Some problems fall into an unlucky category: bad enough to make your life difficult, but not bad enough to get you on television. Earlier this summer open auditions for the NBC reality show Starting Over were held at the Hyatt Regency on Wacker. A few problems that didn’t make the cut:
“I have a fear of being successful.”
The scene took 17 minutes–an eternity on TV. By the end Rain had dragged Josie by the arm into the bathroom. A camera fixed on both of their faces in the mirror. “Look in the mirror!” Rain ordered. Josie threw her hands over her face. Rain yanked Josie’s hands away and pushed her forward, barely missing the boom mike bobbing above their heads. “Look!” she said. “You have to face yourself one day! Why are you doing this to yourself?” She pulled up Josie’s peacoat, exposing her gigantic pregnant belly. She ran through all the reasons Josie shouldn’t leave the house and return to her boyfriend, and finally looked over at the housemates in the other room. “She don’t even love herself, y’all,” she said, shaking her head. “She don’t love herself.” “I don’t want to look at myself anymore,” Josie sobbed. Finally she broke away, crying, “Raaaaaaaiiiiin!” The episode ended.
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On a more typical episode the cast members meet with two life coaches and a phalanx of personal trainers, etiquette teachers, real estate agents, and beauticians. They have group meetings. They do exercises assigned by the life coaches–writing their faults on balloons, for example, then throwing darts at them, or jumping off a diving board to symbolize “diving into life,” or taking a salsa-dancing class to learn to “deal with touch.” They also cry, a lot. As the women achieve their stated goals–Susan finding her birth father, for instance–they “graduate” off the show and are replaced by other troubled-but-not-too-troubled women.
Tip number two: “Avoid getting into too much history.”
Some jobs require you to serve as a therapist even though you haven’t been trained as one: hairstylist, bartender, personal trainer, computer repairman, reality show casting director.
Charmaine had approached Furberg before her session started. She was too shy to speak in front of a group. Furberg didn’t ask her how she expected to perform in front of a bunch of TV cameras. Instead he made a deal with her: she could prepare a written statement, but she’d have to read it out loud. “Everybody send a lot of positive vibes her way to help her get through it,” he instructed.
