Pop Goes Culture

I can’t go anywhere on campus without discussing MTV’s latest reality smash, “Jersey Shore,” with somebody. And not just because I’m obsessed with it. It has captured the zeitgeist seemingly overnight — late night talk shows love having The Situation, Pauly D and Snooki as guests, and references to the show are all over Web sites like “Texts From Last Night.” 

Snooki, in particular, seems to have a large fan base, including her very own Facebook fan page. How could she not? Her diminutive stature coupled with her absurd “poof” hairstyle and frighteningly orange skin gives her an appearance more befitting a cartoon character than an actual person. She also possesses many talents, including dancing and applying bronzer. (Just don’t ask her how to work a duck phone.)

Recently, Snooki has become a lightning rod of controversy by basically endorsing steroids during an interview on the nearly-departed “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,” as well as outlining her populist tanning-beds-for-all agenda on “The Jay Leno Show.” The latter claim resulted in an outraged press release from television watchdog group Parents Television Council.

The PTC are advocates for network and basic cable programming free of vulgar language or graphic sexual content, but press release author Marybeth Hicks laid into Snooki for the tanning bed comment, saying “It’s disconcerting that (she) could have any sort of influence or be a role model ... or advocate something like tanning beds that could cause cancer.” 

Yes, you read that correctly: the PTC apparently believes that viewers of “Jersey Shore” see Snooki and think, “Yes, that’s who I want to be when I grow up — a girl with no self-respect or goal in life save marrying a perma-tanned, ’roided-up party guy.”  
There are so many things wrong with that idea, I’m not entirely sure where to begin.
First, I think the PTC should choose their battles more thoughtfully. A crusade against tanning beds hardly seems the most relevant cause for concern when the “Jersey Shore” cast has thus far regularly exhibited dangerous behaviors like excessive drinking, sleeping around and getting into fist fights on the boardwalk.

In fact, they’ve done all those things on camera. I don’t recall the cast ever taking a jaunt down to a local tanning salon, whether on film or in conversation, which is surprising given that tanning is the essential second part of Pauly D and The Situation’s guido motto, “GTL”: gym, tanning, laundry.

Second, I doubt that the majority of “Jersey Shore” viewers are watching because it enriches their lives. I say I’m obsessed with the show (because I am), and I say that I love it (because I do), but my appreciation for it is wholly suffused with irony. I love it because everybody’s a drunken mess most of the time, saying things that are so dumb and hilarious that I just cannot look away.

I find it completely fascinating that the cast has appropriated the seemingly derogatory term “guido” and turned it into a badge of honor, a label earned by only the most vapid, stereotypical Italian-Americans in the greater New York area. What sort of person aims that low in his aspirations for life? 

And that’s what the phrase “so bad, it’s good” means to me: The premise may be trashy and the characters may be vapid people doing dumb things and spouting a new, silly metaphor every five seconds (here’s to you, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino!), but it’s so compelling that it succeeds anyway.