The New F Word- Ep. 3: "Meet the Duggars" and TLC, A Modern Day Freak Show
That's So Fcked Up
Ashley Love Richards
4.5 • 541 Ratings
🗓️ 10 October 2023
⏱️ 112 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Ash summarizes the first episode of Shiny Happy People, "Meet the Duggars". In this episode, "the shiny facade of America's favorite giant family, and the ministry that guided their conservative values, is shattered, revealing a troubling reality underneath." - Amazon Prime
Fallon then tells Ash about "freak shows", and how, when and why they started. She also expands on Sociology Professor and Author Danielle Lindeman's idea that, "TLC is the home of many of today’s 'modern day freak show' programs". And the gals discuss why the network is so problematic... aside from the Duggars and their shows.
For the full context, make sure to listen to the first two episodes of the series first:
The New F Word- Ep. 1: Christian Fundamentalist Influencers with Lindsey Williams
The New F Word- Ep. 2: The C, N, F and E Words with Katherine Spearing
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-Audio editing by Ophelia Stone.
-Sources:
- https://the-artifice.com/the-modern-freak-show/
- https://variety.com/2012/tv/news/is-reality-tv-the-modern-day-equivalent-of-the-sideshow-act-9092/amp/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_TLC
- https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/01/the-profound-lack-of-empathy-in-my-husbands-not-gay/384414/
- https://www.thelist.com/176765/the-untold-truth-of-kids-by-the-dozen/
- What happened to educational television: The story of the Learning Channel https://hackeducation.com/2015/05/30/the-learning-channel
- https://deadline.com/2014/07/tlc-unveils-new-brand-campaign-and-tagline-808180/
- https://ew.com/article/2014/10/21/tlc-reality-show-answered-prayers/
- History of TLC, From Learning Channel to Honey Boo Boo (businessinsider.com)
- The Story Of The Real Tom Thumb Is More Disturbing Than We Thought (msn.com)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | according to him, God structured life so that women were not equal to men and kids were not equal to |
| 0:09.0 | parents, et cetera. He's talking about how everybody's, oh, going on and on about how I want to be |
| 0:14.8 | equal to you. And that's just not how God created it, you guys. That's so silly. That is so crazy. |
| 0:22.0 | Everybody has their place, and as long as they stay there and shut the fuck up, we'll all be fine. |
| 0:27.2 | Okay? |
| 0:28.0 | Okay. |
| 0:29.0 | All right. |
| 0:30.1 | That's so fucked up presents. |
| 0:34.4 | That so fuck us. |
| 0:36.5 | So presents. |
| 0:39.3 | That so fucked up presents that so fucked up presents |
| 0:39.7 | that so fucked up |
| 0:40.4 | but that so fudso presents |
| 0:45.3 | we're recording |
| 0:50.5 | be quiet |
| 0:51.2 | don't talk actually it's kind of the opposite |
| 0:53.3 | when we press record I want you to talk so, I'm just going to be your silent partner today, which is the worst podcast host ever. That would be weird. I mean, there are lots of podcasts like that. That's not us. Hey, guys. Welcome back. You know what, Fallon? I was recently told by Allie that that's called the |
| 1:13.8 | millennial pause when you go, hey guys, so, da, da, da, da, da, da. The millennial pause, like the dot, dot, |
| 1:21.3 | implied. The hey guys, pause. And then you say whatever. Apparently that's very millennial. Oh. Well, aren't you a millennial? Yeah, but the Gen Ziers, they make fun of us. They just say all their words in one straight line with no pauses, no breathing, nothing. I guess so. Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome back to the podcast. That would be awful. Well, that's how they like it is what I've |
| 1:44.8 | heard. That's what they like to do. But we like to take pauses because we have to breathe and stuff |
| 1:49.9 | sometimes. So what is going on with the name of this show is what I think a lot of people are asking |
| 1:56.6 | because before we said it was that's so fucked up presents or bust digging into the Duggers because it's a funny little play on the fact that we're doing shiny happy people, binge or bust as four episodes like the docu series is. |
... |
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