The Hunger Games: transmedia, gender and possibility

Abstract

Can the democratizing power of transmedia facilitate positive changes for women as media producers, consumers and audience-members? We discuss this question with reference to the transmedia intellectual property, The Hunger Games (Collins, 2008ff), first examining how it functions as a transmedia property, then considering the ways in which the critical literature has addressed its potential for positive change. We identify two key strands within the critical analysis of this transmedia property, the ‘failure of agency’ and the ‘cop-out ending’ arguments, which we suggest do not fully account for Collins’ text. Although we find that The Hunger Games book series offers positive roles and opportunities for women, we conclude that its progressive potential is constrained and diluted as it enters the transmedia world, as a consequence of commercial imperatives, exemplifying how transmedia offers some definite but limited opportunities for change.