TRANSCRIPT
Atmo: Driving in the car in LA
Rachel: There's the Oppenheim Group. Tinted windows. It's bigger than I thought. They did recently expand...
Sam: So you're going to have to tell me what the Oppenheim group is. I just saw the movie Oppenheimer.
Rachel: It has nothing to do with that...
Music: Swagger
Rachel: I'm in the car with producer Sam in Los Angeles, cruising past the tall skinny palm trees on Sunset Boulevard. And I am shocked to discover that she has not been following the hit Netflix reality series Selling Sunset. Thank goodness she has me to fill her in.
Rachel: So it's like these two twins who have a real estate company. Picture this. All of their agents are skinny, like six foot, beautiful, crazily made up women who totter around in like 10-inch heels and wear insane clothes to go and meet their clients. You do see all of these amazing mansions and stuff around here, from like Beverly Hills or wherever. But it's all just a backdrop for drama.
Rachel: A classic guilty-pleasure quote unquote reality show where the lines between the truth and fabricated drama are, let's say, flexible. Now, Sam might not be into this particular show, but she's not immune to the temptation of reality TV.
Sam: I used to watch The Bachelor quite a bit. yeah. I've watched some Love Island. I feel like I get more into the dating shows.
Rachel: But when you were younger, did you watch any of these kind of more soap-like ones?
Sam: Yeah, I watched Laguna Beach when I was younger.
Rachel: What do you remember about it?
Sam: Not very much actually. Just lots of drama.
Music: Laguna Beach style
Rachel: Laguna Beach followed a group of high school teenagers in Orange County, California. Back in 2004, it was one of the first reality shows of its kind – not quite scripted reality, but certainly guided reality. The cast was made up of real people. They all knew each other in real life, but were pretty much forced into a contrived friendship group for the show. They'd arrive at a party and producers would apparently text them prompts of who they should talk to and what they should talk about. All for our viewing pleasure.
Rachel: Did you like any of the characters particularly?
Sam: No, I think I didn't like any of them. That's why it was like enjoyable to watch.
Rachel. Not even Lauren! LC?!
Sam: Can't say that I did, no.
Rachel: But I feel like they worked really hard to make her the one that everyone likes. And then they pitched some people to be like the baddies,
Sam: But I think that's why it's like guilt-free viewing because these people sign up for the shows.
Rachel: We've left the shiny LA skyline behind us and we're off on a trip down memory lane – to the real Laguna Beach. 14-year-old me would be so excited.
Music out
Atmo: Beach
Rachel: I brought you to a spot where it does feature on Laguna Beach a few times. You see some characters sitting here looking out to sea and having some awkward conversations.
Sam: I feel like this is where they have relationship talks.
Rachel: Yeah, exactly. It's like, let's meet at the viewpoint and have a really awkward, probably not entirely natural conversation and then break up. But with a nice setting... But I'm gonna crack open my kombucha because I think that's what Lauren Conrad would drink if Laguna Beach was filmed now.
SFX: Can opening
Rachel: Staring out at the sun-kissed California ocean, I'm not just thinking about those on-screen breakups that accompanied my own teenage years. There's a new question on my mind: Was Lauren Conrad the Roman gladiator of her time?
Music: Bassy money
Rachel: I'm Rachel Stewart and you're listening to Don't Drink the Milk – The curious history of things. Today we're digging into an ancient power dynamic.
SFX: TV zap
Clayton: If you put all these different characters into one arena, how are they going to fight? How are they going to survive? Who is the one going to end up victorious?
SFX: TV zap
Alex: You have power, you need to hold power and your power is predicated on being loved.
SFX: TV zap
Olivia: Why are these people humiliating themselves on my television for my enjoyment? Why are these people fighting each other and getting bloodied up for my enjoyment?
SFX: TV zap
Sagar: We've already booked our place in hell. So now what do we care?
SFX: TV zap
Rachel: Who's really pulling the strings? Why are we, the spectators, still baying for blood? And are we closer to the action than we even realize?
SFX: TV zap
Rachel: Wait, are we all in a reality TV show right now?
Olivia: I think yes.
JINGLE & Music cuts out
Atmo Colosseum
Alex: Rome has been a constant throughout all my life. My grandfather was born across the street from the Colosseum. So I have lived my long life in the shadow of the Colosseum and it's always been there.
Rachel: And here we are, literally in the shadow of the Colosseum, far away from LA in Rome, Italy. I'm with historian Alexander Mariotti, who has a distinctly gladiatorial look – very Roman with an intense, chiseled beard. And it's an aesthetic he's leaned into over the years.
Alex: I think I do have one picture of no I've got two pictures of me as a gladiator on Instagram. There you go.
Rachel: He scrolls to a picture of himself scantily clad, wielding a sword, reenacting gladiatorial combat.
Alex: It's not bad, right? I only do it once a year. For anyone listening, I only dress up as a gladiator once a year.
Rachel: So - who better to introduce us to the gladiators?
Alex: So who were the gladiators? Well first thing is, they were people like you and I. People with desires to be loved, to be adored, to be famous, to be wealthy. All very natural things that people still chase today.
Rachel: In movies like Spartacus or Gladiator with Russell Crowe, the gladiator's tale is typically one of an enslaved man, thrown into the arena to take part in a fight to the death. But Alexander explains it wasn't always like that.
Alex: They were pampered, professional, top-prime athletes who were trained, who were taken care of physically, medically... Why would someone train somebody, feed them and then they die in the Colosseum after five minutes? It's just, economically, there's an equation that doesn't work.
Rachel: Early on, most gladiators were slaves, or criminals sentenced to do their time in the arena. But as these games grew in popularity, more people began to sign up for "gladiator schools" voluntarily.
Alex: They're free men. So it wasn't just slaves.
Rachel: Were they paid?
Alex: Yes, very handsomely too. You would get 2000 sesterce as a signing up bonus. Just to put that in perspective, 900 sesterce is the annual salary for a Roman soldier. So you're getting two years' worth of pay of a soldier in one signing up. But when you fought, you could make anything from 13, 17 times the annual salary... There's a huge incentive to become a gladiator. Why wouldn't you? Because it's an easy way to make a lot of money.
Rachel: Well, there's still that little matter of potential serious injury or death...
Music: Roman drama
Latin gladiator oath: Uri, vinciri, verberari, ferroque necari.
Rachel: The gladiator's oath: "I will endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword."
Alex: Gladiators knew that there was a risk of dying. The means justify the end.
Rachel: And how did the people who were watching really view the gladiators? Did they look down on them or did they idolize them?
Alex: Both. Both... You know, you were the most sexually desired athlete of your time... So they were regarded as the lowest of society, but they were also admired greatly in society.
Rachel: In Roman society, the term "infame" was reserved for those who essentially sold their bodies or gave up their autonomy – namely actors, prostitutes and gladiators. And yet...
Crowd sound build
Alex: ... That moment the doors opened and the crowd went wild what a drug what an adrenaline rush but what a sense that maybe your life meant something and people would remember you and they were right - here we are speaking about them 2,000 years later.
Music sting with crowd fade out
Clayton: Truthfully, I didn't know it at the time, but I was seeking external validation. And so an area of my life growing up as a child, I didn't feel that I was good enough in the eyes of women... I was not really happy with my current job. I wanted something different. I felt that there was more to life than what I was currently doing.
Rachel: Meet Clayton Echard. In 2021 he entered a different kind of battle - competing with 29 other men to win the heart of one woman on the 18th season of the TV dating show "The Bachelorette."
Music: Upbeat drama
He didn't get the girl, but he did catch the eye of the producers, who asked him to return as the star of the next season of "The Bachelor."
Clayton: ...and of course that was a big statement, you know, because it was like, wow, the bachelor, the guy, like the actual guy. If I was being, you know, pushed as the most sought after man in America, it was going to make me feel special.
Rachel: Was there any element of fame or money that also attracted you?
Clayton: I was told that once you become the Bachelor they all become millionaires, so of course I grew up in a small town where my family didn't make anywhere near that. We were blue collar. And I saw that my life could potentially change by being the Bachelor.
Clayton: ...it didn't bring any of that. Or at least it did, but it was fleeting. I wasn't the most well-liked bachelor. I was controversial, I would say.
Music out
Rachel: The promise of love, money and adoration didn't work out the way Clayton thought it would. Stick around for the tea. But first...
Olivia: So I sat down and watched Big Brother for eight hours and took notes on it and was writing about it. And I had my little notebook, you know, and was just, you know, pausing for snacks or whatever. And then I finished my workday and made myself dinner and that I went and watched Survivor!
Rachel: This is Olivia Stowell, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan. Her field of study? Reality TV.
Olivia: With other academics, I'm like, yeah, I just...I conned my way into getting paid to watch TV for a living.
Rachel: Genius. Olivia has watched and analyzed a LOT of reality television, particularly US shows. Remember that gladiator oath, where they would commit to being burned and beaten and all the rest of it? I want to know what the reality TV equivalent would be. What are contestants sacrificing in return for a chance at fame and fortune?
Olivia: Privacy is a big one...This sounds so serious, but like dignity to a degree. A classic kind of convention to create drama would be to either deny the cast members sleep, like waking them up at random times in the night or starting filming really early, running filming really late into the night, providing a lot of alcohol, all of those kinds of things, which creates the condition where you have these sleep-deprived people who are sometimes inebriated, who are also really cut off from their life support systems.
Rachel: You often hear reality contestants talking about "the outside world." And that's really what it's like – a separate world where they left their family, friends, jobs, comforts and routine behind.
Olivia: Like in the Bachelor house, for example, you can't have a phone, you can't have a computer, you can't even bring books, you can't bring like a novel to read or something. The condition is created where it like all you can do is think about the bachelor, become friends with the other women, work out and drink. That's it. That's all you can do. So no wonder people start to act in ways that maybe they would never expect themselves to act, right? Or to behave in ways that create great television for the viewers, but maybe not something that you want you know, millions of people in the US to see you like drunk crying, you know? ...But yeah, I would say privacy, dignity, sometimes personal safety, sometimes reputation.
Rachel: I don't know about you, but I'd say that's a pretty high price to pay. Many shows also require contestants to sign contracts accepting certain conditions, like being on camera all the time, having no communication with family and friends, having rationed food and even accepting the risk of personal injury. And then there's the non-disclosure agreements...
Luckily these days nobody is forced into the proverbial arena – the contestants aren't slaves, and no modern court of law would sentence someone to a stint on a reality show. At least, I don't think... So what kind of person signs up for these shows voluntarily?
Olivia: I think there are show-specific patterns. I don't think there's like a genre specific pattern, if that makes sense... There's a kind of like...new money -ish aesthetic to something like Selling Sunset. But if you look at something like you know Duck Dynasty which was like this reality show about like a sort of like rural... family that have kind of like a, for lack of a better term, like kind of like hillbilly -ish energy, where they're always like, you know, wearing camo and like, you know, going hunting and things like that, then you would say, okay, well, that doesn't really make sense alongside, you know, something like Real Housewives.
Rachel: I think the crossover we all want is the Real Housewives of Duck Dynasty, am I right?
Music: 40s style
Anyway reality TV in some form has actually been around almost as long as the television itself, taking root in the United States before spreading around the globe. And the genre has really had to keep reinventing itself over the years in order to keep audiences hooked.
Olivia: Reality TV kind of has a few kind of like early starting points, one of which would be something like Candid Camera in like the 1940s.
CLIP: Candid Camera
Olivia: I think the other like kind of watershed moment in the prehistory of the genre would be the PBS reality documentary, An American Family, in the 70s, that followed a family living in California for like an extended period of time as the parents' relationship kind of dissolved.
CLIP: An American Family
There's all these dating games, you know, or things like, Queen for a Day, where you would have like normal women competing to see like whose life was the worst basically. And also clip shows like Cops...
SFX: Siren
CLIP: Cops
Olivia: Things kind of really get going for what we think of as the genre today with the Real World in the 90s.
CLIP: The Real World
SFX: High hat
Music: Survivor drama style
Olivia: And then kind of at the turn of the millennium, you have the...sort of inauguration of programs that are recognizable to viewers today. So things like American Idol, Big Brother, Survivor... that really proved that this genre was a genre with legs of its own.
CLIP: American Idol
SFX: TV off
Rachel: And this is where the franchise really gets going. Some countries have honed the art of coming up with adaptable concepts and selling the rights to production companies abroad. Do you know where Big Brother, The Traitors AND The Voice all started out? Let me just ask Google translate for a clue for you...
SFX: Phone typing, Google voice: "De Veraader."
Rachel: The Netherlands. That was Dutch for "The Traitors" by the way.
So this genre keeps having to shake things up and push the boundaries. That's why we've had dating shows where everyone is naked, or where the couple gets married the first time they meet. Shows about giving birth in the great outdoors. Brides competing for plastic surgery procedures in the run-up to their big day. Representatives from different religions competing to convert a non-believer to their faith. Actually that last one never actually made it to air. At least not yet...
Rachel: But how much do these shows really have in common with ancient Rome?
Olivia: Yes, I was like gonna say I was like I should expand my prehistory of reality TV. I shouldn't start with Candid Camera, I should start with the Colosseum.
Music out
Atmo Rome
Alex: It is the great, great grandfather of every single stadium in the world, but it is the first mega stadium, the first superstar stadium to exist in history. And if you ask the emperor, it was the greatest political tool of its time.
Music: Roman drama
Rachel: So the emperor who commissioned the Colosseum, Vespasian, he came on the scene at a difficult time.
Alex: Rome had just come off civil war, had had four emperors in a year and did not die of natural causes and Rome was in turmoil. Vespasian was a man of the people and he understood he needed a way to get people to love him because the emperorship was basically in trouble.
So he says, I'm going to build a public structure. It's going to have games, food, wine, free tickets, the greatest show on earth. So he does it to win back the people.
Rachel: As the Roman Empire spread, gaining both territory and new subjects, leaders needed to get their new citizens on side. Arenas and games were basically a really effective soft power tool. They were a display of wealth and power, but also an attractive part of Roman culture that people might want a part of. And when times got rough, a little distraction went a long way.
Alex: When there was turmoil, when there was disaster, there was more games. ...There's a plague, the Antonine Plague, which wipes out a huge swath of... the living population at that time. So what do you do? You put on games.
SFX: Swords
Rachel: Have you ever heard the term "bread and circuses"? It's attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal. The idea being that all a population needs to stay content is the basics of food and entertainment.
Alex: If you feed them and distract them, it's really all most people are interested in.
In the centuries that have past, there have been many different versions of "circuses" – live events, sports, music. These days, maybe social media or... reality TV?
Music out
Olivia: Reality TV has never not been political.
Rachel: Here's Olivia again. The way she sees it, the modern-day "circus" of reality TV is still an effective political tool. But while politicians in ancient Rome used the gladiators to curry favor with the people, today's politicians sometimes take a more direct approach – by stepping into the arena themselves.
Olivia: Especially in the US - the obvious one being Donald Trump, Sean Spicer was on like Dancing with the Stars. You know, Sarah Huckabee Sanders went on reality TV. Reality TV has the power to present someone who was like, you know, Donald Trump, a failing businessman, as being so powerful and so intelligent and so, you know, great in some way that I think that contributed to his public persona.
Rachel: Olivia is of course referring to how Donald Trump went from starring in the relaity show The Apprentice to the actual Oval office. But dig a little deeper and there's even more politics beneath the surface.
Olivia: I also think that reality TV is political on like the level of representation. There was a on the most recent season of The Traders, one of the cast members who is a trans woman talked about the fact that she was maybe one of the first trans people that viewers had encountered, right? She was like, I have this opportunity to show what it's like in my everyday life, you know, or what it's like to be me.
Rachel: What we see on screen matters, especially in shows that are claiming to represent and reflect "reality."
Rachel: We'll be back after this quick break.
TRAILER 1: Podcast: The Historian's Table
TRAILER 2: Podcast: The Newsletter
Rachel: Are you looking for more great things to listen to? Then check out Podcast the Newsletter on Substack, a newsletter dedicated to helping you find your next favorite podcast. Lauren Passell listens to tons of stuff and recaps all her favorites, so you don't have to waste your time on duds. She's even featured Don't Drink the Milk, so it must be good ;) She's also features interviews with podcasters and much more. If you have a pod that deserves some love, why not pitch it to her? Search for Podcast the Newsletter on Substack.
SFX: Stadium crowds and swords
Rachel: Back in Rome, the emperor has his mind on the spectators. But he also has direct power over the fate of the gladiator.
Alex: Who chooses who wins? Well the Emperor does. He cares about what his perception is in the public domain. So he asks you the spectator.
Rachel: He's gonna give the people what they want, so he checks the mood of the crowd.
Alex: The gladiator's lost his weapon. That's an automatic disqualification. The other gladiator puts the sword towards him. The gladiator lifts his finger, which is a symbol of asking, you know, for mercy. And once the finger was raised, then the emperor stands, or whoever's giving the games, and he looks at the crowd, and the crowd decides through a gesture or a shout who they want to win, and that's who wins.
Music & SFX fade out
Rachel: So who do you think is the emperor in the modern day analogy?
Sagar: So I think the emperor are us - the show maker.
Rachel: Would you rather be in the shoes of the emperor or the gladiator?
Sagar: Any day Emperor. Don't want to be a contestant. No way. No way. I know what I make them go through. No way.
Rachel: Sagar More is a producer and director from Mumbai, India – a country that has gone mad for reality TV in recent years. He's directed 10 seasons of India's longest-running reality shows, "Roadies."
Sagar: It's about young people being on road for 30 days, traveling different parts of the country and going through these tasks and challenges. But as the seasons have grown, the tasks have become bigger and bigger. So things have become more intense.
Rachel: So producers are still having to up the stakes to keep the audience's attention. But how "real" is this reality show?
Sagar: People still after 20 years still tell me is it scripted? And I say no, it's not scripted. We just create situations and people fill in their emotions and their strategies into it.
Rachel: That's an interesting way to look at it – contrived situations topped up with real emotions. Sagar also points out that there are hours and hours of footage. Editors have to choose what to include and, importantly, what to leave out. That's a lot of power in their hands.
Sagar: Huge power, lots of power. It can actually change the course of a story.
Rachel: If you were faced with the dilemma of you could cut the material in this way and it would be a much better episode and it would be way more entertaining for the viewers, but if you cut it in a different way, it would be slightly more true to what actually happened. Which would you go for?
Sagar: If the truth is going to help me to eventually reach my goal at the end of the series, I may still retain that. But if the truth is only temporary and the entertainment factor is going to be way more interesting because the audience will like it, then I'll go with the entertainment.
Rachel: But do you not feel a kind of moral conflict there?
Sagar: There is this saying between reality producers and directors that we've already booked our place in hell. So now what do we care?
Music: Bassy drama
Rachel: I've got to say, I'm surprised at Sagar's honesty. And it makes me more curious to know what it's like to be on the receiving end of this manipulation. When the modern-day emperor wields his power in the editing suite, does he change the fate of the reality gladiator?
Music out
Clayton: I absolutely hated them when I came off the show.
Rachel: Here's Clayton Echard again, reflecting on how he felt about the makers of "The Bachelor" after the show aired.
Clayton: When things were shown, I felt that that they were blown out of proportion. I said, no, you're missing all this context. And so I tried to basically just pin everything on them.
Rachel: Ok, for anyone who didn't catch this season of the show, it's time for a recap of all the drama. Clayton ends up falling for 3 women. There's this week called "fantasy suites", where the Bachelor gets to invite his top three on an overnight date, one after the other. Clayton tells all three women he's in love with them. He sleeps with two of them. This, as you might imagine, goes down terribly – with the women, and with the TV audience.
Clayton: I mean, there was no body double. So everything that people saw was me. Was there some missing context at certain points? You know, and in important conversations where drama was involved? Absolutely. There's always going to be missing context when you are trying to pack in 48 hours of film in two hours.
Rachel: But, aside from the power of "the edit," which happens after the fact, I want to know if Clayton can remember any time the producers actually interfered during filming.
Clayton: The order of the fantasy suites...
Rachel: That's those overnight dates I was talking about...
Clayton: I wanted to put one of the girls, Susie, first. And they told me I couldn't. And so they made me switch her to third.
Rachel: Susie is the one he ended up choosing by the way. The only one he didn't sleep with.
Clayton: They knew that I was in love with all three of the women, but that yeah, I was basically at that point starting to lean towards her as the one that I was going to choose. My opinion is they believed that, had I put her first, that I would have just basically called everything off beyond that. And I ultimately though said fine, we'll put her third and that led to the big blowup that occurred that I think would have probably have not happened had she have went first.
Rachel: The "big blowup" is the women finding out what had happened. Clayton ultimately chooses Susie, but she refuses his final rose in a dramatic finale. This is the first time a Bachelor is rejected in the show's history.
Music: Light tension
Rachel: Reality TV has fielded a lot of criticism over the years. For being fake or manipulative, for promoting unhealthy beauty standards and for bad working conditions on set. But one thing has particularly stepped into focus recently: mental health.
Contestants on many different shows have spoken out about the loneliness, anxiety and even depression they experienced during and after filming. How far things can go has been exemplified by Love Island UK, a show where couples living in a holiday villa compete for each others' and the public's affection. Two former contestants and the former host of the show have died by suicide.
If you're experiencing suicidal thoughts, you can find information on where to find help, no matter where you are in the world, at www.befrienders.org.
Music out
Rachel: Clayton has done a lot of reflecting about his time on the Bachelor. He no longer blames the producers for how everything turned out – he wants to take accountability for his own actions. But he's also started to open up about how it all affected his mental state.
Clayton: I didn't have anyone to talk to really, so I was just talking to myself and journaling every time that I, every chance I had, sometimes multiple times a day.
Rachel: Those journal entries reveal a worrying pattern.
Clayton: From one to the next, was like I was super happy and then the next one I was down in the dumps really depressed and then it was like happy depressed happy depressed. So while reading the journal I realized I'm like dude you're going crazy like you are not even in a stable mindset you were bouncing from one extreme to the other every single day. So I knew that I was in a bad spot and I mean by the end of the show I was so emotionally drained.
Music: Somber note
Then when Susie left me at the final rose, I just couldn't feel anything. I was just completely numb. I think my whole brain shut down. just trying to, basically, it was in damage control mode. Like, hey, we can't take any more pain. So just, basically just disassociate from everything. And that's kind of what happened at the end of the show.
Rachel: Many shows now offer some form of psychological support during and even after filming, but it's not always enough.
Clayton: I always had a psychologist on hand... I just didn't know how to adequately speak to them. So I couldn't get the relief that I was seeking.
Music: Somber note
Rachel: Talking to Clayton about all this actually reminds me of something Alexander told me by the Colosseum.
Alex: The Romans had a philosophy called virtus. meant mental and physical resilience. And gladiators were the physical embodiment of virtus. It takes a lot, I think, to be that disciplined, but also be that violent. And to have violence on tap is not a natural reaction. I mean, you have to have something wrong with you to feel that kind of emotion, to feel that fight that anger that you can tap into. And if you don't, have to find a way to source it. That usually involves some mental gymnastics, I don't think are healthy thing.
Music: Roman tension
Clayton: Do I feel like I was a gladiator in the realm of reality television? I mean, yeah, sure. Because it's like, instead of me being faced with physical, you know, aspects that are tearing me down, I'm getting torn down mentally. And I think this is where some of the audience likes to watch to see how far...can this person fall?
CLIP Gladiator: "Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?"
Rachel: These lines from the film Gladiator have become iconic - perhaps in part because they remain so relevant. Just like the spectators watching Russell Crowe's character Maximus brutally slaughter the other gladiators in the arena, we're bloodthirsty. We want drama, emotion, even suffering. But why are we so entertained?
Olivia: I can't believe you would sympathize with blah, blah, blah, or I love him and not her, or I want her to get with that person and not the other person, or that person reminds me of myself. And so I think there's kind of the sense of...Identificatory pleasure and also the pleasure of judgment.
Rachel: We love to judge, especially from the safety of our couch. But remember that whole "bread and circuses" idea from Roman times? Well, it wasn't originally so much a criticism of politicians. Juvenal was criticizing the Roman people - for taking less interest in participating in society or politics and allowing themselves to be placated or manipulated by mere food and entertainment.
Music: Surveillance tension
Rachel: So... what about us and our reality TV circus?
Olivia: I do think it can be distracting. I think also part of it is the sort of numbing feeling, the feeling that becoming numb to violence or becoming numb to exploitation or becoming accustomed to humiliation or violations of privacy.
Music up
Olivia: I think it's a very effective analogy for like the conditions of surveillance and the conditions of capitalism.
Rachel: Some analysis of reality TV has suggested that it's priming us for consumerism, voyeurism and surveillance. Not just in terms of like surveillance cameras but the cameras that we have turned on each other and ourselves - for Youtube, Instagram and Tiktok.
Olivia: The omnipresence of cameras and the way that we sort of socially have become more or less very comfortable with being filmed sort of creates a reality, televisual logic to everyday life, I think...
Rachel: Are we in a reality TV show right now?
Olivia: I think yes! People today who, you know, who can't remember a time before reality TV, especially, imagine their life through the lens of reality TV. There's a scholar, Mark Andrejewic, who talks about this a lot, where he says, the work of watching reality TV is the work of learning how to be watched by the camera and becoming comfortable with being watched by the camera. And so I think I would say, yes, I feel like life is a big, weird reality TV show, especially if you are someone who gets really into social media
Music bassy money
Rachel: I promise I really didn't mean to ruin your next reality binge with this episode. But ok, next time you settle in for a dose of reality, will you look at it any differently? Will you see the reality gladiator, making sacrifices for their own gain but also our entertainment? Will you ask who the emperor is and what they want from us? And will you recognize in yourself just a little bit of the bloodthirsty spectator jeering from the stands of the Colosseum?
Music up
Rachel: This episode of Don't Drink the Milk was hosted and produced by me, Rachel Stewart. In the ring with me were editor Sam Baker, fact-checker Katharina Abel and our fellow gladiator Charli Shield. We've got another amazing episode coming up in two weeks – about something that is all around us, but many fail to see: invisible labor. And we actually need your help for this one. Have a think about all the little tasks you do in your day-to-day life that just don't get counted as "work". Household chores, buying gifts for your in-laws, organizing your child's appointments... We'd love it if you would record a brief voice memo of your list of the undervalued, invisible labor that you do on a regular basis. You can email it to us at [email protected] - no apostrophe.
Music up and out