This morning I headed over to the Sheraton New York to interview for a possible potential place in a reality show about mommybloggers. Now, this is all very hypothetical. So, please stop freaking out. I have extremely mixed feelings about the prospect of a reality show for obvious reasons — I don’t even show my kid’s face on this blog or use my husband’s real name. And I’ve already covered the fat on TV issue from multiple perspectives.
I did want to know more about this process, though, and getting an interview was a surefire way of finding more out. Also, there is part of me that is a total traffic whore, as you know. And absent an EVENT 
, a reality show might be my only shot at display ad income from a mommyblog.
But disclaimers aside, nobody knows if this show will ever be made at this point, or even if they want me in it if it does, or if I will want to do it if they do. So for now, let’s stop wringing our hands and just gossip about what we do know, which is what happened in the interview.
I got there, and they had one room for interviews and one room for waiting. And if we were to speak in metaphors, then we could say that the rooms were kind of like the divide between The Mommyblogosphere and Hollywood aka the Reality With Which I Am Familiar.
In one of the rooms, when I explained that the hosts of the convention I’m currently attending might not particularly like me, a third party interjected, “Well, you sued them.” [For those playing at home, I did not sue BlogHer .] The mood in that room was upbeat, and it was clear that the objective of the people involved with Project Mom casting on that mommyblogging side of it are interested in keeping true to their vision of the uplifting, triumph-of-the-human-spirit mommy brooch brigade dream.
Which of course is all fine and good, but will never in a million years sell to a network.
The interview room was more what I expected from a TV casting room. Not that I have any experience with this stuff, because even though I am from Los Angeles I have never done anything with TV or whatever. But I was far more comfortable in the interview room than I was in the waiting room, which I’m thinking is a bad, bad sign — both for me, and possibly for all of America. The crew were all entertainment people, exactly what I would have expected, and this is the part that is going to terrify all of you:they were laughing at my jokes. The whole crew.
Yeah. And so the student becomes the teacher.
The interview was set up like a confessional from any of the reality shows, like the things they do on Real Housewives. So the producer, Lee Vandeman, would ask me questions, and get me to answer them in full sentences. It was a conversation, but you cannot hear her talking on the tape. At one point in the interview, I remember there being a question like, “This does not really sound very controversial. What is it that is so controversial about this?” And I gave her a look like, “I know, I KNOW! I KNOW?!” And at that moment, I thought, let’s go into the other room and tell them this! It’s all so simple, really! Do you see?!
But then she said, “Are you misunderstood, Anna?” And I said, “You know, I don’t think I would be happy, frankly, if everybody just liked me, automatically. It’s like — why do I live in Los Angeles? Why do I live in a city that is so against everything I stand for? I need something against which to develop.”
And that’s kind of how I feel about certain parts of the mommyblogosphere. It was a kind of revelation.
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