Read Online Sweetheart Deal by Linda Joffe Hull - Free Book Online

sleepless, and sure I wouldn’t be able to relax entirely until Eloise came back to the room, I waited for Frank to settle into sleep. With his first set of rhythmic snores, I slipped silently out of my side of the bed and out into the living room. Specifically, to the couch beside the coffee table where I’d left my computer.
    With all the research I did as a matter of course for each and every bargain-hunting expedition or question posed on my blog, there was one thing I’d never researched before I signed on the dotted line:
    Reality television.
    In fact, I’d gone into the whole experience with a healthy appreciation for DIY shows on the home and garden channels as well as equal parts fascination and disdain for the celebrity, dating, and lifestyles of the rich-and -freaky shows. Mostly, I’d agreed to star in The Family Frugalicious trusting that the concept of our show was everything Anastasia and the network execs said it was: a slice-of -life reality show about a bargain-conscious family on the hunt for the best deals for themselves and their viewers.
    My growing concern was that I should have pinned down an exact definition for slice-of -life. Did that also include sudden death ?
    I Googled the phrase “How is reality TV made?”
    Along with the how-to blogs for would-be producers and descriptions of how to become a contestant on various types of reality shows were numerous articles about the “realities” of reality television.
    The driest but most damning simply asserted:
    Reality television shows notoriously depict their topics in artificial, deceptive, and even fraudulent ways. Not only are participants coached and story lines generated ahead of time, but scenes are routinely edited and/or re-staged for the cameras in order to slant content. Many reality television shows are designed to humiliate and exploit, while others make celebrities out of untalented people who do not deserve fame. Most shows glamorize bad behavior, materialism, and personal failings.
    The site included terminology I had never heard in the short time I’d been a member of the reality TV world, but that sent an eerie chill down my spine. E.g.:
    Date producer (n): A specialist who orchestrates reality dating shows. Job description includes coaxing confessions, cultivating jealousies, and ensuring alcohol flows so contestants will make essential “miscues” like hooking up, revealing intimate details, and otherwise behaving inappropriately.
    Another website featured an article written by a former producer entitled, “Get Real Before You Try Out for Reality TV.” The author, now an accountant in Chicago, listed five facts about his job on set:
    1. Everything you see is preplanned. We wrote the storyboard and we worked out what the story was going to be. We thought of it as dropping guinea pigs (contestants) in an obstacle course we had built to watch how they navigated the various issues.
    2. It was my job to make the participants upset with each other by dropping little hints and asides. In fact, that was the whole point. Film a show where everyone gets along and there’s nothing to watch.
    3. Everyone is edited into a specific character. The editors make you into whoever they want you to be.
    4. The primary goal was to make a big story line from the littlest of tense moments.
    And, most ominously:
    5. The concept we sold to the audience wasn’t necessarily the concept we sold to the participants.
    I’d already seen about as much as I could take when a final blog post caught my eye: “Unreal: My Brief Foray into Reality TV.”
    As I read the story of an attractive blond aspiring actress who thought she was accepted on a reality show about young people and their job struggles, I was certain I was in deeper than I ever realized.
    The woman “Michelle” thought a mistake had been made when a production crew showed up at her apartment, handed her a script, and told