Reality Matters by Anna David

Author:Anna David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-11-10T16:00:00+00:00

10

JOINING THE REAL WORLD

Anna David

YOU’D THINK THAT, more than twenty seasons in, I might get a little bored. You’d imagine that, after all this time, hearing about the seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped could potentially get old. You’d probably guess that a show with stereotypes so deeply defined that even a person with only the vaguest notion of MTV’s existence could name them—or at least somehow come up with the word “Puck”—would have to be old news to me.

And yet I feel nothing but absolute delight over the fact that The Real World, for at least part of the year, continues to be televised for a blessed sixty minutes each week.

So what are the stereotypes the show gives us? There’s the Gay (ideally flamboyant), the All-American Guy/Homophobe (typically sharing a room with said gay), the Obnoxious Oddball (who gets ripped to shreds more than anyone else in the confessionals), the Crazy Diva (usually attractive, often a drama instigator), the Player (who may or may not realize that those numbers he’s collected are from girls who are more attracted to the notion of being on TV than they are to him), the Prude (with virginity either still intact or recently bestowed upon the Boyfriend She’s Definitely Going to Marry), and the Drunk (which is only to say more drunk than everyone else—he or she is most easily identifiable by the jail or rehab stint). Not every cycle features all the roles—where art thou lately, Play-ah?—and the bodies tend to get better with each passing season, but the formula remains consistent: seven (or eight) people who are selected just as much for how badly they’ll mix with the others as they are for their aesthetic appeal will fight. And make out. And fight some more.

Clothes and tears will be shed—often in the first episode—ever-available parents and partners will be called up and sobbed to, walls will be punched, and threats will be made. After David (Obnoxious Oddball) pulled a blanket off of Tami (Crazy Diva) in season two (Los Angeles), however, some basic rules were laid down. From what I can discern, they seem to be that all is fair in love, war, and living in a palace complete with a pool table, fish bowl, and hot tub—provided the violence doesn’t get physical.

If it does, you’re at the mercy of your nemesis—the one you got physical with—who decides if you’ll remain in this Nirvana for twentysomethings or be sent back home early. For viewers, these evictions are a sweet but somewhat confusing pleasure: when, in season nineteen (Australia), Parisa (a too-smart-for-her-own-good Obnoxious Oddball) axed Trisha (a sassy blond Diva who truly seemed to believe that she was “a good Catholic” despite dispensing cruelty the way a springtime daisy does pollen), it became difficult to decide who was more despicable.

Because The Real World isn’t about finding the person you most relate to—these are funhouse mirror characters, after all, people made to appear so pathetic and

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