I’m surrounded by people who love reality television- I have also been known to enjoy it from time to time. Higher-brow shows like Project Runway and Top Chef are ones I am unashamed to talk about, but I’ll be honest enough to admit I’ve spent plenty of time lately on House of DVF and Are You The One? reruns. (At its core, the latter is all about logic, so it’s really a puzzle…right?)
I was hoping for lighter fare when I decided to read this book, advertised to be about the truth behind reality television; I realized partway through that it actually ended up on my list after it was referenced in Bad Feminist, so I really shouldn’t be surprised that it was so incredibly focused on the atrocities of female representation in media. It’s not that it isn’t interesting or thought provoking, but I share some of the same concerns as I had with Bad Feminist, especially about the sense of looking for perhaps a little too much from basic entertainment.
I thought this would be an expose, which it was to a degree. But there was plenty of editorializing by the author that was less compelling. She repeated herself a lot- she made the same points, using the same examples, over and over. The study of media portrayal is certainly fascinating- I did take some parts of the book to heart and presume that in the future I will look for/notice these tropes a little more than I had, but I am not about to boycott reality television or ask anyone else to do the same.
You’ll like this if: ostensibly, if you liked Bad Feminist and want to take a deeper dive into some of the topics Roxane Gay touched on briefly. I guess if you’re a reality TV fan, you may find something interesting, but don’t go into it thinking this is going to be a casual book that shares some dirty secrets- it’s quite academic.
Happy reading!
carlyreads 