How Real Is the Real World

How Real is The Real World?

"This is the true story, of seven strangers, picked to live in a house, and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real"(MTV). This marks the beginning of MTV's reality show, The Real World. The show takes 7 strangers, puts them in a trendy luxurious home, taping them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for about 4 months. The cameras capture petty arguments, late night hook ups, and pure laziness. How could this not be real? There are not many people that can live in an expensive home while laying around all day, and partying all night with little work involved. The Real World is a display of 18-24 year olds, typecasted to have their most extreme stereotypical qualities blown out of proportion for the world to see.

The Real World gives the viewer a false outlook on life. Sure there are a select few that have the opportunity to live lavishly with little to no responsibilities, but that is a small percentage. The show depicts the cast lounging around in their up scale home all day, then going out to amazing night clubs drinking enormous amounts of alcohol through out the night. Many of the cast members wake up in the afternoon hours only to repeat this process. In reality the world does not work like this. Many people have to work one to three jobs just to get by leaving no room for lounging and bar hopping.

The show is geared towards teens and college students, filling their heads with false outlooks on life. Not only does it depict laziness, it is a good display of immoral behavior."Advertising and movies send kids the message that smoking and drinking make a person sexy or cool and that everyone does it"(AAP). In almost every episode there are hook ups, or confessions of wanting to sleep with a roommate. The show puts all 18-24 year olds in the "party" category, even though not everyone is like that. Stereotypically, young adults are supposed to be lazy, party animals unsure about their future. I feel there are many more young adults taking the academic route, trying to make a good future for themselves. The majority of The Real World cast members are put into a mold. The producers will not admit doing this, but the cast members turn into characters throughout the show. If you look at past seasons there is always the gay person, ethnic, virgin, problem starter, drama queen and the frat boy. The casting directors zero in on their extreme stereotypical characteristics putting them in the limelight. If you are gay and have a little flare to you, it will usually be turned into flamboyant. The minority, usually African American, turns into the angry black person that believes everyone in the world is racist. Of course, the virgin tends to have a religious background and is seen as naive and closed minded. All the drama is usually stirred up by the drama queen who thinks everyone is out to get him/her or think they can rule the house. The party gets started with the frat boy who frequents local clubs and is the life of the party. If you already have stereotypes formed in your head of these particular types of people, MTV does a great job of intensifying those character flaws.

On the apposing side, The Real World does put a group of diverse people into a house and forces them to live with one another while trying to get along. Many people that are on the show have never been around African Americans or homosexuals. Even if the cast members do not get along they at least have to make an effort to make it work during the duration of the show. This aspect of the show is good for viewers to see, and is a good learning tool. There are a lot of closed minded individuals in the world today that would never think of living with such a diverse group of individuals. Viewers can watch the cast and see that there is a different world out there. There are a lot of issues that are displayed on the show as well. Some of the issues that have been seen on different seasons were abortion, drinking problems, and homophobia. Topics like this may help others deal with personal problems. Even though the cast lays around all day, they are forced to get a job. The job usually involves group effort, and they are sometimes not allowed a paycheck if the whole house did not work. Seeing the cast work allows viewers to realize that they are not just living in such a nice home for free. If a cast member decides to quit a job or get fired, there is a possibility of being kicked off the show. Lastly, The Real World gives many people a chance to live in a type of home they will probably never be able to live in again. A lot of the cast members come from lower to middle class households or from families that have numerous background problems. The Real World gives these people a chance to get away, and not worry about anything for the few months that they are there.

The show may be diverse, and force other cultures, religions, and backgrounds to live together, but MTV brings out the worse in the diversity. MTV focuses on the stereotypical problems one might have while living with different people. The African American tends to throw in the race card, and usually has problems identifying with his or her roommates. The frat boy usually says one racist remark, leading to tension between

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