Gladiators, real housewives and the pull of reality TV
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What is the impact of reality TV on our perception of reality?
When Congress eliminated funding for public media last year, we saw a groundswell of support for NPR. I'm Erika Barris from Planet Money, and it is not too late to be part of this movement. If you missed making a donation during public media giving days, do it right now. Show your support for public radio that is by the people, for the people at donate.npr.org. And thanks. A quick warning. This episode contains some vulgar language.
We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions. We're tired of pyrotechnics and special effects.
While the world he inhabits is in some respects counterfeit, there's nothing fake about Truman himself. No scripts, no cue cards.
It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life.
Fade the music up.
Three, two, one, quick cut to FBoy Island.
Women have been forced to tolerate the manipulative douchebaggery of FBoys for far too long.
And that's why we're here. Welcome to FBoy Island.
Okay, baby, click down.
Ladies, the three of you are hoping to find... If you're thinking, what is going on? Yeah, that was intentional. FBoy Island, a reality TV show set on, you guessed it, an island, tasked three women with trying to find the real nice guys among a group of mostly self-proclaimed FBoys, or players. 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 setups, same basic question. What's real and what isn't? Why are we telling you all this? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. Nothing like a good cliffhanger, am I right? Cue guest tape. My name's Goloka Bolte. I am a reality TV casting director for the last 20 years.
We spent over an hour getting to know Goloka before casting her for this episode, and another hour interviewing her. But like any good reality show, you'll only hear the parts that make the story pop. I started out in the grand old days of reality TV. Music and something playful. My first sort of significant project that I worked on was season two of Joe Millionaire. And since then, you know, I've gone on to cast everything from MasterChef to work on Let's Make a Deal to RuPaul's Drag Race to FBoy Island to Million Dollar Listing to The Real Housewives of New Jersey. It kind of runs the gamut. I absolutely love casting FY Island. So during the casting process, I mean, we are asking people about the most sort of rogue, rascally things they've ever done and trying to figure out what's their story, what's their motivation for being there.
Yo, I'm just here to clap. Like, you look good, I look good, we look good together. I love to tease, I love to flirt. I know every which way to get them. I know physical touch, mental games, all that. They're like, this is just between us, right? And I'm like, yeah, me and the camera and the producers and the network executives. Yeah, just between us. I think that one of the things that people just need to remember is that You know, you are seeing reality for the most part. That's been edited together with, you know, suspenseful music to kind of create the mood and anticipation for the next scene and put it in a certain order for context to make it feel more exciting and more dramatic. If you watch the unedited footage all the way through, it would be quite boring.
Cue suspenseful music from the top.
Bring in a clip from the Truman Show, something that really gets the listener invested. We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented. It's as simple as that. And end scene.
We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented. On TV, that presentation feels obvious now. Casting, editing, dramatic music posts, it's all part of the deal. And when we first released this episode at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, reality TV was having a moment. Home makeovers, dramatic Real Housewives, cooking competitions, searches for love on an island, in all different languages, all over the world. You know, I know for myself, my... own business, I couldn't even keep up with the demand for work.
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