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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
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“They weren’t fans of reality TV, though; that was a category that didn’t exist yet, they were more like rubberneckers, riveted by the latest train wreck. By the early aughts, that was no longer true, a new audience, which had grown up watching these franchises, had fully embraced the genre, as a genre, without expecting it to be something it wasn’t.”
4.25💫
I really enjoyed the discussions of the politics of reality television, especially as they relate to Trump. Fascinating read.
4.25💫
I really enjoyed the discussions of the politics of reality television, especially as they relate to Trump. Fascinating read.
informative
medium-paced
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this title.
I adored this, because it did exactly what it set out to do in its intro for me. We generally think reality TV started with the rise of Survivor, and while that did kick off a new wave of shows and formats for the millennium, there's plenty of shows that came before it, dating all the way back to the start of television as a medium when things were being adapted from radio formats. We've always been concerned about showing real people on TV, and it's come in many flavors.
I feel like it's the highest compliment to say that this book made me want to search out each of the early waves of reality shows on Youtube - the chapter on the format of Fox's various specials in the 90s hit a particular sense memory and I paused reading to go watch a bunch of the original "masked magician reveals all" specials I remember from the late 90s. Nussbaum does a great job of tracing this all to our current moment and (please picture me making the biggest air quotes) "what it all means" in a way that's satisfying and readable.
I adored this, because it did exactly what it set out to do in its intro for me. We generally think reality TV started with the rise of Survivor, and while that did kick off a new wave of shows and formats for the millennium, there's plenty of shows that came before it, dating all the way back to the start of television as a medium when things were being adapted from radio formats. We've always been concerned about showing real people on TV, and it's come in many flavors.
I feel like it's the highest compliment to say that this book made me want to search out each of the early waves of reality shows on Youtube - the chapter on the format of Fox's various specials in the 90s hit a particular sense memory and I paused reading to go watch a bunch of the original "masked magician reveals all" specials I remember from the late 90s. Nussbaum does a great job of tracing this all to our current moment and (please picture me making the biggest air quotes) "what it all means" in a way that's satisfying and readable.
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Dense but interesting and approachable, Cue the Sun! covers the history of the reality genre dating back to radio all the way up through The Apprentice and the monster it created.
I'm a late-'80s baby, so my timeline of reality is that I remember watching America's Funniest Home Videos with my parents, I remember seeing the ads for The Real World when I watched TRL every day after school with my sister, and I remember exactly what a sensation Survivor was on pop culture. Of the shows covered in the book, I was (remain) a devotee of Project Runway and the original Queer Eye; I also hate-watched Charm School when I was in college.
Seeing how far back the DNA really goes was crazy. I think complaining about the depth Nussbaum goes into with the radio era is hilarious... it's meant to show you both how little and how much has actually changed about the reality genre, and peel back the curtain that pretends that we were ever a truly innocent nation. People have been doing fucked-up, deranged things in the name of getting famous for a very long time. We just didn't have instant, constant news pushing them in our faces back then.
Anyway, truly a great read for fans of pop culture history, and as someone who mostly reads nonfiction I liked that this was a relatively breezy read while still feeling meaningful and important. It isn't all sleaze and trash. There are humans under there, and we tend to forget that.
I'm a late-'80s baby, so my timeline of reality is that I remember watching America's Funniest Home Videos with my parents, I remember seeing the ads for The Real World when I watched TRL every day after school with my sister, and I remember exactly what a sensation Survivor was on pop culture. Of the shows covered in the book, I was (remain) a devotee of Project Runway and the original Queer Eye; I also hate-watched Charm School when I was in college.
Seeing how far back the DNA really goes was crazy. I think complaining about the depth Nussbaum goes into with the radio era is hilarious... it's meant to show you both how little and how much has actually changed about the reality genre, and peel back the curtain that pretends that we were ever a truly innocent nation. People have been doing fucked-up, deranged things in the name of getting famous for a very long time. We just didn't have instant, constant news pushing them in our faces back then.
Anyway, truly a great read for fans of pop culture history, and as someone who mostly reads nonfiction I liked that this was a relatively breezy read while still feeling meaningful and important. It isn't all sleaze and trash. There are humans under there, and we tend to forget that.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced