If Twitter and Facebook updates are any indication, MTV has hit a massive cultural nerve with Jersey Shore. Only four episodes in (each an hour long), and the show's cast members have appeared on Leno, Conan, Kimmel, and Saturday Night Live (if you count Bobby Monihan's Snooki impression and Bill Hader's back-abbed The Situation). Last time I can think of an MTV show making these kind of waves was Jackass, and that was a while back. So what does this show do differently that makes it stand out from the bajillion other reality shows on the tube?
Jersey Shore or The Jerz, as I call it (nope), plays off the club hopping, macho dude Italian stereotype that I think first showed signs of a societal giggle in this 2007 Youtube video (that I unfortunately hate):
The idea is that the show allows you to laugh at its subjects while giving you enough Real World-style drama to carry one through an hour long episode. But JS doesn't take itself as the super serial, generational-snapshot bullshit that Real World gets caught up in. Instead, it feels much looser and fun. The editors have no problem guiding viewers toward the more unflattering moments of the show's cast and emphasizing their strange, idiosyncratic language and cocksure attitude. But the show also gives the sense that the cast mostly gets why what they say or do is funny. It's easy to imagine them viewing these episodes and cracking up at their own behavior like someone watching back an embarrassing video from the night before.
And that's it: in contrast to the the stone-faced, emotionless asshole depicted in the aforementioned Youtube video, everyone on the show has an almost bubbling inclination to laugh. Instead of resenting them, we begin to enjoy their company and treat their "guido-ness" as a funny quirk, and the show quickly becomes very easy to like.
Thank god MTV knew to avoid the goofy, sound-effect ridden editing of VH1 celebrity reality shows to emphasize the show's tongue-in-cheek quality. Instead, the editing feels more like a social document rather than reality TV, capturing this strange, foreign world of protein supplements and extra long bathing suit shorts for us Westerners to delight in.
It's also an interesting sign of MTV catching up with the infamously fast-evolving tastes of its young audience -- it wasn't too long ago that anyone of the muscle head, partypartyparty cast members of Jersey Shore could have been found on The Real World, minus the lens of humor.
Pauly D, Snooki, and Mike "The Situation" have emerged as the three faces of the show. I wonder what if any future they might have in entertainment. Probably nothing, as things go in Reality TV. But I am interested to see how an inevitable second season is going to work. Will the show keep the same cast or enlist a new set of "guidos"? Or, will MTV pick another ethnic group to lampoon? Blackies in Miami Beach? Chinamen in San Fran? The possibilities are endless!
Here are those three participating in a mildly brilliant Funny Or Die vid that further proves the cast's ability to be in on the joke. Essential viewing for fans of the show:
Also, I saw someone mention that Mike "The Situation" kind of looks like Pauly Shore. Thought that was funny.
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Ha, I've yet to see an episode, but good to know the cast might at least be half-way in on the joke. Without much context I saw the cast on a late night show and was like, "You've gotta be kidding me." Funny or Die video was brilliant.
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