The Real World XX: Ominous Music, Same Old Thing

Growing up, I would always look to the Real World as a representation of what my twenties would be like. I always thought I’d end up like one of the unassuming girls that didn’t get as much airtime like Kat from London but I think I probably ended up more like Kaia from Hawaii (with less nudity) or Kameelah from Boston (with less anger).Boston was my favorite season and among the last to really adhere to what MTV claimed they started the show to do: create a social experiment of sorts to see what happens when 7 completely diverse people live together. In its earlier and purer states, the show was a fascinating study of people burgeoning into adulthood and coming to terms with themselves and the world at large.

Of late, the show has become less about what happens when people start being real and more about what happens when people start losing their g*ddamn minds. I put the starting point of this trend in the disease-tastic Las Vegas season, although the show had been plummeting quality wise for years.

When MTV was casting for it’s newest season of The Real World, set in Hollywood, it asked for applicants with “career and life goals”, I guess, to try to reestablish some credibility for the show. (Although, simply having to ask that the applicant have a life goal is not encouraging.) MTV has finally released a trailer for the upcoming season and apparently, this is the best group they could come up with. Let’s take a look at the upcoming train wreck that will be Real World: Hollywood.

Well, the first bad sign is that the trailer is edited together with the quick cuts and ominous music of a horror movie. I kept waiting for the disembodied trailer-guy voice to announce that out of these seven strangers, only one would survive. I get that the somber tone is supposed to signal that this is going to be a serious, and therefore different, season (after all, these people have GOALS) but it looks like the same drunken bullsh*t to me.

Aspiring singer? Check. Obligatory minorities? Check. Ignorant southerner? Check. Copious amounts of drinking and bad decision making? Check. Traumatic pasts? Check. Hardass violent guy? Check-sposion. Different? I don’t think so.

That being said, the highlight of the trailer has to be when there is a about 1:23 left and the dark haired alcoholic guy (an alcoholic? On the Real World? Maybe this season WILL be different!) does his best man-seal impression. I can only wonder what his life goal is.

I’ll end with a sampling of the catchy catchphrases that will set this season apart:

“Don’t be a whore. I hate whores.”

“I don’t want to be cool with you”

“She’s a princess. And Princesses will fall” (wait, what?)

“I ain’t no pretty little white boy” (this from the human seal)

“It’s so hard, bro. It’s so hard to admit I have a problem”