OVERVIEW

After eight years of the show, this writer describes "Real World" this way:

To some, the infamous docu-opera is little more than a bad joke about Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation CU—See Me, those media-savvy kids who’d sell their parents into indentured servitude for 15 minutes of fame in the halls of America’s malls. To others, it’s nothing less than the death knell of privacy, mindless fodder for Our Nation of Peeping Toms, and further evidence of the media manipulation that was condemned so poignantly in Jim Carey’s cracked fairy tale, ‘The Truman Show.’

Critics and many others did find it boring to "sit through the sort of sullen, attitude-heavy aimlessness that defined the years in London and Boston." Producers are seeking a striking change in the June 15th (‘99) premiere which will kick off a 22 episodes of "sanctioned voyeurism." The Hawaiian installment of the "Real World" looks in on the life of seven 19-22-year-olds: Amaya, Colin, Justin, Kaia, Matt, Ruthie, and Teck, a gay Harvard law student, who is less exhibitionist than the others.

Less than 15 minutes into the first episode two of the gang peel off their Gap wear for some euphoric skinny-dipping in the house’s glorious pool. And soon after that a third cast member, Kaia, the Mostly Likely to Push People’s Buttons, tugs off her blouse to share her healthy self-esteem with millions of cable subscribers. (‘I...really, really like looking at myself,’ she says, ‘Call it narcissistic if you like.’) MTV calls it inappropriate, of course, and blurs out all the naughty regions.

Amaya, however, confesses to some "blazing insecurity" about her body. In a few weeks she will be "shacking up with frat boy Colin in the series’ first-ever on-screen romance."

It was the bad behavior of the Seattle cast in 1998-99 (Stephen slapping Irene and Nathan "struggling with booze and monagamy" that picked ratings up.) "Is it perverse to think ‘The Real World’ is more fun in proportion to how much the roomies suffer?" this writer asks.

Ruthie provides the dark side in Honolulu. The gang quickly learns she is a bisexual with an unhappy childhood in a foster home. Viewers will watch as she takes the first drink of a binge, goes on drinking until she collapses on the bathroom floor with eyes rolling up into her head, and then see her taken to the hospital. Later in the season she will need to leave the show for thirty days. It is not clear why Justin leaves permanently.

"After all," this author concludes, "we all take the bait in that tropical aquarium they call ‘The Real World.’ "

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

• What is fascinating about this show for so many? How does it compare or contrast with other TV? And with real life?
• What is meant by voyeurism? How do you explain it? Do you have any tendencies toward voyeurism? Is there a healthy and a unhealthy voyeurism, and if so how would you distinguish?

Dean Borgman cCYS