My wife has been addicted to the show “Jersey Shore” on MTV since she caught the first season in reruns on the Web. From the very first sight of Snooki getting slapped, to the very second sight of Snooki getting slapped, to the boys’ search for women who aren’t “grenades,” to every drunken brawl, Stephanie has been hooked.
She’s so hooked, that she’s been keeping up with the regular reviews written by our friend Bill Cammack. Not to be outdone, I’ve decided to review the show myself so that I can take more interest in my wife’s hobbies.
So to recap, here’s my review of last week’s episode:
It sucked. This show fucking blows chunks. This show is like watching monkeys throw feces at each other. Every time I watch it, I feel my soul degraded in the way John Milton did when he described dogs eating Satan’s bowels on the lake of fire at the beginning of “Paradise Lost.” Last week, one of the drama queens hit another one in the face. The week before that, one of the drama queens hit another one in the face. The big guy who I will call after his dictionary name, “The Position With Respect To Conditions and Circumstances,” made a face and invented some new acronym for his activities. These include DTF, which means a girl who’s “down to fuck.” And GTL, for the boys’ favorite hobby of “gym, tan laundry.” I submit a new acronym: GIAR, or “give it a rest.” For the woman known as JWoww, I proffer the more fitting sobriquet “J Duh.”
The plot is as follows: the seven main roommates and their annual swing position roommate sit and gossip about something that might have been said on the phone and that might have been said about them. The roommates, having no self-esteem, assume something bad was said about them behind their backs because none of them have any worthwhile qualities and it’s easier for them to project their self-hatred on the other limited, brutish people in the room. One girl has a big rack.
One guy is the nice guy. I have not figured out why he’s earned this title yet except that maybe it’s because he doesn’t come up with acronyms. Whenever anybody is in doubt, he or she reveals sinews and breasts, a gesture now as anticipated and customary as a curtsy in court or the lighting of the Olympic torch.
My review of last week’s episode: It sucked. The one before that? It blew. Before that? Rim worthy. Before that? Sewer scummy. Before that? Bathypelagic in its utter depths of depravity.
I hope that summary provides a suitable reason to keep breath bated among my wife and other people who for some reason can’t afford a trip to the Bronx Zoo to see things of more interest.
Look out for season 4. They’re going to Rome!
(Check out Bill Cammack’s site, too! He’s a renaissance man: dating guru, musician, film editor and man about town.)
Beauty is Imperfection 
Eric, this may be the most spot on review in all of history. Another show full of reasons the United States will forfeit it’s reign as a world power. I am not saying it’s because if this ridiculous genre of television but rather due to the underbelly of our society that somehow demands that it be produced.
I am sure your wife is a great person….. But the next time you marry ….. Raise yourself up…… And try to step out of the projects ;). Oh isn’t there 15 minutes up Yet!?
The show blows
Chunks
And the Girls on it
Blow everything else !
hehehe Great assessment, Eric! 😀
I don’t disagree with anything you said, and thanks for the shout-out, 🙂 but the issue here is that you’re married, and HAPPILY married.
The reason I enjoy Jersey Shore is that I’ve been telling people FOR YEARS that this is how some people live, and nobody believed me. NOW, they believe me. As repugnant as the characters are, these are the people you have to deal with if you’re still in the trenches of the dating game in February 2011.
The way these chicks act is rather common. They all think there’s something unique about them, when there isn’t. They all think they can throw their hands at a dude until they run into the dude that isn’t havin’ it and drops them, like how Snooki got decked (she got punched in her face, not slapped, FYI).
So.. While you live in the civilized world, many of us still have to deal with ridiculous chicks, so “Jersey Shore” is still relevant and useful as a point of reference for dealing with common, yet non-common-sense-having females.
As far as the dudes, it’s good for chicks to see what guys do and hear what they say about them. Calling them “grenades”, “land mines”, “fat chicks”, even though they’re willing to get in the hot tub with the same chicks they’re calling names, will hopefully serve to wake some gals up as far as what’s really happening to them when they go out clubbing and some guy meets them and takes them home for the night.
As far as them going to Italy, I mentioned that as a joke, because the real Italian people I know have all scoffed at the Americanized version of Italian-ism. The roommates are going to be less effective in Italy than they were in Miami, because they only places where their culture thrives is on the Jersey Shore and on Long Island. Filming them anywhere else is entirely worthless.
Hey Bill! Nice to see you here! The reviews of “Jersey Shore” on your site are perhaps the only happy thing about this terrible tragedy.
I was watching Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” the other night. In fact, it was on at exactly the same time a “Jersey Shore” episode came on. And I asked my wife if she’d rather see this classic film instead of the soul-killing reality show, since they were, in theory, both about the same thing. One has a bunch of Italian-American hoods who posture and scam. The other has a bunch of Italian-American hoods who posture and scam. Of course, Steph wanted Snooki and company.
So I asked, why is “Jersey Shore” more compelling than “Mean Streets”? Is it more real? After all, Scorsese’s movie is scripted, and it’s full of camera trickery and is obsessed with Catholic imagery. It’s a fantasy of street life, right?
Upon closer inspection I decided, no, “Jersey Shore” is the ersatz brand. Every time a new drama unfolds, I’m painfully aware how much it’s being contrived by the “characters,” who understand completely that they are being watched and who know that their bread and butter is conflict. I’m not reminded of “Mean Streets” so much as “Toddlers & Tiaras,” where children perform what they believe are adult postures and attitudes for us peanut-smacking crowds because they’ve learned exactly what reaction it will get them. “The Situation,” if that’s his real name, has so thoroughly studied his fake craft that he now dramatically leaves the room in a huff at the right moment no matter what “situation” he’s in, even if it’s on “Dancing With The Stars.” If this is not a crafty, preconceived Jane Austen plot point, I don’t know what is. I like to imagine him as president of the United States dramatically leaving a meeting with Putin and saying, “I’m out of here, dawg.” It seems to be his only talent. That and showing us his V-6.
If I want to study human nature, I still believe I’ve got to do it with good scripted material. Not this pseudo-spontaneous crap.
I do have to say, though, I quite admire how you wring new and interesting things to say every week about this horrible show. I myself certainly wouldn’t know what to write week in and week out except the one thing: which is that the show causes me terrible sigmoid colon pain. I don’t know how to make hay while the shit rains, I guess.