The Hunger Games Prosumers and Fans. 180 MC GROUP 2 PRESENTATION 3 INTRODUCTION We chose to analyze fans of the movie the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is a 2008 science fiction novel by American writer Suzanne Collins. It was made into a film 2012 last year and is a Golden Globe-nominated, Grammy Award- winning film. The film has a large devoted fan following, so we concentrated by looking at a Hunger Games specific fan page calledand a general fan page called www. fanfiction.netwww.mockingjay.net THE WEBSITES THE FANS USEis a fan made website for the Hunger games created in 2012 and already has over 42,000 followers. The website was co-founded by 3 Hunger Games fans, no older than 25 and has 11 staff members operating the website. The website is mainly used for fans to engage with the film by sending in fan art and fiction, fan creations such as clothing and cakes, latest news and also videos. TYPES OF WORK THEY ENGAGE IN FAN FICTION Fanfiction.net is a site where fans can read or write fan fiction, either using the characters from the book, film, show etc. or other storylines based off of the series. The hunger games in particular has at the moment over 25,000 fan fiction stories mainly in Spanish and English. A lot of the stories have disclaimers giving the rights to the creator of the hunger games, so their works are not taken down, and to avoid any copyright issues This demonstrates how fans become active story makers as they expand the canon of the Hunger Games by creating what Hills described as a hyperdiegesis and they end up becoming more skilled and astute and active prosumers. FAN VIDEOS/PARODIES FAN-ART Fan art is also very popular and fans can post on mockingjay.com or other websites their creations, showing their love for the film or books As well as this fans may make posters, collages and pictures up these are popular on sites such as Tumblr or BlogSpot where work can be easily shared. PARODIES As well as fan art, fans may create funny images for others to laugh at, including memes or funny images from the film. These types of images can receive thousands of notes, re-blogs and comments on them both from fans and non-fans alike. FAN MEET UPS There have been various fan meet ups advertised online for fans of the hunger games to meet up, share stories, experiences of how they got into the group and opportunities to talk to the friends they have made online, as well as discuss what they want to happen to future films. CULTURAL CONTEXT Hunger Games is an adaptation of Suzanne Collins book of the same name. The story takes place in a dystopian future after a great war, in which power, wealth and resources are unevenly distributed, leading to riots and revolutions. Each year two individuals from each region are selected to participate in a gladiatorial fight to the death which is broadcast across the nations in order to commemorate the sacrifice of the warriors in the war and educate citizens so not forget the lessons of their history, to remain loyal and serve the state to avoid war and conflict. Collins said the inspiration for her book came from observing that on one television channel people were competing on a reality show, and on another channel they were playing raw footage of the invasion of Iraq. the two began to blur in a very unsettling way and the book was born. As a result of this the story of the hunger games reflects issues in our own society such as war, class and wealth issues, the discourse of contemporary social media, the visual culture, the public space, the story also observes the changes of the modern society and its characteristics. The Hunger Games makes use of a teenage female protagonist with a supporting male teenager. This challenges the standard Hollywood role of femininity, as she is made strong and intelligent and able to look after herself, possibly as a result of the feminist movement. She also remains physically and intellectually attractive fulfilling the male gaze theory (Laura Mulvey 1975). This more positive female image means that the film is able to capitalize on the success of other films such as the Twilight saga and the Harry potter films, where the female character are arguably weaker and less positive, as the themes and film styles may be similar, but the character is more powerful and positive. From enticing these audiences the Hunger Games also entices there devotion and passion for prosumption and affective engagement, this links closely to Jenkins point: cult works were once discovered; now they are being consciously produced, designed to provoke fan interactions (Jenkins 2006: 145) STRATEGIES AND TACTICS Certeaus strategies and tactics can be applied to explain the relationship between prosumers and fans and the producers of the hunger games. The strategies implemented by the powerful producers comes from the way they have created the text and elements they include in the mise en scene of the film. The producers have chosen the actors, the set design, the composition and the way the narrative is told. They have exercised their power so that the film represents the story and imagery they wish for people to perceive. Many fans use tactics to subvert the strategies of the producers. Fans may disagree with certain elements such as the choice of actors, set design, or plot devices and story elements. The tactics they implement come in a variety of forms such as: Fan Art- Depicting images and elements that they would prefer to see. Short stories and alternative scripts- allowing for fans to manipulate the story to how they would prefer it to go. Short films and Trailers- some fans re-enact or create there own trailers and scenes form the film so that they are able to change film elements of both the narrative and the visual in a way they envision. Hunger Games fans then share the work they have created with fellow fans on fan-run sites such asIn this way they are tactically subverting the strategies implemented in the text by sharing their work and there own ideologies of what the text should be. In this way they are able to expand the canon of the film in a much broader and faster way than the producers of the film are able to do. HOW THE INDUSTRY RESPONDS TO THEM Past examples of how industries have responded to fan fiction was to keep control and a license over them. For example Lucasfilm offered fans an official web space and unique content but under the condition that what was ever created became intellectual property of the studios. Now more industries are taking advantage of the rise of social media and the free added publicity that Fan fiction brings, rather than concerning itself with holding a license over fan fiction and art and selling it on. Mockinjay.net does not take itself has a forum along withsubscription and podcasts with links to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and various connected blogs. The industry appears to changing tactics in relation to rather the goal of owning the fan fiction to sell but an aim of being the main and most popular platform for that specific fan fiction to be published on and thrive. AUDIENCE Fans of The Hunger Games trilogy and film have nicknamed themselves The Tributes. They can connect with other fans via mockingjay.net, which has a Fan Creations sections to share sketches, songvids, music projects, edited photos, fan fiction, crafts and other artwork and even recipes referencing the film. The type of audience that are on the Hungar Games fan page are generally people who have shown a keen interest in the film debating topics on how the film could have been altered or gossiping about the actors and actresses personal life, commenting on their appearances and where they have been seen. For example in this picture fans are talking about the protagonist, discussing on how the book does not match up to film as she was described differently. So the topics are not just on the events of the film. It is mainly the female gender who are posting on this website and the overall theme of topics are about the appearances of the characters and if they approve of them or not This fan page has a main representation of people from a middle class- older teenagers who use this forum to gossip. They are not the typical fans who use this forum to debate their personal lives which would generally come from a young teenage audience however more civilized as they are able to talk about the film itself The fan base is mostly American but is gradually spreading to other areas. Though the main character is a 16 year old girl, the fan base isnt too dominated by one gender or another as the film and books are known to have an appropriate balance of action and romance, unlike other teen films like Twilight. This is evident in the 70:30 ratio of female fans to male. This demonstrates that the fans constitute a highly socialised community spanning disparate national and social groups via digital communication Breakdown by age: % % % % % % % The difference between fans of this text and some others is that there is a good balance of male and female followers who have grown up with these books as part of their popular culture. They are interested in seeing the transition from literature to film. For the purpose of comparison, we can see that fans of Twilight are heavily female-dominated and are know to be stigmatised for their interest in the franchise. Furthermore, it is arguable that Twihards are more fascinated by the appeal of the actors than the story itself. COPYRIGHT With fan fiction being a result of influence of a particular text, in this case the Hunger Games. There becomes a major issue over copyright and ownership of the content. To avoid any question and challenge over copyright fans and prosumers have to ensure that the work they create is Transformative. The U.S. Supreme court requires that a transformative text, 'adds something new, with a further purpose of different character, altering the (source) with new expression, meaning, or message. So by using there own imaginations and interpretations of the Hunger Games the fans are able to avoid any copyright infringement as they are creating something new from the text and adding there own meaning to it. Another point fans must adhere to is that of financial gain, that the work they are creating is not for any financial benefit to themselves. The advantage of sites such as mockinjay.net is that it is a free site to subscribe and submit fan work to, and fans do not receive any financial compensation or reward for sharing their work. The site also allows for fans to of used media lifted directly from the Hunger Games (e.g. sampling of video or audio clips) if it has been transformed and expanded upon, whereas some other sites do not allow this kind of work as to avoid completely any issues over copyright