Jersey Shore, a Moral Dillema.

I watch Jersey Shore. It is my guilty pleasure. I, like so many others can't help but be attracted to a good train wreck, particularly when it includes such cartoon like characters. It is the only "reality" show I watch, and I can't tell you what initially caught my interest 4 seasons ago. I imagine it was the larger than life guido and guidette characters. The wild and drunken parties and cat fights and I suppose generally just the idea that it represented something SO opposite of my life. Nothing about who those people are was like me. And, it was a train wreck. I stopped watching it somewhere during season 2- feeling guilty about spending my time watching such nonsense. Ungodly nonsense I believe is closer to what my conviction was. Then I caught a rerun and watched it and again was sucked into the madness that is Snooki and The Situation.
They are 3 episodes deep into the 4th season, which is filmed in Italy. Last nights episode was awful, and not in a "LOL look how dumb they are- I cannot believe they are doing that on TV..." kind of way. The kind of awful that gave you the opportunity to see what these larger than life people are underneath the muscles and the make-up and the parties. There has been glimpses before- in previous episodes, but last night was a stage with curtains pulled back and lights aimed to the center. It made me kind of sick to my stomach.
Here are these people, young adults, who are payed somewhere along the lines of $30,000 per episode by MTV. They live in a house together, locked away from reality, no cell phones, no tv, no magazines, no Internet and are bombarded not only by the constant film crew in the house, but the 6+ cameras in every room except the bathroom. It was described by Snooki in a recent article as being more like a "prison"- but hey, the pay is good. This show is the number one top watched show of ANY MTV show ever to air- and really all it is, is an absolute train wreck consisting of people with some clearly deep rooted personal issues, and MTV is capitalizing on the fact that every season the issues get deeper and more obvious and creates an even bigger wreck, which will mean more viewers.
And what then does that say about us? Individual viewers, America, humanity? We are who keeps these shows going. We joke and laugh about the people acting like fools, throwing up in trashcans, peeing on sidewalks drunk and falling over, hitting people in the face over nonsense, having sex with strangers and then throwing them out of the room. These things are not funny. They are anything but funny.
I feel like an idiot for allowing myself to fall into this group of people who finds these things funny.
Everyone cranes their neck on the highway to see a car wreck, but no one wants to get out and stare at the bodies on the road. These people are the bloodied, twisted and broken bodies on the road.

The PNW Beach Mafia.

We are pale and dimpled.
We wear bathing suits made to hide
the mess underneath them.
We rub sunscreen vigorously
into the arms of children
who are struggling to get away.
We sit on towels and low lying chairs
surveying the other women and their children.
We judge them and their children.
We flip through a book.
We eat sandwhiches made at home
and sealed safely in ziplock bags.
We also eat the high fat treats we packed for our growing children
leaving the fiber wheat nonfat non transfat fat free healthy choice snack
to rot in the flamingo printed beach bag.
We rub more sunscreen on children.
We judge the new comers and their children.
We flip through the same book.
We yell "COME BACK!"
when one of our own wanders to far.
We say "It's time to go."
We pack all our sandy crap on top of the
fiber wheat nonfat non transfat fat free healthy choice snack
and carry the flamingo printed beach bag to the car.
Why?
Because we said so.