In The Hunger Games there is a constant battle between life and death. There are twelve separate districts, in other words states, and a place called the Capital. These places make up their country known as Phanem. Every year there is an event called the Hunger Games that take place in the Capital. For the game, there is a boy and a girl from each district that represent their own district. Each of them trains and represents themselves to the people living in the Capital for a week, and then fight and kill all of the other tributes from every other district. The last person, whether it is a boy or a girl, wins the game. Phanem has the Hunger Games to scare all of the districts into never having another war and to never rebel against the Capital ever again. During the selection process in District Twelve, called the reaping, a little girl named Prim gets called for District Twelve’s tribute. Her older sister, Katniss, did not want her little sister to get killed in the games, so she volunteered as the tribute and got sent in for her. After going through the pre-game activities, Katniss was thrown into the game to fight for her life. Through all of the tough and unbelievable circumstances that she was put through, she battled her way to the end of the games until she was standing with Petea, the other tribute from District Twelve, and threatened the Capital’s power by standing up to them. Katniss and Peeta held poisonous berries and were going to eat them so they can die together to defeat the purpose of the games, and when doing this the game leader decided that they could both win the games (The Hunger Games, 2012).
When assessing Gender Women’s Studies in the The Hunger Games one would examine the consequences of gender and address the norms of gender, race, and class of people. Also, another way to say this is, seeing if who we are puts us at an advantage or disadvantage to have any kind of power. There is a different kind of depiction of the main girl character, Katness. Instead of Katness being portrayed as the sex kitten or a looking for love character, she is shown as having more manly characteristics. The movie shows this by making Katniss hunt, wear dark manly clothes, boots and show her as a very aggressive person (The Hunger Games, 2012). By having her portray manly ways and having her as a powerful figure, this also shows that women can only have power when they act like men. Even though this is a false representation of women, at least there is a woman in a film that is not shown as a sex figure. There is actually a part in the movie where the Capital’s Glam Squad for Katness changes her and makes her feel like she lost her power. They take her and wax her whole body, bathe her, do her hair, and makeup because they want to present her in a feminine way in front of the members of the Capital so Katness complies to women in her society. She makes the comment, “So you’re here to make me look pretty” right when she sees her glam squad (The Hunger Games, 2012). Even though Katness is shown as a tough girl in the movie, there is many times that the people in the Capital try to change her to appeal to their people so she would be supported more in the games. This shows how a woman that follow all of the norms and expectations of being a stereotypical woman it will make her more powerful.
During The Hunger Games there are many parts that followed the pattern of certain groups having power throughout the whole film. One part in particular was just the overall concept of the Hunger Games. The Capital was obviously the hierarchy and the twelve districts were also categorized into hierarchical groups within themselves. The viewer can see that power and wealth goes from highest to lowest when moving from District One to District Twelve. The Capital does not have to participate in the games; rather they actually watch it for enjoyment and entertainment. They also have more than enough food, water, clothes, and money while most of the districts struggle to survive and often die of starvation. This shows that all of the power lies within the Capital as it serves as the group with the most wealth and power (The Hunger Games, 2012). One specific scene that shows this is when Katness was showing her talent to the game leader. She came in and they did not even pay attention to her because she was from District Twelve, the most powerless district. When they continued to not pay attention to her, she shoots her arrow into the apple in the pig’s mouth that the game leader was eating. After this she said, “Thanks for your consideration” (The Hunger Games, 2012). By Katniss saying this, it shows that even she notices the social divide between the Capital and her district. There is a special grouping/divide of power throughout the film that is very important in how the Capital keeps power over the districts.
The difference between the power of groups and women in this film are eye opening and obvious, as there were many examples not even mentioned that can relate to Gender Women’s Studies and Sociology. We went into depth for these two lenses because there is not one way to define power and there is always a depiction of power presented in film.