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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
i think this book was clearly very throughly researched and hit a lot of really important history. i learned quite a few things i didn’t know, even as a long time reality tv fan. my only issue with the book is that it felt like it needed to be multiple books. we spent a long time on a select few reality shows, which is fine, but i don’t think that’s the best way to give a history of the entire reality tv genre. there were name drops of several other shows but i wish we’d been able to go a little more in depth about those and their impact rather than, say, two whole chapters on survivor. i love survivor and know its impact is huge but so were shows like A Simple Life which helped lead Paris Hilton to the first celebrity influencer. similarly, there was little discussion of how reality tv has bled into the influencer era and vlogging channels. TL;DR: i think the information within was good but some parts could’ve been whittled down to make room for more aspects of reality tv history/ impact.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
informative
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
challenging
funny
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
As someone who could tell you exactly who each and every one of the reality stars on The Traitors US are and which show they come from, this was a must read. Nussbaum does a great job picking essential touch points in reality TV history to examine its cruel nature, creative genius, and cultural impact while avoiding an attitude of superiority one could easily take up when discussing the genre. While the book is largely about the raw history of reality TV, I really enjoyed the brief intersection of politics at the end as everything comes to a head when she discusses The Apprentice. This book could easily be 450 more pages and I would happily eat it up.
Favorite Quotes:
“Whatever their motive, this cadre grasped one thing, if you could knock your subjects off balance, they’d reveal a moment so shocking, and sometimes so tender or surprising that it would shatter viewer skepticism. It was the quality that Alan Funt liked to describe as being ‘caught in the act of being yourself.’”
“It was hard to get too outraged about fraud when you were working that hard for so little money, in an industry that got so little respect. If everyone already assumed that your show was a fake, no matter what you did or how hard you worked, why even bother making it real?”
“Anyone could rebrand a mediocre businessman, some small timer in need of a glow up. But taking a failed tycoon, who was a heavily in hawk and too risky for almost any bank to lend too, a crude, impulsive, bigoted, multiply bankrupt ignoramus, a sexual predator so reckless he openly harassed women on his show, then finding a way to make him look attractive enough to elect as the president of the United States? That was a coup, even if no one could brag about it.”
“Fans this devoted weren’t especially concerned about exposing the magic trick. That wasn’t their code. If something on a reality show looked fake, well, that was part of the fun since they were in on it. If something looked genuine, that was wonderful too. For these viewers there was no controversy. Any qualms about the medium had faded long ago. The most successful reality show had it all: a titillating flash of the authentic, framed by the dark glitter of the fake. Like a dash of salt in dark chocolate, no taste was harder to resist.”
Favorite Quotes:
“Whatever their motive, this cadre grasped one thing, if you could knock your subjects off balance, they’d reveal a moment so shocking, and sometimes so tender or surprising that it would shatter viewer skepticism. It was the quality that Alan Funt liked to describe as being ‘caught in the act of being yourself.’”
“It was hard to get too outraged about fraud when you were working that hard for so little money, in an industry that got so little respect. If everyone already assumed that your show was a fake, no matter what you did or how hard you worked, why even bother making it real?”
“Anyone could rebrand a mediocre businessman, some small timer in need of a glow up. But taking a failed tycoon, who was a heavily in hawk and too risky for almost any bank to lend too, a crude, impulsive, bigoted, multiply bankrupt ignoramus, a sexual predator so reckless he openly harassed women on his show, then finding a way to make him look attractive enough to elect as the president of the United States? That was a coup, even if no one could brag about it.”
“Fans this devoted weren’t especially concerned about exposing the magic trick. That wasn’t their code. If something on a reality show looked fake, well, that was part of the fun since they were in on it. If something looked genuine, that was wonderful too. For these viewers there was no controversy. Any qualms about the medium had faded long ago. The most successful reality show had it all: a titillating flash of the authentic, framed by the dark glitter of the fake. Like a dash of salt in dark chocolate, no taste was harder to resist.”