When I got married, I started watching my wife’s favorite genre: reality television. As an adult convert, I joined the ranks of reality fans with fresh eyes. Chit-chat about highbrow television is often quite dull and perfunctory: “Oh yeah, that’s a great show.” Telling someone that you too like “90 Day Fiancé” is an entirely different experience. The enthusiasm, commitment, and lack of pretension reality fans possess are striking and endearing. Joining this community has changed my social life.
So I approached Emily Nussbaum’s history of reality TV, Cue the Sun!, with great eagerness, hoping to glean some insights on how the sausage is made at TLC, Bravo, and other networks I’ve grown to love. What became apparent, as Nussbaum worked her way through the evolution of reality programming, is that this book is neither for me nor your friend who loves TLC.
Unlike its subject matter, this book is not particularly fun. Instead, it’s a series of roughly standalone chapters detailing the production process, stylistic innovations, and labor conditions of reality programs ranging from 1940s radio to “Survivor.” This format makes it easy for you to flip to your favorite show’s chapter.
But again, the book is designed for a liberal intelligentsia that may view these shows as guilty pleasures but wants to maintain an ironic or intellectual detachment from them. They want to discuss unionization efforts and the stylistic debt “The Office” owes reality TV rather than how a three-part tell-all is still not enough to cap
