Reality TV- Jersey Shore by Graham Stanley

http://www.mtv.com/videos/jersey-shore-season-6-ep-5-merp-walk/1695836/playlist.jhtml#series=2211&seriesId=29241&channelId=1

Above is an episode of the hit mtv show, Jersey Shore. The show premiered in 2009 and is currently on it’s sixth and final season. It tracks eight people, four males and four females, as they live on south beach in New Jersey. The cast members are all of italian american descent and as such, call themselves guidos/guidettes, people of a lifestyle involving tanning, clubbing, working out, and hooking up. This is just one of many episodes that show what the show is all about, and how it represents each gender. 

Cast members of either gender are very superficial in how they carry themselves, and what they expect in others. They all must maintain a perfect tan, and the males are expected to be very physically fit, with large muscles and a six pack. The females are also expected to be very tan, and have perfect hair and nails, as well as short dressed that show cleavage. This is the socially expected norm for them.

The cast members of the Jersey Shore also have names for other women based on their attractiveness, as seen in this Jersey Shore glossary http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-07-28/entertainment/27071281_1_jersey-shore-fist-pump-snooki/2. A “grenade” is a large, ugly, and potentially violent woman. Often, cast members will “dive on the grenade” so that another one may hit on the grenade’s more attractive friend. Another variation on this is a landmine, which is a thinner, but still ugly, woman. They are also known to refer to grenades and landmines as “zoo creatures”. The females living in the Jersey Shore house also refer to other women using these nicknames, which perpetuates the cattiness that already exists within the house.

The show has a wide audience, and the affect that it has had is clearly visible. Tanning has become a huge activity for partiers and club goers, and there are many spin off shows revolving around Jersey.

In this show, there is an intersection of gender and geographic location. These attributes are associated with New Jersey, and are expected from New Jersey. Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, has spoken out about how the show is a bad representation of New Jersey in this article of the Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/chris-christie-blasts-mtv_n_659092.html. If this show represents New Jersey in such a public way, there will be a huge pressure to conform, and it will change the entire culture of the state.