Gladiators, real housewives and the pull of reality TV

Throughline

NPR

History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 16.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

People used to say "believe your eyes." But these days that's not so easy to do. What we scroll through every day blurs the line between entertainment and fact. And nowhere is that phenomenon more evident than in reality television. Today on the show, we tackle the genre that takes our most potent feelings – love, hope, anxiety, loneliness – and turns them into profit. This episode originally ran in 2022.

Guests:

Goloka Bolte, reality TV casting director

Dr. Jana Scrivani, licensed clinical psychologist

Racquel Gates, associate professor of film and media studies at Columbia University

Dr. J'tia Hart, nuclear engineer on Survivor (Season 28)

Jeff Jenkins, founder of Jeff Jenkins Productions (JJP)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick warning, this episode contains some vulgar language.
0:04.2	We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions.
0:21.6	We're tired of pyrotechnics and special effects.
0:25.6	While the world he inhabits his in some respects counterfeit,
0:31.6	there's nothing fake about Truman himself.
0:34.6	No scripts, No cue cards.
0:39.0	It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine.
0:42.8	It's a life.
0:44.5	Fade the music up.
0:49.3	Three, two, one.
0:57.0	Quick cut to F-boy Island.
0:58.0	Women have been forced to tolerate the manipulative, dush-baggery of F-boys for far too long.
1:06.0	And that's why we're here. Welcome to F-Boy Island.
1:12.6	Okay, baby to click down.
1:14.3	Ladies, the three of you are hoping to find love.
1:17.4	If you're thinking, what is going on?
1:20.0	Yeah, that was intentional.
1:22.3	F-boy Island, a reality TV show set on, you guessed it, an island,
1:27.4	tasked three women with trying to find the real nice guys among a group of mostly self-proclaimed F-boys or players.
1:35.8	And the clip we opened with is from the fictional movie The Truman Show, in which a guy unknowingly grows up in a world completely manufactured for TV. Two very different
1:46.3	setups, same basic question. What's real and what isn't? Why are we telling you all this? Well,
1:53.3	you'll have to keep listening to find out. Nothing like a good cliffhanger, am I right?
	...

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