I spent much of my break enjoying something I sorely missed last term: MTV's "The Real World." I had seen a few episodes of this year's installment over the summer, before I left for my FSP, but certainly not enough to know the characters' names or personality traits. I saw maybe five or six episodes over break, and though I've been watching since the first season (episodes of which have been repeated so often I think I'm prepared to write a thesis on it), I've only just begun to see "The Real World" in a whole new light.
For those not in the know, "The Real World" is MTV's weekly series that collects a group of seven people -- men and women, usually from all across the country -- and houses them together in a given city (New York first, then Los Angeles, before this season which is set in San Francisco) and films their lives, following these people through their living quarters, to job interviews , even out on dates for the better part of a year. The material is then edited in a typically flashy MTV style, and juxtaposed with "confessionals," in which individual house members sit and talk about either how much they want to sleep with, or how much they want to kill, various other members of the household.
The idea of all of this is to present, as its title suggests, the real life of the MTV generation. The show is sold on the basis that this is how it really is for people on their own, struggling to organize their lives in a big imposing city.
But let's pause to take a look at the MTV conception of real life. First of all, is the fact that it bases its cross-selection of people to follow around each year on one simple concept -- tokenism. At least two (if not all three) of the Real World seasons have included the following personality types: (1) Chiseled white guy who never wears shirts and invariably turns into the star of the show (and in the case of Eric Nies, of Real World New York, is offered the very "real world" job of MTV Veejay after the year is up); (2) Gay and/or lesbian figure from whom the entire group learns about diversity and tolerance (this season Pedro Zemora became the famous figure on the show, for his efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, to fight the AIDS virus); (3) Slightly overweight female character who is disagreeable at first but proves to have a heart of gold (Heather RWNY; Cory RWSF); (4) Churlish male figure who has no interpersonal skills at all, and who the rest of the groups gangs up on and tosses out of the house in what is always the most entertaining episode of the season; and strangest of all (5) Someone from the South who wants to sing or dance (Julie RWNY; John RWLA).
MTV also claims that nothing one sees on "The Real World" is acted -- the camera is just simply there. Perhaps this is a reasonable declaration for some situations, such as during group dinner conversations, but I'm constantly staggered by how absurdly fake these people and their actions seem.
In RWSF, for instance, Josh (whose presence as a self-deprecating "sensitive guy" who constantly refers to both his Jewishness and his heterosexuality may indicate a future trend for "Real World" participants) is set up on a date with a friend of one of the housemates who happens to be visiting for a week from Arizona. The camera doesn't just follow them on their date -- it charts them falling in love, complete with a shot of them holding hands atop a cliff that overlooks the city at night. By the end of the week, the visitor, who has essentially forgotten about the friend she had come to visit, and Josh are embracing tearfully at the airport -- something out of a Beavis & Butt-head-directed remake of "Casablanca." This is real life?
I maintain, though, that "The Real World" is the best show on television. Aside from its obvious virtues -- more entertaining and twice as melodramatic than any soap opera -- it reveals some surprising truths. Just when you want to sneer at the falseness of all of it, you perhaps realize that the real world MTV presents isn't all that different from the one we know here at Dartmouth: a lot of pretty people, in close proximity, many of whom are extremely talented and all MTV "diverse"; petty melodramas exploding regularly amongst everyone you know; much grandstanding all around; little, if any, true intellectualism; and the occasional student fatality that makes everyone "re-evaluate" his own life for about 10 minutes.
Sure, people here don't have a camera following them around, but if they did, I imagine what we'd see what we see on "The Real World" -- people living their lives for a camera because they see it as a good career move.
The fourth season of "The Real World" begins filming in London in April. Perhaps in the future, MTV will consider coming to Hanover.
