The Hunger Games and Reality TV

House of Villains, a new comedic reality television show, has made its debut to Peacock. With the season finale just a few weeks away, we recently saw Kate Chastain, one of many stars this season, refer to Tom Sandoval as “volunteering himself as Tribute.” A common reference to the first novel in the Hunger Games Series. After primary protagonist Katniss Everdeen’s twelve-year-old sister Primrose Everdeen was reaped into the 74^th Annual Hunger Games, Katniss steps forward and “volunteers herself” as tribute.

House of Villains premiered on E! and was streamed on Peacock in 2024 and featured a round-up of “celebrity” stars to participate in a spoof of multiple reality television shows that was also definitely referencing Big Brother’s game design and production style. A group of ten reality television stars enter a house laced up with surveillance-style cameras as well as a handheld camera crew. Each of the contestants is allowed their phone and access to the outside world within a limited production schedule.

The game goes as follows: the contestants, or “Villains” compete in a Battle Royale challenge, this challenge then crowns one of the ten Villains “Supervillain.” The Supervillain then goes on to nominate three Villains for the “Hit List.” The Hit List nominees participate in a “Redemption Challenge” where one of the three nominees is removed from the Hit List entirely. Then the rest of the Villains choose which of the two remaining Hit List nominees to vote out of the game. Once a Villain is voted out, they are allowed to leave the production and return only at the end to cast a jury vote. Back in the ‘house’ once a contestant is voted out of the game all the remaining Villains compete in the Supervillain challenge, including the current Supervillain. Once the pool of Villains is down to five, whoever wins the Supervillain challenge chooses one of the Villains to take to the final three, leaving the remaining three to compete in a spot to make their case to the jury. In the end, the seven Villains voted out debate the merits of gameplay and villainy and choose who to award a $200,000 cash prize to.

Over on Big Brother, a typical season would run as follows: a cast of usually 16 Houseguests are locked in the Big Brother House, a play on the dystopian classic 1984 by George Orwell. Each week the Houseguests compete in an HoH Competition to crown the Head of Household. The Head of Household then chooses two of the other Houseguests to nominate for eviction. From there the Head of Household, the two nominees, and three additional players selected by random draw would compete in the Veto competition. The winner of the Veto competition is then granted the Golden Power of Veto, which allows a nominee to remove themselves from the Block. If the winner is the HoH or one of the Houseguests selected by random draw, they are then able to remove one of the nominees from the Nomination Block while also remaining safe from nomination. At the end of the week, during a live show, the Houseguests cast a vote for eviction in a private Diary Room. The results of the vote are revealed to the Houseguests by host Julie Chen Moonves from directly outside the house, the evicted Houseguest must grab a small duffle bag and exit the house immediately. The evicted Houseguest then leaves the “production” after a small amount of press, only to return on live finale night. This cycle repeats until there are eleven Houseguests left in the game and the “Jury” phase begins. At this point, evicted Houseguests are sent to a “sequester” house, where they stay locked away from the outside world with limited communication to friends and family back home. The eight Houseguests that are sent to the “Jury House” are then reassembled on a live stage on finale night, where the ninth and final person evicted by the final Head of Household joins them live. The Jury then questions the final two and decides who to cast their vote to win the now $750,000 grand prize.

Starting with Big Brother 25, which technically began with 17 Houseguests, a smaller Jury Phase was announced, where only the remaining six Houseguests would remain in the Jury House before the seventh member of the jury and final evicted player was voted out on finale night. While the season went on to last nearly 100 days, we saw the smaller jury pool remain in Big Brother 26. Big Brother 27, while controversially overwhelmed by the “White Locust” twist, continued with the seven person Jury and even sped up the final few rounds of the game to decrease the time Houseguests were locked away from the outside world. While I cannot purport to know any of the goings-ons within the Big Brother jury house, I can only imagine the mass improvement on contestant morale a shorter stint locked away from the outside world in the Jury House may have.

Back on House of Villains, while live feeds and a long, drawn-out voyeuristic battle royale have been nixed, we see many of the contestant walk away with a positive experience and more nuanced depiction of their time on Reality Television. A celebration of many of the “most-hated” but also deeply beloved stars to cross our screens has shown a new and human-forward way to improve the treatment reality television contestants face for audiences’ entertainment. While I have argued reality tv “spoof” show, the Office, helped drive much of the current Reality Television Renaissance, it seems only natural that the most dystopian of our favorite competitive shows would be the one satirized to teach audiences and productions alike the more human ways to treat our favorite and most hated stars. Even though “everything may seem surreal, like a terrible fever dream that just keeps going,”¹ the people on our screens are not there to paint a poster with their blood for our entertainment.²

1. Collins, Suzanne. Sunrise on the Reaping. (Scholastic, Inc., 2025), 66. ↩︎
2. Ibid., 49. ↩︎