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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
funny
informative
fast-paced
Remarkably written and studiously researched. Cue The Sun tells the story of the genre of voyeurism in the full context of American history. Really, really well done and supremely unsettling.
this was really good but I’m ready to read something else now, would definitely recommend this though
I went into Cue the Sun as someone who doesn’t watch reality TV but loves dissecting the cultural machine behind it. My YouTube algorithm knows this all too well, it’s all video essays and retrospective deep-dives. So this book, in theory, should’ve been a slam dunk for me. And to be fair, Emily Nussbaum delivers a deeply researched, impressively comprehensive look at how reality TV came to be what it is today. The writing is smart (which, Pulitzer Prize winner, sure), and the behind-the-scenes anecdotes add some new context. But despite all that, I found it surprisingly tough to stay engaged. Some chapters absolutely had me, while others felt more like required reading. It’s not that the content was bad... it just didn’t feel like it wanted to be fun, and I kind of needed it to be.
Structurally, the book starts strong, laying a foundation for the early days of reality TV with a lot of care and detail... maybe too much detail. There were long stretches that felt like someone was explaining the rules of a 2003 Fox reality show I’d never heard of, in painstaking depth. Meanwhile, major cultural touchstones (Project Runway, Survivor, The Kardashians) were almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it summaries in the final chapters, which felt oddly rushed given their impact. I wanted more analysis and a little more punch behind the facts, but still, it’s a valuable and impressively constructed piece of media history. Just maybe not the pop culture page-turner I’d hoped for.
Structurally, the book starts strong, laying a foundation for the early days of reality TV with a lot of care and detail... maybe too much detail. There were long stretches that felt like someone was explaining the rules of a 2003 Fox reality show I’d never heard of, in painstaking depth. Meanwhile, major cultural touchstones (Project Runway, Survivor, The Kardashians) were almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it summaries in the final chapters, which felt oddly rushed given their impact. I wanted more analysis and a little more punch behind the facts, but still, it’s a valuable and impressively constructed piece of media history. Just maybe not the pop culture page-turner I’d hoped for.
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Emily Nussbaum is a hell of a writer and I enjoyed her latest book, but not nearly as much her previous one, “I Like to Watch.” “Cue the Sun” is a nice balance of historical chronology, “inside baseball” production narratives, and gossipy anecdotes. When they pertained to shows I have some familiarity with or those that made up the roots of the genre, I was most engaged. (To my delight, there’s a section on the curious experiment known as “The Joe Schmo Show”.) But my attention wavered when the focus was on shows I’d never cared much about. (Admittedly, had this not been a Nussbaum offering, I wouldn’t have picked up a book about reality TV.)
Ultimately, I like Nussbaum as cultural critic much more than I like her as reporter. Still, “Cue the Sun” is a solid look at the rise of this omnipresent pop culture phenomenon and the gradual evolution of its stars from naive participants who get manipulated and used to self-aware influencers who try to capitalize on the format in order to brand themselves. Nussbaum ends by digging at the question that still needles me: how did this two-bit con artist/reality TV host get elected to the highest position in the country? Thanks a lot, Mark Burnett.
Ultimately, I like Nussbaum as cultural critic much more than I like her as reporter. Still, “Cue the Sun” is a solid look at the rise of this omnipresent pop culture phenomenon and the gradual evolution of its stars from naive participants who get manipulated and used to self-aware influencers who try to capitalize on the format in order to brand themselves. Nussbaum ends by digging at the question that still needles me: how did this two-bit con artist/reality TV host get elected to the highest position in the country? Thanks a lot, Mark Burnett.
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced