Soldier, Beauty and the Bird : Fragmentation of Gender Identity in the Popular Franchise The Hunger Games
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This paper attempts to focus on the complexity of gender in the context of the twenty-first century. It argues that social influences deform the self and fragment it into various pieces. It uses the female heroine Katniss Everdeen from the popular American franchise The Hunger Games to examine gender androgyny and flexibility of the self to change according to different social circumstances. The typical gender roles and features are blurred into an androgynous figure that does not possess a fixed self but that serves as a reflection of the outside world. Katniss´s gender identity possesses both masculine and feminine characteristics as she changes back and forth from a killer into a beauty and finally reaches complete depersonalization of the self when she is turned into a mere symbol of rebellion. As Suzanne Collins puts Katniss´s real gender identity in question, she reveals that what defines the contemporary young American generation are the outside social forces of commerce, fashion and media. |
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