Reality TV doesn't get a lot of respect, which makes this book a really interesting take on it. Nussbaum treats reality TV like a true art form, and really elevates it in that way. She shows how the development of reality TV in the 90s and 2000s actually has deep roots. That aspect of the book, probably the most important in terms of a contribution to thinking, is also the least interesting to me. I picked the book up to read about Survivor, not Candid Camera. But it was a good inclusion (if a little long).
My read on reality TV is that is came about in the 90s from an amalgamation of three categories of unscripted television: game shows, clip shows, and documentaries. Game shows like The Newlyweds Game brought the competition element. Clip shows like America's Funniest Home Videos brought real-life to TV and also encouraged audience participation to get clips. And documentary-style shows ("dirty documentary" in Nussbaum's words) like An American Family or Cops just tried to capture something from real life. All of those genres of reality TV still exist on their own in the present day. But Survivor and Big Brother are probably the first shows to combine them all in one. The combination of all three elements creates reality TV and there is some amount that each one on their own can be reality TV. Something critical about the 90s, when reality TV could start to take off, is advances in editing. On The Real World, they shot tons and tons of hours of boring content. It was the editors who made the show interesting by using clever cuts and music to create a narrative. I'm not sure if the confessionals were a part of the real world, but that would also become a huge tool for the editors.
The only reality TV show I have watched in any serious way is Survivor, so that was the most interesting part of the book to me. I learned a lot, like, for example, Jeff Probst, the host, was only hired in the last minute, after the rest of the crew. Apparently, Probst sent in a goofy audition video, had a bad interview, and ended up sending a "letter in a bottle" to Mark Burnett and Ghen Maynard, the producers, which was stuffed with fake newspaper articles praising him as the super-likeable host of the show. Jeff Probst ended up becoming the guiding visionary of the show over Mark Burnett, who turned to producing The Apprentice.
The final thing I think that is really interesting about reality TV is the new era that began within a couple seasons of shows like Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, etc. getting big. In the earlier years, a big part of the shows was that they were more "dirty documentary," filled with naive people who were showing you a more real snapshot of who they were. By 2025, that element of reality TV is almost completely gone. Today, reality TV is dominated by people who want to be on TV, who are fans of the shows they participate on. That completely changes the dynamic for viewers, and helps their popularity, since of the early concerns in reality TV was that the shows were mean-spirited, taking advantage of people, and publicizing their failings.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- Richard Lewis was pranked as a teenager on candid camera, where he was one of many high school students given aptitude tests, and the results told them they should be bricklayers.
- As I read, I recognized from the book I read on The Office that Randall Einhorn came from the reality TV world of Survivor to start directing scripted shows like The Office and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
- During the Iraq War, ABC reality shows about the military got better access in the Pentagon than ABC News got, and they lodged an official complaint.
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