Albert Brooks Saw (and Seared) the Future of Reality TV in Real Life
Along with being one of the most inventive, unconventional comedians of the last 50 years, Albert Brooks has written, directed and starred in comedies that have a tendency to be way ahead of their time. His 1985 classic Lost in America lampooned baby-boomer nostalgia and yuppie conformity a couple of years before both those things became tiresome cultural trends. A few years before, in 1981, he dropped Modern Romance, a nakedly neurotic anti-romcom whose title has become a descriptor for those quirky, relatable relationship dramedies that have been an arthouse staple ever since mumblecore became a thing. (Before she saved the box office by directing Barbie, Greta Gerwig wrote and/or starred in several of those low-budget, cringe-filled lovefests.) But Brooks’ most eerily prescient film also happens to be one of my favorite comedies (“balls-out funny,” I once called it): His 1979 debut Real Life. It’s the most hilariously accurate sendup of reality television ever made—and it happened years before reality TV showed up.
Real Life is actually a parody of An American Family, the landmark 1973 PBS docuseries about an upper-middle class California clan that is largely considered to be the first instance of reality television. This mockumentary has Brooks starring as himself—an exaggerated, self-centered version of himself—a comedian and filmmaker who heads to Phoenix with a production crew to do his own doc about a suburban fam. “We want the greatest show of all: life!” he proudly exclaims to a Phoenix audience in the movie’s opening minutes.
The family he’ll be tailing is the Yeagers, a bland brood led by timid veterinarian Warren (a deadpan Charles Grodin) and his fed-up wife Jeannette (Gremlins mom Frances Lee McCain). Brooks uses “a whole new generation of motion picture equipment” to stealthily capture this family on film, including wall cams that resemble small mirrors and cameramen wearing gigantic camera helmets that look like bidets. “Only six of these cameras were ever made,” Brooks tells the viewing audience. “Only five of them ever worked. We have four of those.”
Although Brooks claims he wants to capture these people in their natural element without any interference, he nevertheless moves in across the street from them, keeping tabs and making sure their every move is documented. It isn’t long before he inserts himself in their everyday lives. He ratchets up these folks’ mundane existence by orchestrating scenes like Jeannette’s trip to the gynecologist and Warren doing surgery on a show horse. Yeah, both of those don’t go well.