Title: Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV
Author: Emily Nussbaum
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: June 25, 2024
Length: 464 pages
Genre: Non-fiction – pop culture/entertainment
Source: Library
Rating:
Who invented reality TV, the world’s most dangerous pop-culture genre, and why can’t we look away from it? In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of “dirty documentary,” Emily Nussbaum unearths the surprising origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who created it. At once gimlet-eyed and empathetic, Cue The Sun! explores the morally charged, funny, and sometimes tragic consequences of the hunt for something real inside something fake.
Nussbaum traces four paths of reality innovation—game shows, prank shows, soap operas, and clip shows—that united in the Survivor format, sparking a tumultuous Hollywood gold-rush. Along the way, we meet tricksters and innovators—from the icy Allen Funt to the shambolic Chuck Barris; Cops auteur John Langley; Bachelor mastermind Mike Fleiss; and Jon Murray, the visionary behind The Real World—along with dozens of crew members and ordinary people whose lives became fodder for the reality revolution. We learn about the tools of the trade—like Candid Camera’s brilliant “reveal” and the notorious Frankenbite, a deceptive editor’s best friend—and the moral outrage that reality shows provoked. But Cue The Sun! also celebrates what made the genre so powerful: a jolt of authentic emotion.
Through broad-ranging reporting, Nussbaum examines seven tumultuous decades, exploring the celebreality boom, reality TV as a strike-breaker, the queer roots of Bravo, and the dark truth behind The Apprentice. A shrewd observer who cares about television, she is the ideal voice for the first substantive cultural history of the genre that has, for better or worse, made America what it is today.
When I first heard about Cue the Sun! (which references a line from The Truman Show, in case you’re wondering), I figured I’d pick it up and just read the chapter about Survivor. But lo and behold, once I had this book in my hands, I couldn’t resist starting at the beginning and reading straight through to the end.
Author Emily Nussbaum masterfully traces the history of reality TV, from its early days catching ordinary people on camera — making real people points of fascination, but also, often mockery or scorn. We may think of shows like Candid Camera as some sweet piece of nostalgic fluff, but what I learned from this book is how subversive — and frequently nasty — these hidden camera pranks could be. Today, we accept that cameras are everywhere, but just imagine how shocking the idea was at the time!
Cue the Sun! covers reality TV history through all its various permutations, from clips shows (like America’s Funniest Home Videos) to game shows (The Newlywed Game), real-life crime (Cops), and talent competitions (The Gong Show).
Survivor was the true game-changer, when reality competitions blew up seemingly overnight. It’s fascinating to read about the creation of Survivor and the evolution of the first season. Now, everyone who plays Survivor knows how to play Survivor… but then, the contestants were largely making it up as they went along.
After Survivor, reality was huger than ever, with mega-hits such as the Bachelor franchise, Real Housewives and Kardashians, American Idol and countless other competitions dominating the airwaves. Cue the Sun! lays out how one phase led to another, and shows the wheeling and dealing, the seediness and invasiveness, as well as the creativity and innovation behind the scenes of it all.
The book also makes plain what anyone who watches reality TV knows — the cameras may catch people in the moment, but the producers manipulate what viewers see, both via editing after the fact and through questions, prompts, coaching and instruction as the action unfolds during filming. Even though it’s obvious that this is how these shows get made, the intensity and pervasiveness of the manipulation, as shown in Cue the Sun!, can feel very unsettling to read about. As the book points out, over and over again, we’re not watching actual reality — what we see is a curated, filtered, carefully assembled product that mimics some form of reality.
The final chapter of Cue the Sun! gets pretty dark, as it focuses on The Apprentice. It’s fascinating and disturbing to read about the creation and development of the show, and how the show is largely responsible for the public platform that led all the way to the Presidential race of 2016 and beyond.
That was the taboo truth about The Apprentice, in the end—the quality that made it more impressive, not less. 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 hock and too risky for almost any bank to lend to, 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.
Throughout the book, it’s interesting to see how the participants and players on reality shows have changed. At the genre’s beginning, it spotlighted real people’s lives as captured on camera. As the genre evolved into game play, constant surveillance, confessionals, and more, real people eagerly auditioned for reality TV, knowing that reality TV celebrity is now a career path. The author includes interviews from many reality contestants — some went back to “real” (ordinary, non-Hollywood lives) after their moments in the spotlight, but many pursued either further on-camera reality options, worked behind the scenes on other shows, or spent time on the fan circuit.
Cue the Sun! is a fascinating read. I don’t watch an enormous amount of reality TV (I’ve never watched The Bachelor or any of the “celebreality” shows currently on the air), but as a fan of Survivor and The Amazing Race, I found it so eye-opening to see where this TV trend began and how it’s developed over time.
Reading note: Don’t be put off by the page count! There’s about 50 pages or so of notes, bibliography, and an index at the end. I found Cue the Sun! a fast, absorbing read.
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