The Hunger Games: Book Vs Movie
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The Hunger Games is a movie series based around the female character Katniss. In the movie, people of the lower class districts are placed in a battle royale death match. Katniss can be viewed as a symbol of the strength and independence of a woman as opposed to the usual portrayal of a damsel in distress in media. She ends up being a part of The Hunger Games, a televised entertainment event. She deceives the viewers by having them believe she has romantic interests with another participant. Need a custom essay on the same topic? Give us your paper requirements, choose a writer and we’ll deliver the highest-quality essay! Order now
Her goal is not romance, her only goal is to protect her family and she must to survive The Hunger Games in order to do so.
After her father dies, Katniss takes his role as the hunter and provider, leaving the area of the village she lives in for adventures in the woods. The first example of Katniss's characteristics is when she volunteers in place of her young sister, Prim, who was selected as a participant in the upcoming Hunger Games. When her sister's life was threatened, she stands out among the crowd as a brave woman who is willing to risk death to save her sister, unlike the many others in the crowd who would have rather let the young girl go to battle than go themselves. While an action like this is usually given to a male character to portray the stereotypical heroic and manly thing to do, she is driven by her seemingly maternal instincts to protect her sister.
Katniss's primary goal in The Hunger Games is survival and she sets up an elaborate plan with another character and participant of The Hunger Games, Peeta. Katniss and Peeta pretend to be in love for the cameras, which spectate them during the event, in order to attract the attention of sponsors and to assure President Snow that their main interest is true love driven by their romantic interests, and not a rebellion. Their plan to trick people will result in them earning sponsors, which are offers to the participants in order to assist them in their survival. After their success in The Hunger Games, they begin wedding preparations which are an elaborate trick. This emphasizes Katniss's rejection of the traditional narrative of a feminine romance. She does not want marriage or a happily ever after cliche ending. She is not that sort of feminine archetype. She is the hunter and provider for her family, so if she could, she would rather head for the woods and care for her sisters.
The Hunger Games occasionally puts Katniss in female roles with some regularity but it is done in order to emphasize those female roles artificiality, and it shows her discomfort with those roles. She wears a series of dresses, which in the film emphasize Katniss's appearance. But Katniss does admire these dresses and a lot of that has to do with the fact that she has a bond of deep affection with the designer Cinna. She is wearing the dresses because she has to, not because she wants to. The reason she has to dress up is because she wants to win sponsors over to help her during the Hunger Games battle. She then wants to inspire a resistance against the capital, the upper class people who are responsible for having created and organized The Hunger Games as a televised event. The dresses she wears are a part of the performance she acts out. They serve a function as a kind of drag, rather than as an expression of her own gender identity or choices, because connecting to the main emphasis, Katniss is not a stereotypical female character. She instead replaces the position of a stereotypical male lead of a lot of movies and other media.
Peeta, on the other hand, is actually committed to the romance story. He really loves Katniss and expresses that directly. He seems to fill the role of a damsel in distress in the Hunger Games, which is usually reserved for the women. Katniss and others save Peeta multiple times from danger and near death throughout The Hunger Games. The stereotypical gender roles seem to be reversed in The Hunger Games. Some believe that Katniss should have embraced a feminine characteristic while maintaining the role as a leader, and they also believe that it is wrong that they still push for masculine characteristics in the lead character in the series, even if it is a woman.
The Hunger Games series is based on the ""kill or be killed excitement of a battle royale to the death. It celebrates Katniss for her heroics, leadership, and independence. The stereotypical masculine characteristics do seem to be present in Katniss throughout the battle as they encounter traumatic consequences of violence. However, The Hunger Games should instead be viewed as a strong female who is driven by her maternal instincts to protect and provide for her family and her own goals of leading a rebellion rather than a romance.
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Hunger games: every major difference between the movies & books.
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The hugely popular The Hunger Games movie franchise was adapted from Suzanne Collins’s young adult book trilogy in 2012 and concluded in 2015 after four movies, including a two-part film adaptation of the third novel, Mockingjay ; however, there are notable differences between the movies and the books. The Hunger Games quickly became one of the biggest and most influential Hollywood franchises in recent history, grossing $2.97 billion worldwide. Jennifer Lawrence’s performance as protagonist Katniss Everdeen be met by widespread acclaim, firmly establishing the young star as a household name; yet, her character is different in the movies than in the novels.
The movies brought together industry newcomers and veteran actors alike to round out their ensemble cast. The series feature Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark, the other District 12 tribute and Katniss’ eventual love interest, Liam Hemsworth as Katniss’ childhood friend Gale Hawthorne , Woody Harrelson as District 12 victor Haymitch Abernathy, Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, and Donald Sutherland as President Snow.
Related: The Hunger Games: Hanging Tree Song Origin & President Snow Connection Explained
The Hunger Games movies are broadly recognized by fans for being loyal to Collins’ novels; however, as is inevitable with any book-to-screen adaptation, the franchise did change some aspects of the book trilogy to accommodate the big-screen format and runtime. Leaving slight tweaks aside, what follows is every major difference between The Hunger Games movies and books.
The Hunger Games Movies Abandon the Mockingjay Pin Origin Story
Madge Undersee, the District 12 mayor’s daughter, does not appear at all in the movies. In the book, the famous mockingjay pin which Katniss wears as her tribute token in the Games, and which eventually becomes a symbol of the revolution, is given to her by Madge . In the movie, Katniss is receives the pin from a woman at the Hob – possibly Greasy Sae, though she is not named in the film – and later gives it to her younger sister Primrose as a good-luck charm, promising that nothing bad would happen to her so long as she had the pin. After Katniss volunteers as tribute in place of her sister, Prim returns the pin to her as protection during their emotional goodbye. Though the movie’s origin for the mockingjay pin establishes a close bond between the two sisters, the film does not address the symbol’s important backstory .
In the book, Katniss explains that the mockingjay is “something of a slap in the face” for the Capitol: during the last rebellion, the Capitol had created several genetically modified animals to use as weapons against insurgent districts. One of these was a bird called a jabberjay, which would fly out to the districts and listen in on rebels’ conversations, and then repeat these conversations to intelligence gatherers in the Capitol. However, when the rebels figured out the birds were spies, they started feeding them false intelligence to mislead the Capitol. After the uprising was quashed and the jabberjays were released into the wild, they mated with mockingbirds and created mockingjays. Though these hybrids cannot speak, they can repeat melodies and were therefore used to send signals — for instance, by the workers in Rue’s home district.
Related: Hunger Games Prequel Movie Will Struggle To Match The Originals' Success
The book affords the mockingjay a much more meaningful origin story, one which adds to the symbol’s significance as its iconography is appropriated by the rebellion. It allows for a parallel to be drawn between the mockingjay and Katniss herself: she evolves from being paraded around by the Capitol as a propaganda tool to defying President Snow and becoming the face of the rebellion.
The Movie Villains Have More Depth & The Capitol Less Cruel
While the books are written from Katniss’ point of view, the films naturally allow for a broader perspective. The audience sees behind the scenes of the Games and spends more time with President Snow and Chief Gamemaker Seneca Crane than the books allowed for. It is interesting to see Crane interact with Snow, as viewers are pushed to consider that he may be as much at the mercy of the Capitol as anyone else. This perspective emphasizes that the Capitol is a delicate ecosystem in which everyone has a role to play for its existence to be maintained. Snow is allowed more depth , thanks in part to Sutherland’s charismatic performance. The films see him at home and in his office, sharing a meal with his granddaughter and growing visibly worried about Katniss’ influence. His control over the Capitol does not appear as ironclad in the movies, and the potential for a successful rebellion seems more accessible because the audience is privy to happenings beyond Katniss’ point of view.
The movies also remove some details of the books which emphasize the cruelty of those in power , particularly in the first novel. For instance, Katniss sees two people on the run in the woods while out hunting with Gale; she witnesses one of them be killed by a harpoon to the chest while the girl is trapped in a net dropped from a Peacekeeper hovercraft. When Katniss arrives in the Capitol, she recognizes one of the mute slaves as the same girl, whose tongue was cut out as punishment before she was enslaved.
Related: What Happened To Katniss After The Hunger Games Ended
Likewise, there is a major scene in The Hunger Games which sees Katniss and Peeta attacked by dog-like creatures in the arena. In the book, these "Mutts" are made from the DNA of the dead Tributes , including Katniss’ friend Rue, and therefore shared their physical features. In the movie however, these mutts are little more than glorified attack dogs. The film adaptation therefore does not show the most emotionally manipulative dimensions of what the Gamekeepers throw at the Tributes, which worked in the novels to highlight the mercilessness of those in power.
Movie Katniss Is Given More Agency In Choosing Her Role As Leader
In The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 , Katniss sneaks to the Capitol to assassinate President Snow and to help the District 13 rebels , all without authorization from those in charge. Explaining that she is in no shape to fight and too valuable to lose in combat, Coin had previously ordered Katniss to continue shooting propaganda films, where she could keep an eye on her and ensure no harm came to the revolution’s poster girl.
In the books, Katniss and Johanna are trained extensively in District 13 so that they can be cleared for the field. Katniss is only able to accompany the mission to the Capitol after asking permission from Plutarch and Coin, and only so she can be the televised face of the uprising. The movie version therefore gives Katniss more agency in her role as revolutionary leader, as she actively refuses to again be used as a propaganda tool and decides instead to take the fate of the revolution in her own hands. The movie version of events also underscores that Katniss is impossible to control, which sets precedent for the future conflicts between her and Coin’s ambitions. The audience also gets to see the effect that Katniss’ disobedience has on the District 13 leader. She is furious at Katniss’ defiance, which adds credence to later indications that Coin wants Katniss dead so that she can use her as a martyr for the cause.
The movies work to make Katniss appear less like a tool used by others for their own gain, and more like a heroine who refuses to sit idly by and is purer of heart than the politicians she is surrounded by. This makes her easier to root for , which is likely the same reason why the filmmakers cut a pivotal scene from the final book in which Katniss shoots a civilian in cold blood. By The Hunger Games franchise’s conclusion, Katniss was closer to classic ideas of a Hollywood heroine than she was in the novels.
Next: What To Expect From The Hunger Games Prequel Movie
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