The Hunger Games and Reality TV

Full Spoiler Warning for the first Hunger Games book and movie. Full spoilers for Catching Fire book and movie. Full spoilers for Season 6 of Big Brother. Spoilers for Season 10 of Big Brother.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, was published in September of 2008. For those not indoctrinated to the world of competitive reality television, September usually signals the end of a Big Brother season and the beginning of a Survivor season. In press for the book, she cited reality television as an inspiration and there were even articles that touted it as a book for teens into Survivor¹. While Collins has never confirmed which show she was directly inspired by, she was definitely inspired by the reality genre as a whole. I’ve made the case previously that I believe the show the fictional Hunger Games most closely resembles is Big Brother, so lets look back at its early seasons to see what other influences we can find.

In 2005, 3 years prior to the release of the first novel, CBS’s competitive reality television program Big Brother aired its 6th season. In Behind the Mirror: Inside the World of Big Brother, Taran Armstrong tells us “that the twist of the season [six] was that the cast was made up of secret partnerships” and that each pair had initially thought they were the only ones who knew each other before entering the Big Brother house.² On top of the “built-in” partner structure, the show announced that if a duo made it to the end together, they would win an additional sum of money to add to the $500,000 prize offered to the winner. As Armstrong tells us, the twist “didn’t make too much of an impact in the overall direction of the season,”³ but I can’t help but wonder what may have happened if the additional sum of money for sticking together had been announced later in the season rather than at the beginning.

It seems like Suzanne Collins was doing just that in her first book of The Hunger Games trilogy. Just like Big Brother 6, the “cast” for Collins’ fictional Hunger Games, made up of “tributes,” enter into the arena knowing one person previously, their district partner. In Collins’ post-apocalyptic dystopia each of the 24 tributes must fight to the death to crown one sole victor. This means that district partners, while potentially able to have a “pre-game” alliance, will still be forced to kill or let one another die to win the Games. However, the 74th Hunger Games, depicted in Collins’s first novel of the trilogy, featured a change of rules, a twist if you will.

Added in after a decent amount of time had gone by, the Gamemakers, or producers, had Claudius Templesmith, the iconic announcer of the Games announce a new rule to the remaining tributes. Two tributes can win the games together, so long as it is with their district partner. Our primary protagonist and narrator, Katniss Everdeen, who came into the Games with her district partner, Peeta Mellark, had previously decided not to team up (or align herself) with him in the arena once the Games truly began. But with the introduction of this new rule and the death of Katniss’s previous ally, District 11’s female tribute Rue, the two tributes from District 12 find their way together and end up becoming dual victors of Panem’s 74th Annual Hunger Games, the first in history.

Of course there were reasons for the twists in both the 74th Hunger Games and Big Brother 6. As Armstrong tells us in Behind the Mirror, the twists introduced into the game of Big Brother served as a way to escalate the controversial entertainment factor that had arisen out of the reality tv genre in the early 2000s.⁴ In The Hunger Games, Katniss hints to us that the “star-crossed lovers” storyline being portrayed between her and Peeta, triggered the rule-change for her Games. While book readers don’t see Katniss and Peeta’s faux love story originate in the arena we do see it built by the use of media tactics from their mentors and stylists before the Games even begin. Peeta himself, though, is the one that really sells it to the audience of the Games when he truthfully pronounces his years long crush for Katniss just before the Games in his televised interview. Unaware of how radical it would be, Peeta immediately adapted his strategy in the Games to benefit Katniss, his district partner.

So why did the Gamemakers wait until the show was underway to introduce the twist? Well, that’s where we have to look to the film adaptations to understand. District 11, where Katniss’s young ally was from, rebelled after being forced to watch Rue die at the hands of a Career tribute. After immediately seeking revenge by killing the Career tribute, Katniss, in defiance of everything the Hunger Games stood for, sang Rue and dying song and commemorated her burial grounds. The injustice of Rue’s death and the defiance Katniss showed gave the people of District 11 hope and they rebelled. But it also presented another problem, the Capitol audience. The death of a young child and whisper of rebellion over it could be just enough to break the cognitive dissonance the Capitol viewers are experiencing over the death of children.

You see, because Katniss immediately killed Marvel, the Career tribute that killed Rue, the audience lost the entertainment factor in Rue’s death. In that moment, Katniss’s grief for Rue became the entertainment. Allowing the Capitol citizens to see the human moments that exist between the tributes calls out the dehumanization of the District population that is manifested in the Games. Since Katniss was able to immediately enact her revenge, there was no plot progression gained from Rue’s death, what the Capitol would hope to achieve. It was too controversial and not long-lasting enough to be considered entertaining. By allowing the Capitol citizens to see the tributes as humans rather than “filthy savages” as the Capitol paints them to be, they may just throw their hands up and revolt against the Capitol themselves. So, enter the rule-change, two partners from the same District can win together.

By announcing this rule-change, the Capitol was able to redirect the narrative of the Games and introduce a new plot line to their audience. Katniss had been humanized to the audience, she couldn’t just die now, that would ruin the entertainment caused by her controversy. By this point in the Games Katniss had already decimated what strength the Pack (or alliance) of Career tributes had left by blowing up their supplies. While I’m sure the Capitol would have loved to see Katniss moved to blood-thirsty revenge, she’d already killed Marvel and weakened her last remaining competition, not to mention Katniss didn’t actually want to hunt down and kill the other tributes. So they gave her a “showmance” instead of just outright killing her. By focusing in on the blooming love-story between the two tributes, the Capitol was able to make Katniss’s humanism entertainment once again.

As Katniss continues through the Games, further attempts to dehumanize her shine through, but none worse than the end of the Games. After the final tribute left in the Games, a Career named Cato from District 1, was sacrificially killed by Katniss, Claudius Templesmith once again came over a speaker in the arena. This time it was to announce that the previous rule-change that allowed for both Katniss and Peeta to win had been reversed. This would force Katniss or Peeta to kill one another. The two star-crossed lovers from District 12 the audience had followed through the entire Game forced to now turn on one another. Rather than accept this fate, Katniss once again turns to her humanistic and radical tendencies and proposes that both her and Peeta kill themselves rather than let the Capitol crown a victor, the ultimate act of resistance. Unaware of how radical this was, the Capitol called off the rule reversal right as Katniss and Peeta together began to consume poisonous berries they had found in the arena. The Capitol needed a victor and could not let both Peeta and Katniss die, so they called off the reversal and crowned them both victors. How much of this rebellion the Capitol audience saw is called into question by Katniss herself while in the arena and after the Games as she watches the highlights. The prequel novel Sunrise on the Reaping, shows how the Capitol often “chops and screws” live footage from the Games to fit their own narrative, but I suppose that’s more of a modern 2020s indictment on reality television than a critique of 2008.

Speaking of the 2000s, how did that twist turn out back in season 6 of Big Brother? Well as Armstrong told us, it didn’t have a notable impact on the game, but it did provide some highly controversial and entertaining moments. Outlined in Behind the Mirror, Kaysar Ridha, a young, handsome, and intelligent man made his debut to reality television as Big Brother’s first Muslim and Iraqi contestant. While the season didn’t go well for Kaysar – he was evicted not only once, but twice after another twist was introduced to bring him back into the game via America’s vote – he quickly became a fan favorite by playing the game in a deeply human way. Caught up between his Sovereign Six alliance and fellow Houseguest, Cappy’s friendship alliance, Kaysar eventually took a stand and nominated Cappy alongside his partner from the outside, Maggie. Cappy went home that week, but not long after, Kaysar met his fate in the game. This was 2005 and as the only Muslim and Iraqi contestant the game had seen, Kaysar faced Islamophobia and xenophobia, whether explicitly stated or not. Watching Kaysar overcome the strategic difficulties and hatred he received in the game without resorting to the same tricks as the “Friendship” alliance made his ability to humanize himself entertaining to fans. In the end, Maggie, Cappy’s partner, went on to win the season. A good game player, Maggie herself had been at the heart of the most entertaining moment of that season. “No, I sealed your partner’s fate,” Kaysar told Maggie after nominating her next to Cappy.⁵ A line that has been echoed, edited, and mythologized across the fandom rings out as the most memorable from a season designed to foster controversy.

While Kaysar did not win that season, just two seasons later in the summer of 2008 legend Dan Gheesling burst onto our screens, iconizing what it is to play Big Brother. That same year Suzanne’s first book in the trilogy, the story of the 74th Hunger Games, would debut introducing the world to Katniss Everdeen. Katniss, who in the second novel of the trilogy, Catching Fire, would be thrust back into the arena for the 75th annual Hunger Games and go on to break the arena and end the Games. While I’m not sure any of these game players were direct inspirations for the character Katniss, representations of their depictions throughout Collins’s series help us see a greater critique of the format Suzanne was telling us about almost 20 years ago.

Twists, or rule-changes in the Hunger Games, as we have shown serve to escalate the highly controversial entertainment factor expressed in the reality television medium. While these twists can seem to dehumanize their contestants at times and kill the entertainment in the game, there may just be a mythic legend waiting in the wings. Like Katniss Everdeen, legends of Big Brother like Dan Gheesling and Taylor Hale have shown the strategic and human ways television contestant’s have overcome producers attempts to focus on highly controversial entertainment leading to their dehumanization. While Taylor’s story, not covered here⁶, is more of an indictment on the modern state of Big Brother, Suzanne’s critique of the genre holds firm. The human moments, as they happen, not meddled with, are what the fans at the heart of these shows want to see, not the produced, exaggerated, and controversial narrative sold by the edit. However, the controversy will always sell.

1. Springen, Karen. “A Book for Teens Shows a ‘Survivor’-Like World.” Newsweek. September 04, 2008. Updated March 23, 2010. ↩︎
2. Armstrong, Taran. Behind the Mirror: Inside the World of Big Brother. (Sourcebooks, 2025), 114. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Ibid, 78-97. Condensed summary of analysis in Chapter 6 Twisted. ↩︎
5. Ibid, 56-142. Story of events summarized from chapters 4-7. ↩︎
6. If you’re reading this and do not know the story of Taylor Hale’s time on Big Brother, please check out Taran Armstrong’s book cited above. His analysis of how the game has been broken by twists is much more thoughtful and nuanced than I can describe here as it pertains to the original Hunger Games trilogy. I plan to discuss more of the analysis for Taylor’s season when discussing prequel novel Sunrise on the Reaping. ↩︎