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Those were the days.
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I've watched many seasons of the Real World through the years since the very first series in New York. The New York cast and show were a breakthrough in television. Show producers Bunim and Murray revolutionized what we watch by entertaining our voyeuristic curiosity. It's natural for us to be intrigued by the car accident at the side of the road. Watching Puck and Pedro colliding in San Francisco or Eric and Kevin in New York was no different. Whether it was about sexuality, gender, ethnicity or just a conflict in personal beliefs, the first several seasons of the Real World were captivating. In the early seasons it really was about the true story, of seven strangers, picked to live in a house, work together,and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real. It's since degenerated into the true story of seven frat boys and frat girls picked to live in a ridiculously nice party house, drink together, sleep together and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when people get drunk, hook up and start getting hungover.
Memorable seasons like New York, San Francisco and Boston all had casts of intelligent individuals from all walks of life. The most recent season in Sydney has 6 beautiful caucasian people and one token Muslim girl. What happened to the diversity and fascinating backstories? Pedro Zamora who was HIV-positive or Kevin Powell who was a fiery African-American poet. Now we have Trisha and Kelly Ann, the bitchy ignorant sorority girls following their footsteps. It's just tragic what MTV has done with such a great concept and turned a brilliant social experiment into a basic-cable version of Girls Gone Wild. After the Hawaii season and lowering the average age from about 27 to 21, everything went straight downhill. What used to be a fascinating observation of human interaction and an anthropological study has become trashy reality garbage. I realize that the demographic of the audience changed and MTV had to cater to their taste, but that's a sad statement on the people watching MTV these days. I'm sure Jonathan Murray isn't even tuning in to his own show anymore and I doubt the late Mary Ellis-Bunim would have wanted her name associated with the current bastardization of her creation. Neither am I.
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Brilliant Social Experiment
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Girls Gone Wild!
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