By Skye Tulio
Sports Assignment Editor
It’s about time. I mean, seriously, how much longer can you beat a dead horse?
MTV announced its sixth season of Jersey Shore, set to air Oct. 4, will be the popular reality show’s final season.
I must admit to being a fan of the show when it first aired back in 2009. Ironically, it was so popular at the time that it brought me together with my first friends here at Bona’s.
One of the girls on my floor freshman year invited us all to her room to watch Jersey Shore. As we watched the cast of juice-head “gorillas” (a name the women of the cast attributed to good-looking men with muscles) and guidettes (what the cast referred to as ‘Italian’ women with spray tans and too much makeup) interact in their natural environment, we instantly hit it off laughing and getting to know each other. We tried to make it a staple each week, but the idea didn’t last long because in actuality the show was a complete train wreck.
Night after night, the only source of entertainment stemmed from the characters fist pumping antics and self-image practice they deemed “GTL” or Gym, Tan, Laundry.
The cast, made up of the overly tanned and obnoxious men and women, Pauly D, Snooki, JWoww, Vinny, Mike the Situation, Sammi Sweetheart, Ronnie and Deena made complete idiots of themselves on national television by partying and creating drama wherever they traveled. They could make a better reality show by filming weekends at Bonaventure.
I swore if I saw one more Jersey Shore-themed anything I was going to scream. Jersey Shore Halloween costumes, GTL t-shirts, people fist pumping, etc. Enough already people. We get it.
We all knew the series had to end sometime, but I never thought the creators at MTV would take such a huge risk and off one of its most successful reality series so soon. The series dominates the network as the No.1 show in MTV’s core demographic. The fifth season’s premiere attracted nearly 7.6 million viewers, a drop from its nine million viewers in 2011, according to an Aug. 30 Entertainment Weekly article. Even so, the network made the plunge and pulled the plug on the popular show Aug. 30.
MTV cancelled the show after realizing the characters’ lives where taking a different direction and no longer meshed with the show’s theme, according to an Aug. 31 Entertainment Weekly online article.
MTV’s Executive Vice President of Programming, Chris Linn, told the magazine that as successful as the show is, the network didn’t want to be in a situation where it milked every ratings point out of a franchise until the bitter end.
I applaud you, Chris Linn.
The show’s cast, mostly from New York and New Jersey, claimed to come from Italian descent. Their wild behavior on the show prompted backlash from several Italian American groups— one in particular.
The Italian American One Voice Coalition (IAOVC) protested the series from the start. It complained it was not an accurate representation of their people and heritage.
Just hours after news of the show’s cancellation reached social media, Andre DiMino, President of the IAOVC, wasted no time tweeting his jubilation, according to a Aug. 31 Examiner article.
“GOOD RIDDANCE!” DiMino said. “Italian Americans have been maligned enough by the bimbos & buffoons on that train-wreck TV show!”
Coming from an Italian-American family, I was never offended by the show because I knew it did not represent the heritage my family and I proudly practice. A bunch of self-proclaimed ‘Italian’ guidos and guidettes spending summers at the Jersey shore for reality television will never taint the image of my heritage or my family’s ancestry.
Bravo, MTV! So long, Jersey Shore!
