Snuffed out: A Review of Katniss’ Closing Dress in the Hunger Games
When I think of fire, I think of bright orange flames, licking the sky with hues of yellow and red dancing in the center. I think of tantalizing heat and sex appeal, romance even. What was so fun about designing the finale dress was that Katniss redefined my images of fire. She isn’t stereotypical of sex appeal and her narrative in The Hunger Games doesn’t write her to be a vixen, so I couldn’t work with her design the same way I could with Glimmer’s. The character that is Katniss is sensitive and stubborn, a teenage girl who inadvertently becomes the face of the rebellion that the movies would later chronicle. So when I was designing her closing dress, I needed to swathe her in something that provided both closure to this film and incentive to draw the viewer back for the next segment. However, I also needed to stay consistent with Collins’ vision of Katniss, and merge the fantasy of her written words with the imagination of our audience to create a tangible reality, one that everyone could recognize and familiarize themselves with. I wanted them to look at my art and know it was just like what Collins wrote:
“I am still the “girl on fire.” The sheer fabric softly glows. Even the slight movement in the air sends a ripple up my body. By comparison, the chariot costume seems garish, the interview dress too contrived. In this dress, I give the illusion of wearing candlelight.” (356)
So I thought: yellow, pale and gentle and girly. Katniss has already shocked the audience when she was on fire, literally, and this dress needed to be more figurative, a nonverbal political statement to the Capital in response to her torture. This is how she redefined fire for me in the novel, because no matter what shade of yellow or red, and no matter how high the flames lick the sky, fire still burns hot. I wanted the audience to know that the flame that is Katniss did not snuff itself out by winning the games, and that it didn’t need to rage as hotly as in her entrance because she already made her statement. I wanted to reiterate that Katniss was still their “girl on fire” in a more artful sense, with subtlety alluding to how she still had more to endure.
I designed this dress to be different. I wanted to fit her somewhere between the Capital and District 12, but make her a product of neither. I lured in the audience with the shimmering fabric but kept her plain enough that she wasn’t so far removed from her home. I didn’t want to overshadow the meaning behind her wardrobe anymore than I wanted to convey it, which proved difficult as I couldn’t exactly dress her in garb as eccentric as I could with Effie’s character. Collins wanted this look perceivable as political too, writing “I look, very simply, like a girl. A young one. Fourteen at most. Innocent. Harmless…This is a very calculated look.” (356) Keeping her girly, and knowing the future plot of the story, I drew inspiration from Disney’s animated Beauty and the Beast (1991). Belle wore a yellow off shoulder ball gown as she wooed the Beast into freeing her father and falling in love with her. Katniss, in her likelihood, is wooing the Capital and later, as Peeta’s blue suit suggests, her lover when he becomes a beastly man.
Katniss is princess-like in this moment to allude to her fairy tale ending, a comfort to the audience knowing that she survives, as does her family. She is dressed as a gentle end to the movie and to the games. However, she is still glowing. Her flame is still burning, and she hasn’t been snuffed out—not in the games by her competitors, and as she silently tells the capital, not by them either.
Though I drew heavy inspiration from Beauty and the Beast, I wanted Katniss’ dress to be muted. The Capital characters were already so loud in color, I needed her to be quiet and candle-like, supporting Collins’ primary vision. I also couldn’t dress her in such a dingy yellow that she’d look straight from District 12. So ultimately, I picked a quiet yellow dress, one that made her look girly and nonthreatening, but rebellious enough to send a message loud enough for the audience to hear: she wasn’t snuffed out, and this was far from over.
Works cited
Beauty and the Beast. Walt Disney Productions, 1991. Film.
Beauty and the Beast. Digital image. Imdb. Walt Disney Productions, n.d. Web. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101414/mediaviewer/rm1756475392>.
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. NY, NY: Scholastic, 2008. Print.
The Hunger Games. Digital image. Imdb. The Hunger Games, n.d. Web. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/mediaviewer/rm1900812032>.
Hey Mary,
Your writing style and language is very provocative and kept me engaged throughout your entire post. Your connection between Katniss’ dress and Belle’s dress in Beauty and the Beast is something that I never would have connected, but your evidence supports how Katniss and Belle and the fairy tale myth are interconnected. A movie review or an article describing the significance of Katniss’ final dress and the costume choices for Katniss would have added more evidence to your argument. Were there any other aspects, besides Katniss’ costume that helped lead you to the fairy tale notion of the ending of the book/movie? The ideas and significance of fairy tales intrigue me because The Hunger Games series is written as dystopian fiction and fairy tales are on another extreme. The images you used were essential to your argument so making them a bit larger would have been nice as well. Overall I really enjoyed reading your post and the perspective you gave!
Mary
I loved the content of your post. The analysis of the dress made it seem like that was the only dress that Katniss could have worn that day, and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Specifically, I liked the parts of the analysis that conveyed the dress’s symbolic or political significance. This gave the dress much more importance than I initially deemed.
I think the post could have used a voice from the community. Perhaps an expert dress designer, or something along those lines. I think this could have further enhanced the evidence in your post.
I wonder why though Katniss has to wear a dress that is in between the Capital and her district. You mentioned she had already made her statement and didn’t need to make another one, but why not? She was rebellious throughout the film, so why not have her come out in a dress more indicative of District 12?
Mary,
This is a very interesting perspective on Katniss’s dress. I never thought of it that way. I think your thesis is and the way you thought of the dress is the strength of your post. I think it would improve your argument if you possibly found reviews or blogs talking about the dress that might support your argument. This might be a stretch and hard to figure out but what might Peeta’s outfit be saying about him or maybe represent in him? Is there a hidden meaning in his outfit or it just to compliment Katniss’s?
Strength: I love the train of thought format. It’s very logical and makes the analysis flow very easily. It makes it super easy for me as a reader.
Work On: It was clear that your thesis was to strive to capture Collins’ message conveyed in the quote. However, I didn’t fully grasp what this message exactly was until your concluding sentence. Going forward, I think that briefly explaining the quote and its explicit relationship to the thesis could be very powerful.
Think About: Initially, I thought it to be strange that Cinna would shy away from making a bolder statement in her dress. However, I imagine he would have wanted to be more subtle due to the Capitol’s anger towards Katniss. I wonder if he was as torn over how to dress Peeta.