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But, asNew YorkerTV criticEmily Nussbaumwrites in her new bookCue the Sun!
(out tomorrow), the history of reality TV is surprisingly long.
BeforeCandid Camera, there wasCandid Microphone.
I was surprised by how far back this history goes.What would you say was the first reality TV show?
I was as surprised as you were.
They called them audience participation shows.
One of the reasons they started bubbling up was because they cost nothing.
It had always been a way not to pay actors and not to pay writers.
It was a strikebreaking mechanism.
There was a huge moral outrage about it in the press.
People thought the same things they often do about reality TV: they were tawdry.
They were a sign of something ugly in the culture.
Im talking about shows likeQueen for a Day.
It was like a beauty pageant for who had the ugliest life.
The winner was chosen by an applause-o-meter.
Whoever won became queen for a day and was showered with presents.
In one way, the show was very sexist and misogynist.
In other ways, it was kind of liberating because it was women telling the truth about their lives.
There werent any women like this on television.
There were working class women.
There was a greater racial range than on other shows.
It was like a consciousness-raising group.
Reality TV kind of introduced people to some of the first openly gay characters, right?
LikeLance LoudonAn American Family.
This show was so shocking that every newspaper had finger-wagging, outraged, fascinated think pieces about it.
It was likeGirlsa few years agoeveryone had to have an opinion.
He had fantastic charisma and a sense of himself as a star.
He was really the first self-aware reality star in that way.
I think theres something historically very queer about reality TV.Real WorldcharacterPedro Zamorawasanother openly gay male reality star.
Pedro was a Cuban-American gay guy who had AIDS.
And he was so charming and warm, it completely worked.
Then you get to Bravowhich was founded, pretty much, based onQueer Eye for the Straight Guy.
It does sound bananas, right?
Just using the word queer was very shocking.
And so Carson had to talk to them before he was on the cover of TV Guide.
There were certain conventional questions Id ask: Whats your favorite key in of show to film?
What key in of show dont you like to work on?
Whats the line you wont cross?
There were a set of people who said prank shows, because theyre nonconsensual.
But I was surprised at how many people said dating shows.
I also think its because a lot of these shows are about young women.
Even he found some of the exploitative stuff onThe BachelorandTemptation Islandreally ugly.
He was filming women getting drunk and vomiting.
He was sort of peeking through blinds.
I would also like to say: dating shows are not modern.
Some of the early reality TV stars were totally naive about fame.
They often have their own motives.
So can we watch reality TV guilt-free?
What can I say?
Yes, when people go on reality TV, theyre seen previous episodes; theyre choosing to go on.
Theres a life after reality TV.
But my sense that they absolutely understood the repercussionsI think was not true.
I feel this even more after interviewing people who were onLove Is Blind.
I think they deliberately cast people who didnt watch reality TV.
The truth is, the contractual and labor environment is unacceptable.
When people sign those contractsthose contracts have aggressive NDAs.
If they are exploited, if they are abused, it has to go into private arbitration.
That keeps the audience from understanding exactly what is happening.
Theres a desire to judge a person whos out in public.
Im not trying to turn people off shows.
But closing your eyes and ears to what youre really watching is not helpful either.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
