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Opinion | The problem with ‘Hunger Games’ photographs of the Thai protests
- The protests have given rise to a new style of documentary photography in which students are depicted as Hollywood heroines and Mockingjays
- But these deceptively beautiful pictures blur the line between art and reality, begging the question: did these events really occur?
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What began as high school and university demonstrations against Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha have transformed into a fully fledged movement towards political reform.
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Since February this year, photographs of the protests in Thai cities including Bangkok and Chiang Mai have become a common fixture in the news.
Yet there has been little critical analysis of the photojournalism surrounding these events, which have drawn heavily on the iconography of The Hunger Games film trilogy.
The films portray a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future in which a three-finger salute represents solidarity among an oppressed population. The protagonist, Katniss, becomes the face of an uprising after winning a state-imposed battle royale. She is called the Mockingjay as a symbol of rebellion against the state’s dictatorship.
It’s a narrative that has been embraced on the streets of Thailand, where protesters have taken to raising their hands in the familiar three-finger salute. But this time it is to call for political reform and oppose the royalist military government.
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