True Story: What Reality TV Says about Us - Danielle J. Lindemann

\n \nNamed a Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 by Esquire \n \nA sociological study of reality TV that explores its rise as a culture-dominating medium--and what the genre reveals about our attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality. \n \nWhat do we see when we watch reality television? \n \nIn True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, the sociologist and TV lover Danielle J. Lindemann takes a long, hard look in the funhouse mirror of this genre, from countless rose ceremonies on The Bachelor to the White House and more (so much more!). Beginning with the first episodes of The Real World, reality TV has not only remade our entertainment and cultural landscape--it also uniquely refracts our everyday experiences and social topography. \n \nBy taking reality TV seriously, we can better understand key institutions (such as families, schools, and prisons) and broad social categories (such as gender, race, class, and sexuality). These shows have the ability to unveil the major circuits of power that organize our lives and the extent to which our own realities are, in fact, socially constructed. \n \nWhether we're watching conniving Survivor contestants or three-year-old beauty queens, these guilty pleasures underscore how conservative our society remains, and how steadfastly we cling to our notions about what counts as legitimate or real. At once an entertaining chronicle of reality TV obsession and a pioneering work of sociology, True Story reflects our society back to us: what we see in the looking glass may not always be pretty, but we can't stop watching.\n