Review – Jersey Shore
Jersey Shore – MTV – 1 Season – USA / MTV – 9:30pm Tuesday – AUS
Finally Jersey Shore, the big hit dumb show that everybody’s talking about, debuts on MTV, in Australia, today. So what’s all the dumbarsery that has been exciting everybody all about? Well, it’s a reality show about eight dimwits who all live in a shared house together down on the Jersey Shore. They’re eight uber-tanned, over-sexed, Italian-Americans who call themselves Guidos and Guidettes. It takes the age old premise that you gather a pre-designated number of ego-maniacal attention seekers into a house together and feed them solely on alcohol then they will create compelling television.
Entering into the shared house are four guys and four girls. On the guy’s side we meet Pauly D with his doofus spiky hair, Vinny who calls himself “the smart one” but then in this house the fridge could call itself “the smart one” and not be challenged on it, Ronnie who looks like the love child of a semi-trailer and leg of ham and my personal favourite Mike The Situation who refers to his six-pack as ‘The Situation’, as in “Have you ladies seen The Situation?”, “Do you want to check out The Situation?”, and “Oh no, I’ve spilt some jam on The Situation.” The ladies in the house are Sammi ‘Sweetheart’ who says she is a real sweetheart, but can also be bitchy but doesn’t put that in her nickname because it would be too long, there’s Angelina who doesn’t have a nickname or much of a personality, Jenni otherwise known as JWOWW because if you’re going to call yourself JWOW why not go all out an add an redundant W on the end, and of course rounding out the group is everybody’s favourite crazy-ass sloppy-drunk mini-person Snooki who everybody calls Shnickers because her name is stupid and because the group lacked the mental capacity to correctly remember everybody’s name.
Throughout the first episode we get to revel in all their stupidity as they argue with each other about nothing, hook up with dozens of members of the opposite sex, and talk up their own game as if they’re not colossal walking jokes. We get to laugh at the housemates expense as Vinny says things like “I party and fist pump like the best of them.” Or when The Situation brags “take your shirt off and women come to you, like a fly comes to shit.” What an appropriate metaphor. Or even this little nugget of truth “If a girl’s a slut she should be abused,” from ironic slut Angelina. Jersey Shore is full of mindless self-congratulation ripe for the mocking. It’s like a nature documentary about morons.
Over the past couple of week’s I’ve ripped into High Society and Fly Girls because they’re ineptly made nonsense that follow a bunch of stupid people around, for our supposed enjoyment. Where they fell down, and where Jersey Shore sort of works, is that the cast of High Society were too self-aware and the cast of Fly Girls were too goddamn boring to be of any interest. The Guidos and Guidettes of Jersey Shore are completely clueless as to how stupid they look, and they are completely uninhibited about how freaking awesome they find themselves. If you like to laugh at simple people who are full of themselves then is the reality show for you.
Dumbasses yelling at each other is the entire premise of the show. They go out partying, get into fights, get jealous, sleep with each other and generally make a mess of their entire lives on national television while we laugh and mock them for having names like Snooki, JWOWW and The Situation. My biggest problem with Jersey Shore though, is its painful length. You could warrant turning your mind completely off for half an hour, but at an hour you have to question how badly you want to spend time with these dipshits. At one point meat-head Ronnie says “let’s get filthy, creepy and weird.” And that aptly describes spending too much time with Jersey Shore; while it is funny it’s also filthy, creepy and weird.
Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad
