True Story: What Reality TV Says about Us

Named a Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 by Esquire

A 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.

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.

Author: Danielle J. Lindemann
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 02/14/2023
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.30w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9781250862945
ISBN10: 1250862949
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Television | History & Criticism
- Social Science | Popular Culture
- Social Science | Media Studies

About the Author
Danielle J. Lindemann is an associate professor of sociology at Lehigh University who studies gender, sexuality, the family, and culture. She is the author of Commuter Spouses: New Families in a Changing World and Dominatrix: Gender, Eroticism, and Control in the Dungeon. Her research has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She has spoken about her work on National Public Radio and has written op-eds for CNN.com, Newsweek, Salon, Fortune, and Quartz.