Jersey Shore

I admit it, I watch MTV’s Jersey Shore. I’d like to pretend that I was watching PBS, or the game, but the truth is, at ten o’clock Thursday evening I’m glued to the TV. It is the only thing that I watch on that wretched network. MTV has been completely unwatchable since at least Singled Out (remember folks Jenny McCarthy and Carmen Electra used to be attractive before they were punch lines), and they haven’t played good music since Yo! MTV Raps and Headbangers Ball went off the air. The reason that I watch, is because it is simply the trashiest show on television. True, the kids from the Hills are more worthless, and the contestants on the Bachelor and Bachelorette are more pathetic, but I defy you to find a television program that captures the American Id as completely as this Real World knockoff does.

The fact that it is unoriginal is just further testament to its place in our completely recycled culture. The show boiled down to its essence is this; a group of 20 somethings, the guys so pumped like they look like they might float away, and the girls dressed like they are getting ready to dance with a pole, eat, drink, fight, dance, and mate. That’s it, that’s the whole show. Does anything capture the American obsession with gluttony, violence, warped body image, and voyeuristic sexuality so perfectly? I honestly think it perfectly encapsulates a moment in time; a collection of entitled “beautiful people”, earning outsized paychecks, living a corporate funded lifestyle, marauding across the landscape in search of immediate gratification.

This is what we’ve celebrated for a generation, correct? Recently one of the conceits built into a lot of reality programming was a glimpse behind the curtain of the upper crust. Not here though. The cast has worked in retail, selling gelato and t-shirts. Still yet here they are night after night club hopping, and running up a bar tab that would make David Hasselhoff blush. Isn’t that what we’ve been promoting, selling the idea that we were all going to live large, even if we were pinching pennies at the end of the month, and hoping for overtime that never came? I’d say those times are over for a lot of people. I’d say a lot of people out there are worried about next month, or next week, and trying to figure out where to put the twelve-man hot tub just sounds silly. So I say enjoy Jersey Shore, it captures a time that is hopefully already past us.