Editing Reality

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick warning before we get started, there's some language in this episode that may not
0:06.3	be suitable for kids.
0:10.9	We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions.
0:24.9	A retired of pyrotechnics and special effects, while the world he inhabits is in some respects
0:33.7	counterfeit.
0:35.7	There's nothing fake about Truman himself.
0:39.2	No scripts, no cue cards.
0:41.6	It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine.
0:46.7	It's a life.
0:47.7	Feed the music up.
1:03.0	Women have been forced to tolerate the manipulative douchebaggery of F-boys for far too long.
1:10.6	And that's why we're here.
1:12.3	Welcome to F-boy Island.
1:15.4	F-boy Island is a reality TV show set on an island where three women try to find the
1:26.1	nice guys among a group of self-proclaimed F-boys or players.
1:31.4	And the clip we opened with is from the fictional movie The Truman Show, in which a guy unknowingly
1:36.3	grows up in a world completely manufactured for TV.
1:39.8	But you didn't see that quick cut coming.
1:42.0	It's a classic through-line move, start with a bang to hook the listener's attention.
1:47.0	We thought it was a clever way to draw in both die-hard reality TV fans and skeptics who
1:52.0	weren't sure if they were going to listen to this episode at all.
1:55.5	Why are we telling you all this?
	...

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