Jersey Shore: Reunion

From this reunion, there were no lessons to speak of.

Well, maybe one:

 

"We're hilarious!"

Oh, and that Sammi's a total stick in the mud. (Or, in this case, stick in the dune, I guess.)

How lame was that reunion? Seriously, the most interesting thing about it was how manic Pauly D looked:

 

 

Not helping matters at all was the orchestrator:

 

Julissa is, in the words of Ronnie, yucky like your face. I never thought I would pine, literally pine for Lala. I know that Julissa's a puppet, so when she asked questions that even someone who saw fragments of a single Jersey Shore episode off someone else's treadmill TV at the gym would find offensively stupid, seemingly uniformed, and practically calculated to shrink insight like a Polar Bear Club member's penis/Ronnie's testes ("Do you guys think it’s offensive to say 'guidos” and 'guidettes'?" "Why was the phone so hard to figure out?" "A lot of people say that that dance is kind of silly. What do you guys think about that?"), it wasn't absolutely her fault. But it is despicable that she agreed to go along with it, assuming that she's capable of higher functioning. And for what? To get on TV? To further her career? To cement her reputation as someone who's adding nothing but noise to the world? That is not to say that I could do better, but I'm quite sure that the world or even L.A., is full of people that could. So great job, MTV! Way to find someone who makes the cast of Jersey Shore look downright inspired in comparison!

So, thanks to Julissa's role as a conduit for insipidness, and the fact that these people reunite regularly (as documented by the paparazzi as well as numerous talk shows), this reunion was a bust. I'm not much interested in looking backward, not even at never-before-seen footage that amounted to fucking nothing...

 

...except for the excuse for someone to storm backstage, as is de rigueur for 495 Productions' reunions (something very similar happened during the Tool Academy reunion)...

...and then come back and explain, "I just think it was, like, an emotional breakdown, like I'm sure anybody else has had before. So, it was just an emotional breakdown." Oh yeah, I'm always having those and then recovering momentarily because I'm a fucking drama queen, who fights with my boyfriend in what amounts to this weird substitute for public sex because it really gets me off.

 

Oh wait, no I'm not.

Ugh, the whole thing felt so false to me, and I'm not sure if it's because Sammi and Ronnie were put up to do this by producers to spice up the reunion with supposedly spontaneous drama, or if they're just so used to this sub-soap opera lifestyle that they can only relate to each other at this point in the broadest, most tear-stained gestures. You know what, though? I don't even care what it was. I'm just glad that their masturbatory theater is being darkened temporarily. Seriously, that's the best thing about this season ending.

Oh, one more thing I do want to look back on is Vinny's old-man face while he was fist pumping that one time:

 

 

 

Ladies, he's all yours. Angelina said that Vinny was the best fist-pumper, and in this case I thought his display of modesty...

...was appropriate. Even if it was coming from a false place, it was due.

...Not that Angelina's opinion counts for anything. Her biggest contribution was, "UHM HELLO!!!" She isn't fit to tend the wounds of the beat that Vinny just beat. Also, "'dating a married man' that's not the right term for it," my ass.

So, yeah, instead of the past, I'm much more interested in looking at the present and what it means for the future. Specifically, I'm speaking of how everyone has seemingly become self-satisfied monsters:

 

 

 

If they loved themselves before, they really love themselves now. I could feel the heat from the blood boiling of a lifetime of people that the Situation has pissed off. I'm imagining a legion of people who thought, "He needs to be taken down a notch, and one day, one day, it'll happen." It isn't happening.

I mean, he mocked Ronnie for having been placed in the back row, as if anyone would be having a hard time seeing Ronnie, especially given Ronnie's general size. I believe that Ronnie is a city councilman of Gorilla Central. I mean, Mike said, "Do you see the footage everyday? Every Thursday? Are you TIVoing me? I’m on every Thursday!" It's one thing to play the do-you-know-who-I-am card to mere civilians, but he said this to people who know exactly who he is because they lived with him and are on every Thursday, too. Inevitably, they're TiVoing themselves. Of course, these people are most likely too fixated on themselves to understand that other people might be fixated on themselves.

I mean, he refers to himself as "PEoples CHamp!" I get the feeling that this show didn't so much create a monster with him, it merely validated monstrous ways.

Oh, and since I just mentioned Ronnie's size...

 

...chubby face + slim (albeit less defined) bod...

 

...= steroid off-cycle period, in my very limited understanding of how steroids work. Who can be sure, though? Whatever, I actually think a fuller face looks cuter on him. So keep shooting what you're possibly shooting, Ronnie!

Oh, and total side note, but I love that Ronnie's dancing is so mincing...

He strikes me as being very secure with his sexuality.

So yeah, all of this bodes not so well for future seasons (I'm speaking assuming that MTV is bluffing regarding the pay dispute for Season 2). Wet-blanket status notwithstanding, Sammi has said some great stuff, and one of the greatest was that things will never be the same as they were that first summer. I don't know if she was conceiving of future seasons or if she's some kind of self-awareness miracle, but the fact is that, yes, these people have changed, and whatever innocence they had going into this has been replaced with monetary reinforcement for doing whatever the fuck they want.

As a routine optimist, though, I'd argue that it doesn't matter. People who fear that a second season will be fake or find the crew playing up to the camera forget that these people revel in artifice and play up as a matter of course, camera or no. The guido lifestyle is a lifestyle of bravado. Sure, they now know what "works" for TV, and I wouldn't be surprised to find more fakey fights like the one that Ronnie and Sammi produced on stage. But the fact stands that they were not coming into this thing fresh from the womb. Even if you aren't intellectualizing and dissecting reality TV, you get the gist of how it works, of the fundamental rule that there is an inverse relationship between acceptable behavior in real life and acceptable behavior on TV. Since the first season of The Real World, we've recognized reality TV as a place where people stop being polite. Maybe this cast didn't realize just how well they could make this work, or to what degree they would find themselves validated, but these seven people came and left showmen. (I'm not counting Angelina, because "UHM HELLO!!!")

And you know what? Whether they have turned into the bad toddlers who are so taken by positive response that they continue their naughty acting out ad nauseam or not, they're bound to mess that up and, in the process, stumble upon reality, anyway. We're watching buffoons, remember? So even when Jwoww nods knowingly when the Situation discusses the finer points of tanning in a booth versus the beach...

 

...there's no mistaking her response for culturally aware refinement -- not as long as she's dressed like a biker chick.

When Mike and Pauly D do their little slappy greeting...

 

...they aren't fooling anyone into thinking that their hearts don't still pump douche.

And when they do specifically act out for the cameras...

 

...it's no less hilarious or telling or messy than when they're merely existing. No matter if they're shielded by an artificial glow or disingenuous behavior, these people always come through loud and clear. That's why I enjoy them and look forward to enjoying them in the future. Even if they're assholes for taking them, I can't begrudge them their bows.

 

Or maybe they'll just grow more and more despicable to the point of being unwatchable. Really, could go either way. I can't wait to find out, though!

P.S.

Comments

[saigon]

Whoa.

[Amanda]

Seriously great insight and thought put into this. thank you.

[Ashdeveaux]

this is the greatest recap to date. damn. boop!

[Melvin and Zoey at Mouchois]

I was mainly just angered by the promises of more deleted content and then NOTHING.
They dwelled on Sammi's ridiculous dramatics for far too long.

[Sarah]

this is hysterical- they get little kids to do jersey shore, complete with fake tans.

http://www.babelgum.com/4022027/kids-reenact-mtvs-hit-series-jersey-shore.html

[J-Rocka]

By reading this recap, I can now delete the un-watched Reunion special on my DVR. I held off watching it b/c I had a feeling it sucked. And b/c I know these people see eachother regularly on their publicity crawl. If they do another season, I hope it's without Sammi. She's just, like, you know, a drama queen.

[CJ]

I just entered a trance-like state watching Ronnie's gif. Thanks for that.

[Celso]

The reunion was so depressingly void of anything interesting that I spent most of it trying to determine which pieces of Sammi-Sweethawts hair were real and which were CVS brand weave.

[Colleen]

I hope you saw the video clip of the Jersey Shore crew trying to make a pouf on some poor "reporter." I laughed watching it and I think you would too.

[Snoboarderalive]

I just found out that Snooki has already been on MTV. I feel so betrayed.

[Penny Lane]

I happened to be listening to Dancing Queen when I came to the clip of Ronnie dancing. It was the highlight of my day.

[maria r]

I had to stop watching the reunion after about 5 minutes. The weird editing and fake fighting was stupid. I think if they chose a host that was actually funny (or wasn't some host-bot), it could have worked. I would have loved to see Kelly Ripa do it, since she has publicly declared her love for the show, and is actually capable of being entertaining.

[matthew]

WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING: MAJOR ANTM SPOILER ON ANTM WIKIPEDIA ENTRY RE SEASON 14 DESTINATION CITY. PLEASE AVOID OUT OF RESPECT FOR OUR LORD TYRA CHRIST

[Chris]

They claw not at the walls of the menagerie.

[J Sweet]

But please oh please oh please before it's all over and done, take the BumpIt TV commercial and superimpose Snookie into it.

[Winstrol]

Another greatly illustrated story!

[hot glue gun]

Yay! I'm in the same place life-wise. It's exciting to see that you've been so successful. By the way... is your FL house for rent? ;)