Abstract:
This thesis uses feminist theory to explore the ways in which four YA (young adult) dystopian films – The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner and Ender’s Game – simultaneously challenge and perpetuate traditional gender roles through their lead characters, narratives and themes. The intensive focus on gender that these YA films collectively represent lends itself well to a feminist analysis. Drawing primarily on Judith Butler’s argument that gender is performative rather than essential, the analysis of these films will focus on the way that each of the four lead characters seems to embody a performative form of gender that can be understood as fluid, hybrid, and permeating the conventional boundaries between what is considered feminine or masculine by combining aspects of both into a single, subversive gender performance. In each film, this subversion is contrasted against the supporting cast, the members of which vary in terms of performative or essentialist gender, and a central antagonist – always an adult – who ostensibly represents the traditional, patriarchal gender stereotypes that the lead characters challenge. Yet to at least some extent, these subversive leads also often perpetuate the same normative codes of gender that they appear to disrupt. This complex and problematic dynamic between opposing ideological stances makes these characters and films ripe for discussion in a feminist context, with the goal of highlighting the ways in which these films represent a new kind of gendersubversive character, while simultaneously reinforcing traditional, normative gender identities.
