Utopian Spirit In The Dystopian Picture: A Study On The Hunger Games Film Series

At present, The Hunger Games(film series) consists of three episodes: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay(part one), which were released in 2012, 2013 and 2015 respectively. Upon its release, the film series have met great favor both at home and abroad. This film series describes the story that a girl tries to change the destiny in a dystopian world. Therefore, from the perspective of Russell Jacoby's theory of iconoclastic utopia, this thesis analyzes and argues how the film series has conveyed hopeful utopian spirit through the presentation of a dystopian world.This thesis consists of three parts. The first part is an introduction giving a brief review on the three episodes of The Hunger Games, previous studies on them, the concept of utopia, dystopia and modernity and the structure of the thesis. The second part has three chapters, which are used to argue that The Hunger Games(film series) has been equipped with the characters of utopian spirit, namely estrangement, criticism and construction, and tried to convey this to the audiences. Chapter one analyzes the estrangement character reflected in the film series through describing how the protagonist estrange herself from the reality and then is able to pay attention to the interests of the whole; chapter two focuses on the construction-oriented critical character of the film in the background and the foreground, especially the criticism of abusing technology, inequality, totalitarianism and numbness; and chapter three analyzes the iconoclastic construction mode reflected in the film series and points out that hope, the core of utopian spirit, is the fundamental way out for modern spiritual crisis. The last part is the conclusion points out that The Hunger Games(film series) tries to rejuvenate utopian spirit and this utopia is a iconoclastic one which is different from the traditional one and can help us change the status quo and construct a better future.