This Is the True Story
By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 13, 2006 4:30PM
In a perplexing marketing move, some of the cast of The Real World Denver will be at Crobar on Friday for a “Premiere and Holiday Party.” Now, we’re not here to make fun of the higher-ups at MTV for having a premiere party three weeks after the actual premiere. We’re not even here to poke fun at Colie for making out with Alex and thinking they were actually going “steady.” And we’re still not here to laugh at Jenn and her white-eyed doe makeup and over-the-top sexual hair pulling. Nope, we’re here to discuss the beginning of the end of the Real World.
When the Real World began in 1992 it was a true social experiment. The people ranged in color, size and sexuality; a normal cast of post-adolescents who would learn to live together in a complicated city. For most of us, this was our first taste of “Reality TV” (ooh and it tasted so sweet). MTV was ahead of the game, showing us something we didn’t even know we wanted to see. Back in the day, no one made out, no one got wasted — Kevin possibly threw a candlestick at Julie — but overall, it was truly interesting social commentary, watching a group of people struggle with their choices and prejudices.
Season 2 was more of the same with a little extra pro-life and racist drama thrown in, but still nothing close to the ho-camp it is today.
We’ll even assert that Season 3 was on the right track. Indeed it was the beginning of inter-roommate tongue waggling between Rachel and Puck, but there was still real intimacy with Pedro and his struggle with AIDS, and likable people like Judd and Pam who kept things “real.”
The tipping point, the beginning of the true grotesqueness of the modern-day Real World, came in Season 5 with the introduction of super-bitch Flora and sexual vixen Melissa. The real of the world ended and became a voyeuristic fantasy when Melissa, Mike, and an unnamed houseguest had a three-way in the shower while Flora broke the window trying to check it out. Now how are subsequent casts supposed to live up to that hype?
The downslide was quick in following seasons, from Boston David banging the producer, to Steven slapping Irene, to Ruthie puking in the shower, to Trashelle doing all of the above. The Real World became about who could be the most extreme, who could be the most mentally disturbed, and who could get the most poon. So where does that leave the poor cast of Denver?
It leads to them having to make out within five minutes of meeting each other, it leads to bisexual tonguing in the hot tub, it leads to truly scary drunken episodes, and it leads to a star-fucking quality when there aren’t even any stars to fuck.
We don’t know what the rest of the season will hold for Denver, but the only way they’re going to make themselves more interesting than the previous casts is if they shut up, sober up and start acting like actual human beings.
Shit, when did we start sounding like our mothers?