In this review of the 1977 collection Aesthetics and Politics, which gathers texts by Adorno, Lukács, Benjamin, Block, and Brecht from the 1930s, Terry Eagleton points out how the appeal of “realism” can be taken for granted:
There are so many good questions you ask in this piece, which makes me really want to read the hypothetical book that actually digs deeply into them. I also wonder if the WWF makes an appearance in the ancestry of reality TV, since despite being 'truly fake' it seems like it has a lot of the same 'savviness' ideas behind it (it's not fake! -> it's boring to complain it's fake -> everyone knows it's fake but that's part of the fun)
This is excellent! (I'm a big fan of Hamrah, great to see him in this)
There are so many good questions you ask in this piece, which makes me really want to read the hypothetical book that actually digs deeply into them. I also wonder if the WWF makes an appearance in the ancestry of reality TV, since despite being 'truly fake' it seems like it has a lot of the same 'savviness' ideas behind it (it's not fake! -> it's boring to complain it's fake -> everyone knows it's fake but that's part of the fun)