Editing Reality (2023)

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.6 • 16.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We live in divided times, when the answer to the question 'what is reality?' depends on who you ask. Almost all the information we take in is to some extent edited and curated, and the line between entertainment and reality has become increasingly blurred. Nowhere is that more obvious than the world of reality television. The genre feeds off our most potent feelings – love, hope, anxiety, loneliness – and turns them into profit... and presidents. So in this episode, we're going to filter three themes of our modern world through the lens of reality TV: dating, the American dream, and the rage machine.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This message comes from NPR sponsor Sony Pictures Classics, presenting Freud's last session.
0:06.0	Anthony Hopkins is Sigmund Freud and Matthew Good is CS Lewis in Freud's last session,
0:12.1	now playing select theaters.
0:14.0	A quick warning before we get started, there's some language in this episode that may not be suitable for kids. We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions.
0:37.0	You're tired of pyrotechnics and special effects, while the world he inhabits,
0:44.0	is in some respects counterfeit.
0:48.0	There's nothing fake about Truman himself.
0:51.0	No scripts, no Q-cars. It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life.
1:00.0	Fade the music up.
1:13.0	3, 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. Quick cut to F Boy Island.
1:15.8	Women have been forced to tolerate
1:17.7	the manipulative douche baggery of F-boys
1:20.9	for far too long.
1:25.0	And that's why we're here. Welcome to F-Boy Island.
1:29.0	Okay, phase to click down.
1:30.0	Ladies, the three of you are hoping to find love.
1:33.8	F-Boy Island is a reality TV show set on an island where three women try to find the nice guys
1:39.8	among a group of self-proclaimed F-boys or players and the clip we opened with is from the fictional
1:46.1	movie The Truman Show in which a guy unknowingly grows up in a world completely
1:50.9	manufactured for TV.
1:53.0	Bet you didn't see that quick cut coming.
1:55.0	It's a classic throughline move.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.