Editorial Commentary Analysis

Gatsby: The Perfect Fake

This editorial commentary is part of the  BBC 4 programme A Point of View, it was broadcasted the 2nd of June of 2013.

At the very beginning of the commentary, we can hear a female voice presenting a show that will be broacasted other day and giving information about where we can find more episodes. After that, she introduces John Gray, the guest. This guy, starts the show with a fact, in a magic show we know we are beeing tricked and we like that, plus we don't want to feel as fool as we are asking the magician to repeat the trick so we can see how we were tricked.

This fact is connected with the movie The Great Gatsby, actually the main topic of the programme lies on the book/movie. Gatsby gets fool everyone, in an era where everything that counted were the appereances, to have money and things he was able of coming to the nowhere and have everything. The guest relates this with the desire of fantasy, Gatsby threw huge parties where people attend and they go there in order of forgeting their real problems. Because that was what people on that times wanted, live the fantasy, the opulence of that parties and the no revelation of the real selves.

The Gatsby case is also compared to the fake paintings because a fake painting to be really good it needs to have the little mistakes the real painter commit, because if not it would't be a good fake one. Same happens with Gatsby, the fake identity was so well build that no one could believe he was real. 

John Gray ends up with the same example that he started the show, the magician one. 

At the end of the programme we can hear the female voice of the beginning naming again the guest, and telling us who is the producer of the show. Also she informes us of who is coming next week and what is going to happen after the news and the following days.

Raquel Romero Morales