7 Ways Hunger Games Subverted Gender Roles

First of all, let me go ahead and get this out of the way: I am super late to the Hunger Games party. Like, wildly so. I didn’t read the first book until August 2015. We were on the last leg of our cross-country move (Oregon to Tennessee), and my husband put the first audio book on while I navigated our way out of St. Louis. I don’t know if the combination of hanger, dehydration, and exhaustion I was experiencing was the culprit or what, but I cried three times during the first chapter and insisted that we pull over at the next Barnes & Noble so I could buy the book. My husband took over driving duties, and I read the rest of the book out loud. Over the next week or two I moved on to the other books, and then the films, and quickly realized that the films are way, way better than the books. (#Sorrynotsorry)

There are a lot of things I really love about the movies, and a lot of those things have been covered online: Katniss is a badass, Katniss is a feminist, Katniss isn’t a feminist, Katniss has amazing hair, and OMG how much do we all love that cowl she wears in Catching Fire (because I’m obsessed). Obviously, there are a lot of Katniss-related things to love about the movies (including the fact that she definitely defies plenty of female gender norms)… but there are also a lot of things to love that have nothing to do with her. My personal favorite thing about the films is how men and women repeatedly choose to act in ways that go against the narratives we’re typically fed about gender.

Since Mockingjay Part 2 comes out next week (and I already have my mockingjay pin ready to wear), I thought it would be fun to have a movie gabfest. Warning: lots of spoilery things ahead. Proceed accordingly.

prim turns into a teen nurse and no one is surprised

When we first meet Prim, she’s a little girl. She can’t keep her shirt tucked in, her mother braids her hair, and she’s terrified of everything. She and her mother are almost entirely reliant on Katniss for basic needs like food, money, and resources. If you’ve been following the series you know what happens next: Prim gets selected as the female tribute for The Hunger Games, Katniss takes her place, and after a few weepy bits before Katniss leaves, that’s basically the end of the tale of Prim.

We find out that Prim, like her mother, has a knack for healing, and by the time Catching Fire rolls around, Prim is regularly helping her mother with patients. The third film, Mockingjay Part 1, is when Prim really shines: she’s become a nurse in District 13, and she’s training to become a doctor. She’s not only a nurse, she’s the nurse. Prim throws herself into caring for others, and she’s really good at it—even though she’s like thirteen. Teen girls aren’t generally represented in the media as competent, badass caregiving bosses quite like Prim is, because that’s not what we want them to be. We want spoiled, materialistic social media addicts we can complain about, right? Prim manages to toe the line between compassion and self-sacrifice victoriously, and her end in the series stays true to that. Caregivers aren’t devalued in The Hunger Games, which I love. Maybe America will catch up one day.

peeta stays true to himself even though it’s not “manly”

I love Peeta. I looooove him. I think his character is the sweetest, and I’m not going to say anything in case you haven’t read the books, but I’m glad everything ends the way it does. Some of what I love about Peeta is wrapped up in his love for Katniss (because wouldn’t we all basically do anything for JLaw?), but a lot of it is tied to his genuine desire to stay who he is, whether or not that jives with male stereotypes. There’s an exchange early on that I just adore:

Peeta Mellark: Yeah. I just don’t want them to change me.
Katniss Everdeen: How will they change you?
Peeta Mellark: I don’t know. Turn me into something I’m not. I-I-I just don’t want to be another piece in their game, you know?
Katniss Everdeen: You mean you won’t kill anyone?
Peeta Mellark: No… I mean, you know, I’m sure I would just like anybody else when the time came, but I just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them that they don’t own me. You know, if I’m gonna die, I wanna still be me. Does that make any sense?

Peeta is gentle, and that’s okay. He doesn’t want to change who he is—he doesn’t want to be a person who doesn’t act in the name of love. People who prioritize love for others over love for themselves, for power, for money, are usually superficially celebrated, but not truly respected (as evidenced by this classification of Peeta as the “movie girlfriend” from NPR), and I like that Peeta ultimately doesn’t willingly bend for anyone who doesn’t have what’s best for the citizens of Panem at heart. I also give him bonus points for being a man and defying a lot of male stereotypes in favor of being a human who just acts on love as much as he possibly can.

Finnick opens up about his own sexual exploitation

The sexual exploitation of girls and women is well documented—it’s a topic that is readily discussed by scholars, academics, policy makers, women. We talk about it on social media; we talk about it at universities. I don’t mean to trivialize it (at all), but what I’m getting at is that we’ve only recently started to discuss the sexual exploitation of boys and men, and I think that makes Finnick’s public revelation about his own exploitation all the more impressive.

Long story short: the Capitol has no problem selling its more attractive tributes to the highest bidder. Finnick is at the top of the list, and he’s quite popular with the Capitol’s male and female citizens. He doesn’t have any say in the matter, but he learns to use his forced sexual labor to get secrets out of some of the most powerful citizens in Panem. He’s ultimately able to use these secrets to the detriment of President Snow in a propaganda video created by District 13.

That Finnick was able to admit to the exploitation of himself is pretty huge: you don’t always find men on talk shows or in PSAs discussing sexual acts that have been committed against them. In a culture that still questions whether or not men can be raped (and still technically defines rape as an act against women), including this topic in the books and movies is a calculated move on the part of everyone involved, and it’s one that this character handles tremendously well.

Effie doesn’t fall apart when her world does

FYI, Effie is one of my favorite characters in the series. I especially loved that she was heavily featured in Mockingjay Part 1, because I went into that film fairly bummed that I probably wouldn’t be seeing my girl that frequently.

Here’s why Effie is especially spectacular in the first Mockingjay installment. The world as she’s known it—the glitzy, wild debauchery in the Capitol, the extreme privilege she takes for granted—is erased. Effie becomes a bit of a political refugee, albeit one that arrives in District 13 with a different worldview and life experience than most people there. I think it would be understandable (and completely gender normative/predictable) for Effie to opt to fall to pieces. After all, she’s no longer bedazzled in butterflies. Her wigs are gone, her face is washed out—everything is dull. But to the contrary, Effie takes it in stride. Not only does she take it in stride, she continues to run the damn thing. She’s orchestrating propaganda videos and prepping Katniss and eating the same mundane gruel that everyone else is eating. She’s rocking her District 13 jumpsuit like it’s no big deal.

President Coin is just as ruthless as any male leader 

No lie, President Coin truly surprised me. I have been fond of insisting that in general, if women were in charge more often than men, the world would be a better place. I don’t mean because women are better than men, but I have labored under the opinion that if women were in charge, they would rule with more compassion. I’ve often thought that if women led, there would be fewer wars because women would be more likely to find alternatives and other solutions. I suppose I’ve based this on the idea that in the US men have always been President, and we keep finding ourselves in what seems like endless warfare, but honestly: it’s probably kind of sexist.

So here’s where Coin messed me up: she’s just as ruthless as any male leader in the series. She matches President Snow step by step. I was initially moved by her backstory (her husband and child died in a pox epidemic; it tugged at the heartstrings), and I didn’t fully realize this until the near end of Mockingjay, aka what we’ll see in part 2, when she orchestrates the blatant murder of children—and plans it so that the Capitol takes the fall. So maybe it’s just me, but I was stunned that Coin—who I believed in, even when Katniss suspected her of ulterior motives—who I thought was working (to borrow from Rowling) for the greater good turned out to be just as cutthroat and ruthless as any male leader. President Coin doesn’t seem to be interested in supporting Katniss as much as she seems interested in using Katniss—just as President Snow did.

Cinna is a feminist 

Cinna is basically the best, right? I mean, he is fascinating from the beginning, when we find out that he’s been born and raised in the Capitol, but shirks much of the glitz and glam that everyone else seems to be the most basic way of life there. Cinna intentionally chose District 12 as his district, and he immediately gravitates toward Katniss. In fact, Cinna creates Katniss, aka The Girl on Fire. Cinna seems to understand more than most exactly what Katniss is up against, and he’s one of her strongest allies from the beginning. In a world in which everyone else in her life is trying to overrule her or make her into someone she isn’t quite sure she wants to be, Cinna quietly reads Katniss, absorbs what he learns, and works on the assumption that one day she’ll realize who she is, too.

There aren’t many male characters in The Hunger Games who could be called feminists, but Cinna is firmly in that camp. He works diligently to do everything in his power to put Katniss in the best possible position—even when it means he’ll get killed for doing so.

johanna doesn’t “mean girl” katniss

In Catching Fire, Johanna and Katniss have an exchange right before Katniss goes on stage to be interviewed. She’s wearing a wedding gown, and Johanna hisses, “Really? A wedding dress?” Katniss explains that Snow made her wear it, and Johanna answers, “Make him pay for it.”

Johanna has a lot of reasons to choose to mean girl Katniss, and some of the time it feels like that’s what she’s trying to do… until you find out that she’s been on her side the entire time. Unknown to Peeta and Katniss, Johanna is part of an alliance formed to sabotage the games and spur Katniss into her role as the Mockingjay, and all of her actions are part of this plot. In a story that’s already filled with literal deadly competition that’s bigger than most things you could experience at a middle school lunch table, Johanna had a lot of options available to her. She chose friendship, and that made the difference.

What are your favorite moments when gender expectations and norms are flipped upside down in The Hunger Games? And yes: it’s totally ok to talk about Katniss in the comments.