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The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer—“a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture” (NPR)
“Passionate, exquisitely told . . . With muscular prose and an exacting eye for detail . . . [Nussbaum] knits her talents for sharp analysis and telling reportage well.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
Who invented reality television, the world’s most dangerous pop-culture genre? And why can’t we look away? In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of “dirty documentary”—from its contentious roots in radio to the ascent of Donald Trump—Emily Nussbaum unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who built 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.
In sharp, absorbing prose, Nussbaum traces the jagged fuses of experimentation that exploded with Survivor at the turn of the millennium. She introduces the genre’s trickster pioneers, from the icy Allen Funt to the shambolic Chuck Barris; Cops auteur John Langley; cynical Bachelor ringmaster Mike Fleiss; and Jon Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim, the visionaries behind The Real World—along with dozens of stars from An American Family, The Real World, Big Brother, Survivor, and The Bachelor. We learn about the tools of the trade—like the Frankenbite, a deceptive editor’s best friend—and ugly tales of exploitation. But Cue the Sun! also celebrates reality’s peculiar power: a jolt of emotion that could never have come from a script.
What happened to the first reality stars, the Louds—and why won’t they speak to the couple who filmed them? Which serial killer won on The Dating Game? Nussbaum explores reality TV as a strike-breaker, the queer roots of Bravo, the dark truth behind The Apprentice, and more. A shrewd observer who adores television, Nussbaum is the ideal voice for the first substantive history of the genre that, for better or worse, made America what it is today.
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P. Golum –
Cue the Sun is a must read not just for television and reality fans, but for our society as a whole. Intelligent, educational and in impeccable look inside the world of reality television. Highly recommended.
Kindle Customer –
I’ve been a longtime fan of Nussbaum’s work, and I was really looking forward to this book. She did not disappoint. A detailed, thoughtful critique of a controversial genre of television. At the end of the day however, the book tended to reinforce, rather than challenge, my belief that reality television is a morally and intellectually bankrupt medium created for the tastes of the morally and intellectually bankrupt.
DCThunder –
I have long been interested in “reality TV” and this book provides a very good overview of the early days of the genre, tracing it all the way back to its origins on radio in the late 1940s. All of this was very interesting, and I learned a lot. I have memories of watching “Queen for a Day” when home from school sick and I was a big “The Gong Show” fan during its hey-day. The background on “An American Family” and “The Real World” was also fascinating. I’m a huge “Survivor” fan and reading again about the Borneo season was like a return to Summer 2000. Even the takedowns of the Bravo! shows and the “Bachelor/Bachelorette” were well done.
But all through the early parts of the book, there was foreshadowing about the last chapter on “The Apprentice” and Donald Trump. And Ms. Nussbaum certainly lived up to the foreshadowing with that chapter. The TDS showed as brightly as the “cued Sun” of her title. But reading her Wiki bio, it couldn’t have been anything else.
While a chapter on “The Apprentice” and Mr. Trump is appropriate for a book of this type, I felt it diminished the overall product to be as much of a polemic as it was.
I read the entire book before I realized that the author was the TV critic for “The New Yorker” although I did say to myself at several points that the book read like it was a LOOOONG New Yorker article. So I’m happy to see that my belief was justified.
I’d have like to read more about other reality TV genres such as the entire HGTV empire or shows such as “Trading Spaces”. A chapter on such shows as “Deadliest Catch” or the entire set of Discovery Network shows set in Alaska would have been appreciated. But perhaps shows set in Waco, TX or Dutch Harbor, AK is too far afield for the bicoastal elite audience of the author.
If you’re interested in how Reality TV became what it is, then read this book, but beware the biases of the author.
Deborah Currie –
Stay tuned, just getting into it….it’s wordy but interesting.
Stevie –
In “Cue the Sun,” a title derived from a line in Peter Weir’s darkly prescient 1998 film “The Truman Show,” Emily Nussbaum, who received a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for her work as The New Yorker’s TV critic television critic, takes a deep dive into the genesis and maturation of reality television. Nussbaum posits that reality programming and the moral outrage that it engenders began more than seven decades ago in the age of radio when disc jockeys began taking phone calls from listeners. The talk radio fad would jump to television in the late 1940s, with shows such as “Queen for a Day,” launching the game show, and “Candid Camera,” the prank show. Chuck Barris followed with “The Dating Game,” “The Newlywed Game,” and “The Gong Show.”
Nussbaum recycles some well-known trivia, such as Barris’s claim that he worked as an assassin for the CIA, but she also unearths a plethora of new gossip from the hosts, the producers, the employees, and the cast members themselves. She also places the reality shows in the context of the biggest news stories of the time. “An American Family,” the first real-life soap opera, filmed during the chaos wrought by Vietnam, the Manson murders drugs, sex and radical politics, chronicled the foibles of an affluent California family of seven with an openly gay son. Nussbaum describes how Nora Ephron panned the show in “New York” magazine, expressing particular revulsion for the matriarch Pat Loud for “letting it-all-hang out candor” about her husband’s affairs and their impending divorce. Ironically, Ephron would later marry Carl Bernstein who cheated on her while she was pregnant, and Ephron would write “Heartburn,” a score-settling best seller. “‘Heartburn’ would be attacked by critics for the same crime she’d dunned Pat for — sprinting her public divorce into a personal brand.”
No respectable book about reality television would be complete without an analysis of “Survivor,” “The Apprentice,” and “The Bachelor.” With respect to the latter, Nussbaum reveals how contestants imbibed on alcohol because it was readily available and “there was nothing else for them to do: no books, no magazines, no TV.” Female contestants who were unstable and pretty were “gold.” Producers would befriend the contestants, and deploy the private information that they had gleaned (eating disorders) to create emotional scenes and, if they were unsuccessful in generating drama, skillful editing would make a contestant look deranged.
Because Nussbaum drew on hundred of interviews with sources, her book has the gravitas of serious scholarship although she is investigating a guilty pleasure. It is a juicy (and unsettling) read for fans of reality television and popular culture. Thank you Random House and Net Galley for this enlightening read.
Harriet Mearns-Thomas –
An academic examination of reality tv and its ripple effects; pacey, entertaining, and full of fascinating anecdotes, well worth the time.