The Real World: Back to New Orleans on MTV

After nearly 20 years on MTV, The Real World is an institution. Alcohol rehabilitation centers are institutions, too; and one glance at any episode of the program demonstrates how little difference there is between the two. For presenting a hideous view of “reality” to young viewers, MTV’s The Real World (Wednesdays, 10:00 p.m. ET) is the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.  

By now, the show’s formula is ossified – or maybe “pickled” would be a better term. A group of twenty-year-olds, allegedly representing disparate backgrounds and experiences, room together; yet such gatherings, demonstrating the fashionable tokenism of the entertainment media, are invariably made up largely of middle-class white youth, with one African-American, one gay person, and perhaps one “exotic” Asian woman, thus allowing MTV to pontificate about “diversity” and “tolerance” while exhibiting little of it themselves. (Oddly, political conservatives and devout religious believers have rarely been represented; but then, given MTV’s own biases, perhaps this is not so odd.) The interactions of these individuals supposedly constitute “getting real” -- as if there is anything remotely “real” about jobless twenty-somethings being housed in a palatial home in an exotic setting for free, then turned loose on a month-long spree of drunken carousing, casual sex, and overly dramatic and immature personality conflicts, while being followed by camera crews every second.

The July 21^st episode typifies the tedious and repugnant program. Even before the opening credits, viewers see a male and female roommate having sex together -- the man gives the camera a “thumbs-up” gesture, as the girl states, “I gave him my virginity.” How touching that a girl would surrender something so personal to a drunken lout she may never see again, while being watched by millions of strangers.

A montage introduces the current cast: McKenzie (the drunken blonde), Knight (the fat sex fiend), Jemmye (the girl having sex with Knight), Ryan (the homophobe), and Preston (the gay black man). Yes, there are other cast members, but they don’t create any drama, so who cares about them? Certainly not MTV, given the amount of screen time they receive.

Since sitting through an entire hour of The Real World has all the entertainment value of a root canal performed sans anasthesia, this review will merely touch on some of this episode’s low points:

• The roommates visit a bar. Knight and Jemmye have sex in the restroom. “Me and Jemmye see a nice bench in the bathroom. Jemmye enjoys bathrooms and I enjoy bathrooms!” Knight smirks, as another roommate proclaims, “They have sex everywhere. Literally, there are no boundaries for them!”

• The roommates visit a bar. The women have a discussion about whether or not each of them is using contraception. McKenzie states that previously she didn’t, but since she has started blacking out from drinking too much, she now does.

• The roommates visit a bar. McKenzie immediately begins “doing shots” with a stranger. Eventually, the drunken McKenzie stops: “I do shots, I black out, and I don’t remember s***. I don’t wanna black out. It’s only 11:30!”

• Knight and Jemmye have sex. Knight complains, “You pulled my wiener out of the peehole in my boxers!” Preston and another roommate state their belief that Knight is a poor lover, and mock him for the size of his penis. Knight is unconcerned. “Now that I got it done, it’s gonna happen every night!” Knight smirks.

• Amazingly, the roommates visit a bar. Knight flirts with another woman. Jemmye dumps beer on his head. Ryan mocks them for being in a relationship. Both Knight and Jemmye deny they have any feelings for one another – they’re just having sex with each other every night, after all.

• Ryan and Preston have a profanity-laden argument about Preston’s orientation. MTV helpfully prints every comments on screen, so viewers don’t miss a single riveting word. “F*** you, douchebag!” Preston says. “What the f*** are you gonna do about it, you ***** f**!” Ryan wittily ripostes.

• Preston responds to Ryan’s homophobic taunts by stating that he has learned not to react to mockery. He then goes into the bathroom and urinates on Ryan’s toothbrush. 

MTV’s The Real World has never been about reality; yet in the show’s earliest days, it was at least experimental, trying to do something different with the medium of television. But with the passage of two decades, The Real World – like the MTV network itself – has moved from innovation to stagnation, collapsing under its own puerile, sex-crazed ethos. It is long past time someone pulled the plug on The Real World – and on MTV itself.  

For promoting drunkenness, promiscuity, homophobia and immature behavior as acceptable, MTV’s The Real World is the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.

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