Girls’ participation in national archery competitions doubled in 2012. In light of this, we sought to investigate whether Hollywood representations of female archers, such as in The Hunger Games and Brave, was correlated with girls’ interest and inspiration towards archery. We conducted a national survey to members of USA Archery and asked them about their involvement in archery, what inspired them to take on the sport, and who their role models are.

Key Findings

  • A total of seven in 10 girls say that Katniss from The Hunger Games and Princess Merida from Brave influenced their decisions to take up archery.
  • Across age groups and gender, many say that fictional archers in film and television influenced them to take up the sport.
  • When asked about archery role models, respondents were just as likely to mention fictional archers as real-life archers.