Starred review from April 29, 2024
In this boisterous chronicle, television critic Nussbaum (I Like to Watch) charts unscripted television’s evolution from Candid Camera’s 1948 premier through the first season of The Apprentice in 2003. Shedding light on the genre’s progenitors, Nussbaum argues that the cinema verité PBS documentary series An American Family (1973), which chronicled the foibles of an affluent California family of seven, established the reality soap opera format that MTV’s The Real World (1992–present) later popularized. Nussbaum profiles the “amateur sociologists, gleeful manipulators and shameless voyeurs” who pioneered the genre, describing The Newlywed Game creator Chuck Barris as a braggadocious P.T. Barnum–esque figure with a tenuous allegiance to truth (one of his memoirs implausibly claimed he’d been an assassin for the CIA). Detailed interviews with cast, crew, and producers provide juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits about the making of such shows as Big Brother, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Survivor, whose inaugural season almost collapsed amid allegations that a camera operator attempted to tip the competition by dropping a Clif Bar for a contestant to find. The most shocking stories reveal the ethically dubious strategies producers use to gin up drama. For instance, one Bachelor producer recalls needling a bachelorette about her eating disorder until she cried, and then editing the footage to “make her look like a hysterical stalker.” It’s a rowdy and unsettling look at how reality conquered television.
June 1, 2024
A Pulitzer Prize-winning critic chronicles the history of reality TV. In 2003, when New Yorker staff writer Nussbaum, author of I Like To Watch, first pitched her idea to write a book about "a hot new pop-culture genre," her friend told her that she "'better write that one fast'....Reality television was a fad, he told me--a bubble that would pop before I could get anything on the page." Yet, as her entertaining narrative proves, reality programming existed long before 2000--and will continue for years to come. Nussbaum begins her examination with a behind-the-scenes look at reality radio shows such as A.L. Alexander's Goodwill Court, a predecessor to courtroom dramas like The People's Court; Candid Microphone, the prank-show forerunner to Candid Camera; and Queen for a Day, which the author describes as "The Bachelor crossed with GoFundMe." Nussbaum then draws parallels between An American Family, one of the first shows to document a loving relationship between a mother and her gay son, and The Real World, the MTV program that introduced the world to queer Cuban American AIDS activist Pedro Zamora. The author also uncovers a variety of disturbing little-known facts. For example, she reports that the first man featured on Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? not only barely qualified as a millionaire, but also participated in the show after an ex-fiancee filed a restraining order against him. Nussbaum brings her critical, compassionate, practiced eye to a subject that she infuses with the intensity recognizable to readers of her previous book and her work at the New Yorker. She is adept at drawing connections among pop-culture trends and painting big personalities with a broad stroke--though the text is sometimes overly detailed, which contributes to its prodigious length. A thoughtful and comprehensive history of a TV genre that shows no signs of disappearing.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
June 1, 2024
Reality television may be ubiquitous, but it's not new, as The New Yorker's Pulitzer Prize-winning Nussbaum illustrates in this fine book. She traces its roots to radio, then to TV shows that capitalized on people's willingness to look silly in front of a camera: Candid Camera, The Dating Game, and The Gong Show. The real grandmother of today's reality TV, though, may be 1973's An American Family, which followed the Louds of Southern California; scores of early gay reality stars recall looking up to oldest son Lance Loud. Nussbaum digs into the creation of juggernauts like Survivor and Big Brother, and the innocence of the first season of each, when the contestants weren't constantly aware of performing for the camera. She covers producer manipulation on The Bachelor and the ascension of Bravo, and ends with The Apprentice, leaving readers to answer for themselves whether reality TV is responsible for the Trump presidency. Whether fans of the genre or not, readers will enjoy this deep dive into a format that, for better or worse, is here to stay.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from June 1, 2024
Utilizing extensive, fascinating details, this book by Pulitzer Prize winner Nussbaum (I Like To Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution) traces the origins of reality TV through its most influential incarnations. Stemming from radio call-in shows where people could vent their problems, Candid Camera gave birth to the prank show in 1948. The 1960s produced The Newlywed Game, but the serious Watergate/post-Vietnam era spawned An American Family, viewed as a real-life soap opera. It featured 20-year-old Lance Loud--the first openly gay person in a television series, and he played a gay character too--and the unexpected divorce of the Loud parents. The 1980s delivered America's Funniest Home Videos and Cops, and 1992 introduced MTV's The Real World--a cast reality show that led to others such as the Real Housewives franchise, which fans devoured and critics derided. Nussbaum devotes extra time to the cultural behemoth Survivor and Big Brother, which airs multiple times a week, and many view them as examples of voyeurism. The book also covers production nightmares of various shows. VERDICT A detailed, engaging focus, interpretation, and historical commentary on the evolution and reception of reality shows. A must-read for social scientists and reality TV aficionados.--Peter Thornell
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