ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces “the poly gaze” as the conceptual framework for the book. Building on the sociological insight that media representations and cultural narratives establish and reproduce social meanings and values, it is argued that the narratives we tell about monogamy and non-monogamy are often stories about happiness and living a “good” life. By braiding critical media studies with a sociological understanding of the cultural production of difference and inequality, it is argued that stories told in U.S. culture about a good monogamous life reproduce and legitimize race, gender, class, and/or sexual inequality. In order to demonstrate use of the concept, a poly gaze is used to analyze the second film in The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire.
