Whenever films are accused of inspiring copycat behaviour, it is invariably bad news: Death Wish, Child's Play and Natural Born Killers are among those that have taken their turn as Exhibit A in the media when the time has come to apportion blame for some tragedy or atrocity. (Even a film as apparently innocuous as Bad Neighbours was cited by a US critic last week as a possible catalyst for the murders carried out by Elliot Rodger.) So it is something of an anomaly and a relief to find that reports of Hunger Games-inspired activity in Thailand do not refer to that country's adolescents being forced to participate in televised fights to the death.

Josh Hutcherson as Peeta and Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Photograph: Murray Close/AP

Protesters demonstrating against the military, which seized power in last month's coup d'état, have been spotted invoking the three-fingered salute used by the oppressed population in the films of Suzanne Collins's young adult science-fiction series. Civilians were initially urged to go about their business as usual, but this became increasingly hard with military barricades springing up around Bangkok and attempted demonstrations being thwarted aggressively. In the wake of international news channels such as CNN and the BBC being taken off air, as well as HBO and the Disney Channel, it is especially significant that this small but pointed gesture of protest should have sprung from popular culture.

The salute in The Hunger Games represents a way for the downtrodden people of Panem to mutely register their defiance of the government. Not that those using it in the film escape censure (or worse). And sure enough, the latest reports from Bangkok speak of a woman who was bundled away by undercover police after giving the salute.

Protesters give the salute in Bangkok, Thailand. Photograph: Sakchai Lalit/AP

You'd have to go back to the film adaptation of the graphic novel V For Vendetta, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd, to find a comparable crossover between on-screen behaviour and widespread political iconography. That the movie was generally unloved (not least by Moore himself) did nothing to stem the popularity of its central image: a dandy Guy Fawkes mask that has become the all-purpose symbol for the international protester-about-town. Members of the activist-hackers group Anonymous were early adopters; Occupy Wall Street also took up the mask in the fight against corporate greed. Stories abounded about US police searching the homes of suspected hackers for the masks. At least that's one advantage of the Hunger Games salute: it's unlikely that anyone can be stitched up for possessing fingers.