The lesson of Jersey Shore: Season 2, Episode 9

That's right, lesson. There's only one this week:

These people are gross. And not gross ha-ha.

It's more along the lines of gross what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-following-this-shit?

I believe I have reached a turning point and am no longer able to find these people remotely endearing. It was this episode that I reached my threshold with the misogyny. Although it's been palpable since everyone started giving Angelina shit for being a single girl (single!), watching the Sanitation smirk...

...after condoning the double standard between views on male and female promiscuity was nauseating. Note to Sanitation: not everybody loves a guy that gets girls. You are a perfect example of someone that everyone does not love. In fact, I doubt that even the girls who are dumb enough to get with you are dumb enough to harbor positive feelings for you. Because really, no one's that dumb. My butt hair is smarter than that. You are merely an expedition, something one can say that they that they did. You are a novelty person. 

(Angelina says he looks like Popeye on crack, but I'd say he looks more like a banged up can of spinach than anything else in that universe.)

And the girl-on-girl misogyny is even worse.

If I weren't gif'ing, I'd be crying. This is like an elbow to the cuca I don't have.

Oh, and Snooki's comment about her "vagina bone": ha, ha! She always gets it wrong! If you were actually thinking about all this, you might even come up with the idea that she's trying to sound as dumb as possible. Whatever, I'm sure if her vagina does in fact have a bone, it's full of termites.

Anyway, to return to the point, it's like, hate Angelina because she's annoying and a liar and unkempt and prone to shouting and will wear any old sun dress you throw at her. Hate her because you think she'd look better with a mustache or because you don't like women who are normal-sized-to-thin. I don't care. Be awful. But don't hate her for doing the same shit that you're doing in your quest to take love as lightly as possible. Be awful, but don't be a hypocrite. Maybe it's arbitrary of me to take such a stance, but arbitrariness has never stopped anyone from doing anything (and I'm not just talking about these people -- I'm talking about the history of the world). Quite the contrary, in fact. I'm jumping aboard.

Gross was a pervasive theme of this week's episode. (It was an episode, after all, that included a plot line that went, "I once didn't have sex in a club bathroom." What exciting lives we're watching.) Anyway, I'm not sure the week's theme counts as self-awareness on the show's part, or if it just had no choice but to broadcast the grossness it was dealt. It was hilarious to have confirmed that these people think each other are as disgusting as viewers at home think.

Ronnie talked about flowers being contaminated with his "children," the Sanitation's "children" and Snooki juice after they were sitting on the bed in the smush (or smash or smesh or smish or smosh or whatever vowel sound they're using this week) room. How fucking alpha do you have to be to refer to your dead sperm as "children," by the way? If you love your testicles so much that everything they produce is a potential source of pride, you should probably marry them. At the very least, go fuck your own balls.

(That's Angelina contemplating her roommate's gross residuals and all the children she will be not be making love on top of, because oh yeah that was another plot point: "I once didn't have sex in the smash/smesh/smish/smosh/smush room.")

This is a show where picking someone else's nose makes for instant endearment.

As soon as Jwoww did that, she was back in her boyfriend's good graces. Are they each playing a solitaire game of The Filthiest Person Alive? After all of this, could we be satisfied with any conclusion to this season that doesn't involve Snooki eating actual dog shit?

Pop quiz: What is the most disgusting thing about the picture below:

A) Jwoww and her man engaging in foreplay while her friend is in the room.
B) Snooki reaching out to touch Jwoww during said foreplay.
C) The dirtiness of the sock that Snooki is reaching out to touch.
D) There is no most disgusting - there is only existence.

(My answer is C, but really, there are no wrong choices. Obviously.)

There's even something repulsive about Angelina's mom assuming that what caused her to cry was a too-tight dress. Way to jump to the most superficial conclusion instead of one that involves actual human feelings and attachment. Really, though, I can't say I blame her.

And you want to talk about actual, literal filth?

I doubt that basil was that dry when they bought it.

What is that? Actual human feces?

It just makes you wonder: are they dirty externally because they are internally, or is the room itself taking it all in and just following suit, its fear of having its walls punched creating the need for utter anthropomorphism?

And then, there is the tampon.

It is not a tampon, though, despite what the Sanitation says.

It is, however, home to enough blood that production felt the need to blur it. That dried menstrual blood is too hot for TV. It's right up there with vagina bones.

As a result, the Sanitation tried being horrible to the woman he deemed a "dirty little hamster," by placing the tampon-not-tampon wrapper under her pillow.

She just happened to bring a guy home that she just happened to find hot and he just happened to witness her discovery. Is that the setup of an agony letter to a teen girl magazine, or what? I'm sure he was shocked, like everyone else on this show, that Angelina engages in the dirty practice of menstruation. I'm sure she enjoys it, too. Women are just so indulgent, aren't they?

It all ended with an argument about "garbages" and Angelina's repeated assertion that the Sanitation is "disgusting." She says his penis should fall off, as if it isn't hanging by a thread at this point, anyway. And then, of course, giving us the taste of violence we're supposed to crave (remember when this shit was light-hearted?), we were treated to yet another mid-punch cliffhanger.

And that's not to mention the promise of even more violence, which I'm sure will be next week's mid-punch cliffhanger.

Snore. I'm probably an idiot for ever thinking that this show was better than this. Call me a dreamer. Call me your Sammi (who becomes more tolerable the less she says)...

I believe this because I have to.

Comments

[Brian]

Glad you're getting over this show. I wanted the first season to stand on its own and just won't watch it this season.

They're just too coy and self-aware. They get paid to be disgusting at this point.

I'm a huge reality TV fan, and I can handle contrived storylines, but there REALLY DOES need to be an element of "realness" for me to enjoy it.

True, it speaks to the lengths these people will go to get noticed, but I'm not enjoying the exploitation of these people, because they're popular for sucking.

[Debbie M]

Glad I stopped watching this episode about 10 min in............sounds like I didn't miss much!

[Lindsay]

Thanks for the recap. I am totally in agreement with you about reaching your limit with the misogyny of these people. I've felt that way about previous episodes, but the slut shaming of this episode was especially enraging, and yeah, especially from Snooki and J Woww...I like them both, but jesus, have a little perspective! I mean, Snooki is essentially doing exactly what Angelina is, or she WOULD be, if as she says it wasn't only "grenade grundle-choads" or whatever that tried to pick her up at the club!!

[Sammy]

i think sanitation summed it up best when when he described a woman's period as "a situation."

[SJ]

Okay, probably going to skip this one. At this point I need to hang on to the "good" memories.

[bill]

I hate these people and bailed about half way last night. Like Sammi, I'm done, DONE. I think Angelina is truly too stupid to be alive. Had she stuck around last year they would not have a second season. You almost ALMOST want to see her get her clock cleaned.

[kmm]

I felt this way about 3 weeks ago.
And yet I still watch. :(

[synonymgirl]

I feel like I have to finish out the season because I'm compulsive that way. I agree with you and have since E1S2 that this is a downhill race to Whocaresville. I used to enjoy Vinnie because he was a little better grounded than the rest of them-last year. This year there is no one in the group with even a hint of any redeeming quality. Now the trashfest is complete and skin-crawling with none of the freak-show fun to to which I used to look forward. ewww.

[Deanna Destroi]

Did anyone else snicker when The Sanitation said that the tampon was "chillin' on the floor"? He takes anthropomorphism to a whole new level.

[MB]

If only they had put the pad on the stove, Mr. Thackery could lecture them on their sluttish behavior! Starring Snooki as Lulu in "To Slur with Love"

[G.agz]

The show is better than it has ever been. I'm guessing all these complainers u guys are all like early thirties?

[Chantal Goya]

And based on your shitty grammar, u guy is like 9?

[Elise]

I love you Rich, but honestly, you are taking this shit way too seriously. The whole point of camp is to *laugh* at it. If you aren't finding it funny anymore, or you can't find funny in it anymore, than STOP COVERING IT. I hate the misogynistic bullshit just as much as you do, probably more considering I am a woman, but that's not the point. This show isn't here to be p.c. It's here to be annoying, archaic, and ridiculous. You take ANTM at face value and your recaps are hilarious, but reading your Jersey Shore recaps just makes me feel like an asshole for enjoying the show for the same reasons I enjoy other shows of the same caliber: They're idiotic. So either embrace the camp or don't, but you can't have it both ways. I adore you and your blog, but your sudden snootiness regarding the standard of the shit you review is starting to bother me. If I want hypocritical elitist bullshit I will read Perez Hilton.

[Crewella]

Here here!! Co-sign "Elise". You stole my joy from the sheer fuckery that was episode 9. Jeez Rich. :|

[What?]

How is Jersey Shore 2 camp? Camp is clever.

[Mardi]

Rich, I am so glad you're over it. I've never watched an episode of this show and only read your recaps of it because I enjoy you and your point of view, not this show. I'd be more than happy to hear what you have to say about some truly cooky, surreal reality show, but leave these miserable fools to their herpes, alcohol, and 3 remaining minutes of fame.
Cover Project Runway! I know you did once, but it's got the reality component and a real telent component! It's what reality TV should be. I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.

Either way, I thank you for the recaps thus far if not just for a good laugh.

[Bobbie]

I agree, Rich. With all the misogyny lately, the show has started to become downright depressing.

[Dr SparkleDivaStarfish]

Aww Rich, you do so much for us. I fully sanction you quitting these hoes. Trashy reality TV is supposed to be fun. But somewhere this whole "Jersey Shore" thing took a huge turn and parked its trailer on the border between Misogynyville and Verbal Abuse Heights. It will only make you bitter, thus shortening your life span as a beloved pop culture anthropologist. Detox with some Snapped! on Oxygen.

[nakedlong]

how are you not entertained by this? you expect too much from a reality mtv show. i've really enjoyed it, just as much as last yr and i'm looking forward to the angelina/snookie brawl.

[nakedlong]

oh yea, agree with everything elise said. get off your b/s bachelor in english high horse.

[Erin]

Please don't stop, Rich. Your pain is OUR pain. Our pain is Snooki's pain. Snooki's pain is currently being treated at a vagina bone clinic in Flint, Michigan.

I agree with everything you're saying politically but I also agree with "G.agz"'s assertion that the show is, indeed, AMAZING right now.

As Em & RhiRhi say, "I love the way it hurts."

[serge]

Wake me up when Ronnie is a fisting bottom in a leather flick.

[bri]

rich, i really hope you check out sister wives. looks like a whole new reality tv trainwreck.

[Mardi]

With your newfound appreciation of just how overdone and sensationalized this douchey cast is, I thought you might appreciate some online anti-Jersey Shore "art."

http://americaisretarded.com/

[SGM]

The Situation's smirk looks very Rodney Dangerfield to me, which for some reason makes me sad.