Jersey Sure (Or Something A Bit More Clever)
Just like everyone else, I started out hating the Jersey Shore. Though I’ve been fascinated by the Guido/Guidette subculture for a while, I was initially put off by the show. It’s cast was a bunch of people doing things I don’t understand, going places I would never go—their lifestyles were so far removed from my own that dismissing it was the easiest thing to do. ”They’re idiots!” we all cried. Reprehensible even. But I still watched every week, in much the same way I watch Showgirls every time it’s on. The car wreck we all slow down to look at.
Watching this season as the cast tears Miami down, one club and drunken hook up at a time, I turned the corner and started to enjoy the show. And as best I can surmise, the reason behind this change of heart comes down to one word: fun.
Though the cast may not even be aware of how people perceive them, it’s a safe bet to say they wouldn’t care anyway. And why should they? We have all made a mistake none of them ever would and tried to intellectualize the whole phenomenon. America has sat back and cried foul (while glued to the TV each week), asking ourselves what kind of people behave in this way? What’s wrong with them, that they can justify booze fueled sex romps in club bathrooms and marathon tanning sessions? But while we’re on our moral high-horse, they are laughing their way from club to club, appearance to appearance and ultimately to the bank.
Even the notion that they are indeed laughing their way to the bank or somehow striking while the iron is hot might be going too far. They live to do this shit, to have fun—not heady, ironic postmodern fun—but visceral, balls to the wall fun and nothing more. And should someone want to pay them or cart them around to exotic locales while doing so? Well, all the better. Take away the cameras, the notoriety and the thousands of samolians per episode. Do you think Snookie would stay home and read on a Friday night? Or The Situation would be in his den balancing check books? No. They’d be out at the club, a less exclusive one, but a club no less, beating the beat and dancing on tables until their noses bled. They are having fun. Something far too many of us have long since forgotten how to do.
So quit trying to figure it out. Stop intellectualizing, stop wondering where they come from or how we can let them run amok and celebrate such a base lifestyle. Take a page out their book and have fun. Mindless, hedonistic, o-ring puckering fun.
*I also feel like it’s just the least bit unfair that America has suddenly decided something is too dumb to watch—though ratings clearly say otherwise—and eight people who fell backwards into a position millions would kill to be in are now drawing the ire of a nation. When did we all get so smart anyway?
