--- title: The Hunger Games and Teen Dystopia: The Genre's History description: Our vision of the future didn't always include teenagers fighting a dystopian regime canonical: https://time.com/3596139/the-hunger-games-mockingjay-young-adult/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-21T02:00:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T11:34:00.886Z article:section: History og:title: The Hunger Games and Teen Dystopia: The Genre's History og:description: Our vision of the future didn't always include teenagers fighting a dystopian regime og:url: https://time.com/3596139/the-hunger-games-mockingjay-young-adult/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd555061fbafa6a2b/69876872e53aba573f4d5e16/hunger-games-mockingjay1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Hunger Games: Mockingjay og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Hunger Games and Teen Dystopia: The Genre's History twitter:description: Our vision of the future didn't always include teenagers fighting a dystopian regime twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd555061fbafa6a2b/69876872e53aba573f4d5e16/hunger-games-mockingjay1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How a 1960s Literary Trend Brought Us _The Hunger Games_  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 21, 2014 2:00 AM UTC  Murray Close—Lionsgate  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 21, 2014 2:00 AM UTC As Katniss & Co. get ready to storm movie theaters this weekend with _Mockingjay_, the latest installment in _The Hunger Games_ series, it may seem like a foregone conclusion that futuristic teenagers will have to battle an oppressive dystopian regime alongside their crushes. But it wasn’t always that way. As TIME’s Lev Grossman wrote back in 2012 while exploring the history of the teen romance-dystopia genre in books and movies, until the 1960s — notably, with the release of the _Tripod_ series by Christopher Samuel Youd — dystopia wasn’t for teenagers. Books like _1984_ and _Brave New World_ are seen as classics of grown-up literature; during the last 50 years, their analogues have usually been meant for teenagers. But that doesn’t mean that the genre hasn’t changed further during that half-century: --- > “” --- **_Read the full article here:_** [Love Among the Ruins](http://time.com/vault/issue/2012-03-12/page/126/) The Hunger Games and Teen Dystopia: The Genre's History ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3596139/the-hunger-games-mockingjay-young-adult/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3596139/the-hunger-games-mockingjay-young-adult/"},"headline":"How a 1960s Literary Trend Brought Us The Hunger Games","datePublished":"2014-11-21T02:00:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T11:34:00.886Z","description":"Dystopian fiction used to be for adults","url":"https://time.com/3596139/the-hunger-games-mockingjay-young-adult/","keywords":["movies","Books","The Hunger Games"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd555061fbafa6a2b/69876872e53aba573f4d5e16/hunger-games-mockingjay1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd555061fbafa6a2b/69876872e53aba573f4d5e16/hunger-games-mockingjay1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hunger Games: Mockingjay","caption":"Hunger Games: Mockingjay","creditText":"Murray Close—Lionsgate","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3596139/the-hunger-games-mockingjay-young-adult/","name":"How a 1960s Literary Trend Brought Us The Hunger Games"}}]}] ```