True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us

Written by Danielle J. Lindemann

Narrated by Libby McKnight

What do we see when we watch reality television?

In 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.

By 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.

Whether 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781705052037

Reviews for True Story

[Nikki · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it.

It felt like the author had a bet on how many time she could say “indeed”.

[sparemethecensor · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There's a truly fantastic book critiquing reality TV called Reality Bites Back by Jennifer Pozner. I found this book by Dr. Danielle Lindemann and I hoped it would be similar but more up to date. True Story has pros and cons. I definitely give the edge to Pozner. Lindemann spends the first few pages of every chapter doing a recap of sociology 101 for each topic, which is simultaneously basic enough to be insulting and lengthy enough to feel annoying. It's nice to have a comprehensive and up to date survey of reality TV; yet at the same time there's simply not enough critique. I hoped for more.

[johnnyostentatious · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Well, that's two books that turned out to be duds after listening to interviews with the authors on the MAJORITY REPORT podcast (at least with Elizabeth D. Samet'S LOOKING FOR THE GOOD WAR, it got me interested in George Washington, so I picked up Ron Chernow's biography recently at Barnes & Noble).I'm not a fan of reality TV, so I was hoping TRUE STORY would criticize that waste of entertainment, but she's actually a fan. Though the book isn't all bad. She brings up Karl Marx several times, which in my mind is always a plus. And she did bring up a few examples of how reality TV is a mirror of our society.Like a lot of nonfiction, TRUE STORY would have made a better magazine article than a book.