupts the “edifice of protection” that so often animates the masculinist gaze of cinema
to render women as vulnerable and in need of protection. Instead of replicating the stoic,
macho, masculine archetype that is central to the action film genre, The Hunger Games

constructs a new type of female hero that displays strength, courage, emotion, agency,
physicality and heroism in the face of adversity. Our paper will demonstrate how the visual and
narrative rhetoric of The Hunger Games challenges traditional gender scripts and dislocates the
masculinist gaze of the action genre—inviting the audience to experience the film through a
resistant female vantage point.
Mulvey’s (1975) theory of the male gaze has been a primary resource for understanding
how hegemonic masculinity is coded in Hollywood films. In her groundbreaking article, “Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey theorized that mainstream cinema features a masculine
gaze that invites viewers to identify with male protagonists and to marginalize and objectify
women. The narratives of mainstream film, Mulvey argued, from the movement of the plotline to
the visuals of the camera work, feature an active and controlling male ethos that frames women
as passive objects of male desire, coded to connote “to-be-looked-at-ness.” Although Mulvey’s
original theory has been challenged, extended, and revised, feminist scholars continue to draw
upon her notion of the male gaze to demonstrate how the symbols of the cinema objectify
women’s bodies and marginalize their experiences (Daughton, 2010; Foss & Foss, 1994; Krass,
Blauwkamp, & Wesselink, 2001). Feminist scholars have also drawn upon Mulvey’s theory to
demonstrate how the rhetoric of film may produce a resistant filmic gaze to affirm women’s
experiences and give voice to feminist meanings (Cooper, 2000; Gibson & Wolske, 2011). It is
important to note that many critics of Mulvey’s original theory objected to the gendered binary at
the core of her conceptualization of spectatorship. Critics argued that this binary, which fixed an
active male spectator in opposition to a passive female object, undermined the possibility of an
active and resistant female gaze (Kaplan, 1983; Silverman, 1980; de Lauretis, 1984). Mulvey
(1989) later acknowledged the limitations of her original theory and affirmed the possibility of a
resistant female spectator position. Since then, a wide variety of feminist scholars, including
feminist rhetorical critics, have complicated our understanding of the male gaze and have
demonstrated how the visual and narrative rhetoric of film may introduce a resistant female gaze
and open up the possibility for feminist readings (Foss & Foss, 1994; Cooper, 2001; Sherwin,
2008). Importantly, this body of scholarship has shown how a female vantage point in television
and film can legitimize marginalized experiences and perspectives to challenge patriarchal
modes of representation (Durham, 2003; Gamman, 1989; Gibson & Wolske, 2011).
Cooper’s (2000) analysis of Thelma & Louise is central to the literature on the female
gaze in Communication Studies. Cooper argues that Thelma & Louise appropriates the dominant
Hollywood male gaze - introducing a resistant female gaze that empowers female spectators.
Cooper identifies three narrative devices in the film that work together to challenge patriarchy
and to lend agency to the female characters: the mockery of male characters and patriarchal
constructions to draw attention to and resist male dominance, the reversal of the gaze or
“returning the look” to make male characters spectacles for women’s attention, and the
celebration of female friendship to reinforce the centrality of a female experience. The resistant
gaze that emerges from Thelma & Louise challenges the traditional male gaze—and instead—
invites viewers to identify with and validate a female perspective. This analysis will draw from
Cooper’s important work to investigate how the appropriation of the male gaze and the
representation of female friendship in The Hunger Games contribute to the film’s resistant
cinematic gaze.
This analysis will also explore how representations of the wilderness in The Hunger
Games contribute to the film’s resistant cinematic gaze. The wilderness exists as a motif of
female empowerment throughout the film and most of the film occurs in the wilderness, a space

where Katniss thrives as a natural born hunter. Ecofeminism, originated by French writer,
Francoise d’Eaubonne, connects women’s domination and exploitation with nature and asserts
that women and nature are inextricably linked through their shared history of oppression (Gaard,
1998). Over the years, ecofeminism has encountered criticism for its ostensibly essentialist
motives. Responding to this criticism, feminist scholars have more recently embraced a post-
structuralist ecofeminism, which problematizes the connection between nature and gender,
sexuality, race and power. Through this approach, ecofeminism becomes a lens which debunks
dominant binaries and creates a space for the fluidity of gendered identities (Gaard, 1998). Our
analysis draws from this theoretical grounding to demonstrate how the visual and narrative
rhetoric of the wilderness propels the theme of empowerment forward in The Hunger Games and
invites the audience to question the logics of patriarchy.
Drawing from this important body of literature, our analysis of The Hunger Games is
driven by the following set of flexible questions: How does the camera frame the actors? From
whose perspective is the spectator invited to view each scene? Who controls the narrative? How
does the camera work to contribute meaning to the narrative? How is the conventional
subject/object relationship narratively or visually resisted or reinforced? Does the film introduce
the possibility of a feminine vantage point? Ultimately, we argue that the narrative and visual
rhetoric of The Hunger Games affirms a resistant vantage point that challenges patriarchal modes
of representation. In the following analysis we unpack three features of this female vantage
point—the reversal of the male gaze, the celebration of female friendship, and the representation
of the wilderness as a motif of female empowerment. In the end, we demonstrate how the
rhetoric of a resistant female vantage point constitutes a transformative female action hero that
challenges gender expectations and invites the audience to rethink the gendered logics of
heroism, vulnerability, agency and protection.
Resisting Panem’s Gaze: Katniss Returns the Look and Seizes the Phallus
The Hunger Games challenges the male gaze by lending narrative agency and control to
the female protagonist. Indeed, the narrative is structured through Katniss’ return of the look—
through her perceptive attention to patriarchal power and her active resistance to its control. The
opening scenes of The Hunger Games establish the ubiquitous control of patriarchy over the
citizens of Panem. These scenes prepare the viewer to identify with Katniss and to lend support
to her resistance. In the opening scene, Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker, explains the Hunger
Games as a “tradition that comes out of a particularly difficult part of history… something that
knits [us] all together.” From this moment forth, audience members are engaged in a media text
that acknowledges the insidious nature of hegemonic control and encourages the viewer to gaze
upon institutional power with suspicion. The opening scenes establish an omnipresent male gaze
that permeates the public space within Panem. As the children of District 12 walk to the reaping
ceremony, where two children will be chosen as tributes for the Games, the guards and
militiamen from the Capitol gaze upon the children asserting their dominance and power. The
viewer witnesses Katniss acknowledge the power structures around her during these scenes – we
watch her look toward the huge screen at the reaping which stands as a tool to objectify the
children of District 12. The elite citizens of the Capitol, who view the children as mere characters
in their cruel form of reality entertainment, watch the same images projected on the screen. The
massive screens that intrude upon District 12 in the opening scenes symbolize the imposing and
controlling nature of the patriarchal gaze. Katniss’s attention to the screens and cameras that
follow her journey as a tribute reveal her discomfort with being watched and encourage the

audience to identify with her resistance to her objectification. For example, during the Games,
Katniss is startled by a peculiar noise coming from a notch in a tree. When she realizes that it is a
camera watching her – she gazes back through the lens with a look of curiosity and disgust. In
this moment and others, Katniss “returns the look,” seizing agency through her refusal to
perform the role of the passive object.
Katniss initiates resistance to male dominance when she crosses the district limits in the
first scene of the film. She enters the woods, beyond the delineated boundary, where she
occupies a liminal space – to explore and hunt. It is within this liminal space that she begins her
journey to destabilize the male gaze. Prior to her border crossing there are a series of screen
shots, which are portrayed from Katniss’s perspective. The shots cut from Katniss, to her District
(12), and back to Katniss. This very clearly depicts Katniss gazing upon the fellow members of
her district and thus, within the first five minutes of the film, Katniss controls the literal gaze of
the camera. Gibson and Wolske (2011) explain: “In film, reaction-shots move the narrative
forward, instructing the viewer on how to interpret the action on the screen. In this way, the
reaction-shot assigns power and privilege to a particular point of view” (p. 84). While the male
gaze invites the spectator to interpret the narrative through a male protagonist, the camera work
in The Hunger Games privileges the perspective of the female protagonist and encourages the
audience to understand the narrative through her eyes.
Throughout the film, Katniss’s bow and arrow come to symbolize her narrative agency
and appropriation of the male gaze. In the first scene, Katniss uses her bow and arrow – an
explicit symbol of the phallus and masculinity – to hunt animals for money. The control of the
phallus is something that enables the female protagonist to redefine the narrative on her terms
(Cooper, 2000; Mulvey, 1975). Before the start of the Games all tributes must be evaluated by
sponsors as to their degree of competitiveness and projected potential. Katniss decides to show
off her skills through the use of her bow and arrow. As she displays her talent to the judges – no
doubt symbols of patriarchal authority – the judges socialize among themselves, refusing to
acknowledge her. Enraged by their disrespect, she shoots an arrow at them, landing it directly in
an obscurely placed apple while displaying impeccable aim and control of her weapon. She then
curtseys and sarcastically says “Thank you for your consideration.” Her confident shot shows her
fearlessness – she asserts her power and demonstrates her mastery of the phallic arrow in a room
full of men. Indeed, her actions actively invade male space and make a mockery of the judges
and their condescending posture toward her. Cooper (2000) explains that mockery can function
to subvert the male gaze by encouraging the spectator to join in a text’s ridicule of patriarchy.
As spectators, we are certainly encouraged to react with delight as Katniss’s archery skills assert
her power and humiliate the male judges. In the wake of her subversive archery demonstration,
the President of Panem holds a private meeting with the Head Gamemaker. President Snow—
the ultimate symbol of patriarchal authority—exclaims with disgust, “She shot an arrow at your
head.” He continues:
Why do you think we have a winner [in the Hunger Games?] I mean if we just wanted to
intimidate the districts…why not…execute them all at once? [The answer is] hope. It is
the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. It
is fine as long as it’s contained, so contain it.
The “it”—of course— is Katniss. President Snow recognizes that Katniss is an imminent threat
to the social order of Panem. At this point, spectators are also likely to recognize Katniss as a
threat to the way in which they have grown accustomed to male spectatorship—to gazing upon

passive female characters in film. The final scenes of the Games illustrate Katniss’s narrative
control as she initiates key moves within the Games to seize power from the male characters.
Katniss fires her bow into a camp of tributes that are perceived by the Capitol to be the strongest
competitors in the Games. Her arrow blows up the mines that surround their camp. The fiery
explosion symbolically represents the destabilization of male power in the Games and signifies
Katniss’s ultimate possession of narrative agency. In the final climactic scene of the Games, her
arch nemesis, a male tribute, exclaims, “Go on shoot [me], then we both go down and you win.
Go on, I’m dead anyway. I always was, right? I didn’t [admit] that till now.” Cato’s final words
acknowledge the control and power of the female protagonist and bolster the film’s resistant
gaze.
Finally, Katniss’s relationship with Peeta, the male tribute from her District, is central to
her reversal of the gaze. Katniss demonstrates a keen awareness of patriarchal power as she
calculates a relationship with Peeta to satisfy viewers of the Games while securing power for
herself. As spectators, we witness Katniss struggle with the gender scripts that require her
romantic involvement with Peeta. By gazing upon Katiss’s struggle, we are subtly invited to
think about the patriarchal undermining of women’s agency and autonomy. Spectators are then
encouraged to find pleasure in Katniss’s subversive performance of romantic interest in Peeta
and her strategic use of gender scripts to get further in the Game. In the final scene of the film
Peeta asks, “So what happens when we get back?” Katniss responds, “I don’t know. I guess we
try to forget.” Here, she confirms that the love affair between them was simply part of her plan to
win the Games and underscores her narrative agency as the female protagonist. Cooper (2000)
argues that a focus on female activity rather than on female sexuality is appealing to women
viewers (p. 284). The agency accorded to the protagonist throughout The Hunger Games invites
the viewer to participate in a gaze that is decidedly resistant and unmistakably affirming of
female power.
The Celebration of Female Friendships: Privileging a Female Vantage Point
Female friendship is central to the plotline of The Hunger Games. Gamman (1989),
reminds us that media depictions of women’s friendships routinely reflect the “ubiquitous male
gaze of classic Hollywood cinema” (p.13). Women are often framed as competitors and rivals
and not friends at all. Cooper (2000) argues that representations of female friendships that
validate solidarity among women challenge patriarchal scripts that define women in terms of
their relationships with men. The primacy of female bonds in The Hunger Games helps to
advance a resistant female gaze that privileges the perspectives and experiences of women.
Mulvey (1975) explains that filmic gaze is not simply communicated through camera work—but
that it is also communicated through the relationships between characters on the screen. Indeed,
the genuine connections that viewers witness between Katniss and other female characters rest at
the core of the film’s female gaze.
From the first moments of the film, female bonds are framed as primary and unwavering.
The audience watches Katniss selflessly volunteer to replace her younger sister in the Hunger
Games when Prim is selected to represent District 12 as the female tribute. Katniss’s love for her
sister is a central theme throughout the film and her connection to Prim becomes her drive to win
the Hunger Games. The night before the Games, Peeta says to Katniss, “If I’m going to die I
want to still be me.” Katniss responds, “I just can’t afford to think like that. I have my sister.”
Her connection to her sister transcends all else and undermines the patriarchal imperative that
requires women’s primary allegiance be to men (Arbuthnot and Seneca, 1990).

The relationship that Katniss develops with Rue, a female tribute from District 11, also
emphasizes female solidarity and lends to the film’s female vantage point. At one point in the
Games, Katniss finds herself in a precarious situation. She has been crippled by a man-made fire,
is severely injured, and becomes trapped in a tree by the other tributes who want to kill her.
While conventions of the male gaze would proscribe a male character to sweep in and rescue
Katniss, it is Rue who provides Katniss lifesaving advice that ultimately helps her gain control of
the Games. Rue suggests that Katniss drop the poisonous tracker-jacker beehive on the enemies
below. This is the start of an intimate bond between Katniss and Rue and it is this female
friendship that leads to the undermining of male power in the Games. When Katniss wakes up
from a tracker-jacker induced coma two days later, she finds Rue hidden nearby. Katniss
immediately reassures Rue, “It’s ok, I’m not gonna hurt you.” She proceeds to discover that Rue
has been caring for her while she was in coma. The relationship between the two—as
unwavering allies and loyal friends— challenges the rules and traditions of the Games—and also
challenges the male gaze. As spectators, we witness the genuine connection of two female
characters and watch them grow in power as they work together and trust one another. Cooper
(2000) argues that women spectators strongly identify with representations of women’s loyalty to
each other (p. 297). The resistant female gaze in The Hunger Games denies a major patriarchal
myth that frames women as dependent upon and in need of rescue by men and represents a
female vantage point by legitimizing the power and solidarity that women find with one another.
The Feminine Wilderness: A Motif of Empowerment
The motif of the wilderness provides the backdrop for The Hunger Games. Interestingly,
Showalter (1981) urged feminist critics to understand the feminine as wilderness. She explained:
“Since all of male consciousness is within the circle of the dominant structure and thus
accessible to or structured by language, the ‘wild’ is always imaginary. Men do not know what is
in the wild” (p. 180). Showalter theorized the female wilderness as an empowering place for
women—free from the confines of male dominance—where it becomes possible for women to
assert their power and to “make the invisible visible” (Showalter, 1981, p. 180). The motif of the
wilderness certainly colors the female gaze that affirms the agency and power of the female
protagonist in The Hunger Games. Katniss’s empowerment in The Hunger Games is anchored to
the wilderness—her resources, her identity, and her power emerge from a space beyond the
delineated boundaries of Panem. One particular scene makes the connection between the
wilderness and female empowerment especially clear. After a day of prepping for the Games and
consciously conforming to the Capitol, Katniss gazes through her hotel window and the view
transforms into a lush forest. Her vision restores her strength and affirms her identity. Certainly,
the female gaze of the The Hunger Games is bolstered throughout the film as the audience comes
to understand the motif of the wilderness as symbolically representing the natural strength and
power of the female protagonist.
The wilderness in the Hunger Games represents a liberatory space—where power is
reconfigured and patriarchal values are challenged. Even though the wilderness, during the
games, is man-made and simulated, this further reinforces Katniss’ control of the domain. She is
able to re-appropriate this wilderness and navigate it on her own terms. Rue’s death and burial
scenes provide insight into this space. As Rue dies, it is Katniss and then finally the trees and
wilderness that are her last visions. Katniss defies the Capitol and gives Rue a burial ceremony
that is televised. She lays flowers over Rue’s body as a sign of respect to her friend and to Rue’s
home District 11—a poor and primarily black District. By using the space and the symbols of

nature to create a proper burial for Rue, Katniss challenges the dehumanizing values of the
Capitol and acknowledges the sacred value of all life. The burial makes a mockery of the
patriarchal Capitol and initiates a riot in District 11—whose citizens are empowered by Katniss’s
subversive actions. At the end of the film, when Katniss has finally won the Hunger Games, her
mentor Haymitch says, “They’re not happy with you… Katniss, this is serious…they don’t take
these things lightly.” Katniss’s rebellion in the wilderness has clearly destabilized the power of
the Capitol and advanced a pointed critique of patriarchal values. Showalter writes, “Wilderness
values have long been seen as offering a critique of society, progress, domestication, and
civilization” (Showalter, 1981, p. 181). Throughout the film, as Showalter suggests, the
wilderness stands as a space of critique and opportunity— a zone unfettered by the restrictions of
patriarchy which allows Katniss to demonstrate her expertise and her power and to articulate an
alternative set of values. As spectators, we are encouraged to recognize the liberatory
possibilities of the wilderness—and more importantly—to see the restrictive conditions of
patriarchal society as artificial and unnatural.
Implications
This analysis demonstrates how a resistant female gaze is advanced through the visual and
narrative rhetoric of The Hunger Games. The film refigures the dominant male gaze of
Hollywood cinema to focus on the power and agency of the female protagonist, to legitimate a
female vantage point, and to encourage a questioning of patriarchal power. Although our
analysis focuses narrowly on gender, we recognize that notions of filmic gaze are deeply shaped
by race, class, and sexuality (Dyer, 1990; hooks, 1993). The power and agency of Katniss’s
resistant gaze, for example, is certainly grounded in her own privilege and her whiteness. As
such, future research conducted on the female gaze and further analysis of The Hunger Games
may advance our findings by looking closely at how the intersectionality of identities shapes the
possibilities and limitations of a resistant filmic gaze.
While the male gaze maintains an enduring presence in Hollywood film, our analysis
demonstrates how the narrative and visual rhetoric of The Hunger Games disrupts traditional
filmic scripts to legitimate a resistant vantage point. Indeed, the popularity of the film described
as an “intergenerational female sensation” (Petersen, 2012, p. 53) may be attributed to its
affirmation of female spectatorship and its focus on “female activity rather than on female
sexuality” (Gamman, 1989, p. 19). While mainstream Hollywood remains overwhelmingly
preoccupied with the desires and agency of heterosexual men, our analysis confirms that feminist
voices may still be articulated within this context. Indeed, Cooper (2000) argues that “The wider
audience appeal enjoyed by Hollywood films over avant-garde productions is important in
challenging the dominant patriarchal discourses inherent in the cinematic male gaze (p. 302).
Our analysis reveals how visual and narrative devices may open up film to a feminist reading and
invite a resistant female vantage point. The overwhelming success of The Hunger Games may
signal that spectators are eager to see more diverse representations of women in mainstream film
and are willing to embrace a resistant filmic gaze.
The rhetoric of The Hunger Games constitutes a transformative female action hero that
invites the audience to rethink gendered logics of vulnerability, agency and protection—logics
that anchor most of our cultural stories of heroism. The Hunger Games upsets the “edifice of
protection” that valorizes feminine delicacy and passivity in order to bolster the strength and
masculinity of the traditional film hero. Stabile (2009) explains that this edifice of protection—or
representation of female vulnerability—is widespread in our culture and has far reaching

implications. She explains, “Our inability to imagine women as anything but vulnerable and in
need of protection has historically provided justification for both state and domestic violence” (p.
89). Stabile points to Martha McCaughey (1997) who notes that “imagistic discourse suggests
that men have bodies that will prevail, that are strong and impenetrable. Female bodies are not
represented as active agents in this way, but instead as breakable, takeable bodies” (p. 37).
While popular culture routinely represents women and girls as victims—the visual and narrative
rhetoric of The Hunger Games presents its viewers with a different script that affirms female
power, agency, and control. Hill (1999) suggests that a new wave of female heroes in action film
is changing popular cinematic representations of women (p. 38). We contend that female action
heroes— like Katniss Everdeen—have the power to shift much more than what we see on the big
screen. Within the genre of action films——where masculinist fantasies of protection and female
vulnerability abound—female action heroes may offer an especially profound challenge to the
logics of patriarchy—inviting us to affirm the strength and control of the female body and to
question the edifice of protection that routinely undermines the power of women and girls—both
on the screens of cinema and out in the real world.
The female gaze of The Hunger Games certainly challenges common regimes of gendered
representation. The resistant gaze challenges patriarchy and invites spectators to find pleasure in
the mockery and undermining of patriarchal power. While a large body of feminist scholarship
details the oppressive and sweeping nature of the male gazein popular culture, our analysis
extends Gamman’s (1989) argument that a dominant female gaze may represent a "route
whereby feminist meanings can be introduced in order to disturb the status quo" (p. 12). To be
sure, the rhetoric of a female filmic gaze can be transformative. The Hunger Games advances a
female gaze that summons its audience to look at gender, agency, and power through a resistant
feminist consciousness and to question the logics of patriarchy that routinely shape the scripts of
heroism in our culture.
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