Reality Matters_ 19 Writers Come Clean About the Shows We Can't Stop Watching - Anna David [47]
I should probably interject here that, before meeting Weintraub, I asked a mutual acquaintance if he was vastly different in person from how he appeared on TV. The answer was “Not at all.” And this was from someone who claimed to like him. It makes complete sense to me. The first time I saw myself on television, I couldn’t get over how radically the camera had altered my appearance, making me look older and heavier. “Were they using a funhouse mirror for a lens?” I had asked incredulously. They were not. It proved an important learning experience—one that led to months of severe dieting and an unfortunate dermabrasion incident in Tijuana—but I’m a better person for it.
I ask Weintraub if he thinks being on a reality show helps or hurts a celebrity’s career. “For the has-beens, this stuff can’t really bring them back,” he says. “If it was the perfect show, maybe. But they really take these shows as a payday. They need the money.”
Can you make much money doing a show about your own drug addiction?
“Each piece of talent is worth a different amount,” he responds. “Mary here doubled her salary for Sober House because people were already engaged with her character [from Celebrity Rehab]. Before meeting you today, we were sitting down with the president of the E! channel. We want to do a show about sex addiction. Anna Nicole Smith really opened the door for Mary.”
The Olsen twin enters the restaurant and walks past our table, looking out of breath. She disappears into a nearby restroom.
Do you think being on camera is an addiction? I ask.
“For a lot of celebrities, definitely,” Weintraub says. “They end up needing it. For instance, Mary Kate—who just walked past—knows exactly what she’s doing. You don’t come to this street if you don’t want all that.”
And I think that’s really why struggling celebrities appear on reality shows. Beyond any need for money, they crave the spotlight. I’ve also come to believe that that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Because a reality show star is still very much a star. There’s an enlightening moment on the first season of Sober House when cast member Andy Dick is told that Weintraub has referred to them as has-beens. He looks around at the beautiful house and, I would assume, the camera pointing back at him, and replies, “If we’re has-beens, I like this life.”
I turn to Carey and ask her if she would ever do a show like The Surreal Life. Her face lights up. “I definitely wanna be on The Surreal Life,” she answers. “I think I could be more myself. On Sober House, I feel like I should be crying every episode—and I don’t cry very much in real life.”
13
I DREAM OF STACY
Helaine Olen
I AM NOT THE SORT OF PERSON one expects to develop a love of makeover shows. I am a self-styled serious sort, a feminist who graduated from Smith. I read The Nation and The New Republic while on a treadmill at the gym—which I use only because my doctor ordered me to start exercising more regularly. I believe that laugh lines add character to one’s face, and that plastic surgery is, if not a conspiracy against women, certainly a sign of a capitalist society run amok—that someone has found a new way to make a buck by convincing women that getting old is simply wrong.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate life’s niceties. I like sundresses and A-line skirts, and a good find at the Barneys Warehouse Sale can make my month. But as for the rest? My makeup sits in a bag in my bathroom, mostly unused except when I have an important business meeting. If I blow-dry my hair (cut in a sensible bob) once a month, that’s a lot. It’s mostly a matter of time and laziness—there are so many things to do, so many books to read and movies to see and restaurant meals to eat, that who on earth wants to spend precious minutes on some ridiculous and largely unnecessary vanity?
And yet, ever since the day that the American version of What Not to Wear debuted on the Learning Channel in the