“It makes me cringe that despicable has become the biggest craze in entertainment.”
- Former Friends star Lisa Kudrow, on the success of MTV’s Jersey Shore
I love Jersey Shore as if it were my first born child. I am far from impartial on this subject; I watched the Shore every week with Michael “best living writer” Gibson, my two brothers and their roommate, and whoever else decided to pop in. We would watch, laugh our asses off, rewind to our favorite parts, laugh some more, then high-five and hug.
Our group of viewers was made up of well-adjusted young men who connected with Jersey Shore because we know people just like The Situation and Snooki; we’ve been passing around guido pics for our own amusement for years. In fact, just last week, I emailed my buddy Pinky the picture below and informed him that his girlfriend (who was out of town for work) was probably giving out orange blowjobs to these cats:
Then I read Kudrow’s opinion of my baby – the Shore. I wanted to shake her.
I hold an antimimetic philosophy. I believe that life imitates art. I believe that without artists the layperson would not know what is pretty, what is special, what should be imitated. The aesthetic beauty of a corn-rowed, tattooed cross-over machine didn’t exist until Iverson put it on exhibition. I wouldn’t extol the benefits and beauty of hip-hop had Pac never uttered the phrase “That’s why I fucked yo bitch you fat muthafucka.” I wouldn’t write if Poe, Kerouac, and Zinn had never created prose so impactful that I get a word boner just thinking about it.
In the same vein, we would also not know how to treat the ugly and painful if art never told us. The pain, empathetic or actual, we feel for love lost would not be the same had the letters of Abelard and Heloise never been published. The confusion, fear, and abject loss felt in the 1960s is palpable in the music of the time. I listen to Dylan’s Hurricane, and I know what happened and how to feel about what happened.
In my experience, life imitates art to a far greater degree than happens the opposite. As humans, we are imitative by nature. We are watchers, and everything is a show. There is a reason the talented get inched up ladders, social and otherwise. Hell, there’s even a reason – the aforementioned – that the talentless get moved up. We love watching them.
My first reaction when I read Lisa Kudrow lamenting the Shore’s popularity was: “Who the fuck is Lisa Kudrow?”
My second reaction was: “Oh yeah. Phoebe.”
My third reaction was: “I need to get my scrotal rash checked out – even though it has been fun to name each blister after a former lover… and yeah, you’re in there, Heidi.”
My fourth reaction was: “For real, Phoebe-from-Friends, you were part of the original Jersey Shore. You taught these young Guidos how to go hard.”
But then I remembered that Lisa Kudrow is chronically upset after having to share the screen with the much hotter Jennifer Anniston for 10 years. I do not share her disposition. So I guess it’s up to me to prove my assertion to the six people that read my columns.
Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life
THE SHOWS
Friends was about six twenty-somethings struggling to survive in the NYC. The Shore is about seven (I don’t count Angelina because she is a cock blocking b-word) twenty-somethings struggling to survive in New Jersey. The Guidos lived in one house while Friends had four in one building and two living across the street. Both shows disseminated an East coast subculture to middle-America. There were Iowans meeting at local coffee shops in Des Moines pining to move to the NYC on account of Friends. Jersey Shore has also presented a somewhat perverse East-coast lifestyle to Middle America. There are now Guido cowboys in Texas, Guidette cashiers at Costco in Illinois, and blow-out hairstyles all over Indiana.
The Hair Craze
Rachel Green’s hairdo sparked a national craze. The craze was so, well, crazy that I actually wore the look in a majority of my junior high and high school soccer matches. Snooki’s poof has become just as entrenched in the current social milieu. I do concede that Snooki’s poof is more famous out of ridicule than out of imitation, but it is famous nonetheless.
The Ugly Pussy-Whipped Guy Dating Out of His League
Even as a virginal 8th grader I knew that the only way Ross could get a girl like Rachel was because some pathetic script writer needed to carry out his inner nerd fantasies vicariously through Ross Gellar. Ronnie is also extremely out of his league with Sammi. Ronnie is a smaller Italian version of Bam-Bam from the Flintstones. I was bored and uncomfortable with both relationships. Neither would ever work in real life – especially Ross and Rachel. How were we supposed to believe that the same woman who dated Brad “sexiest man alive” Pitt in real-life would date Ross Gellar on screen.
The Romance that Captivated a Nation
The only difference between these two couples is that Ross cried as an emotional release, and Ronnie punched things. I actually looked forward to Ronnie’s fights more than I had to any boxing match in the last 5 years. Both relationships presented murky infidelity issues that became points of debate between boyfriends and girlfriends, and among co-workers over water coolers, at Christmas parties, or while being fired on account of our economy’s Icelandic-level collapse.
The Insignificant Guy Who on Occasion Could Deliver a Funny Line
Perfect in small doses. Neither can carry a show, but in short bursts each has the power to leave you satisfied. The producers of both shows knew this – which is why Gunther was always a wallflower and why Vinny has never been a featured player.
The Guy that might be gay
The similarities: One guy acted really gay. And the other guy acted really gay. Side note: I would like to not apologize for using the word ‘gay’ in this blurb. If Hilary Duff wants to pop out from behind a rack of clothes she had better be ready to sleep with me cause I’m not down with her scolding. On Friends, Chandler was in love with his friend Joey. On the Shore, DJ Pauly D was in love with his blow-dryer named Joey. As further evidence, Pauly D spends more time getting ready than Johnny Weir.
The “I can’t tell if she’s hot girl”
In the right scene, Phoebe seemed cute. Then Aniston or Cox would appear and, by comparison, Phoebe would appear almost mannish. J-Woww wasn’t competing with hotter co-stars, she was competing with her own face, which sometimes went through Bruce Banner-esque contortions on camera. Nonetheless, I like both these birds. I like that Phoebe was addicted to marijuana even though the show didn’t mention it. I also like that I could date J-Woww and not have to worry about getting beat up by any bystanders since she is Tyson with tits. However, I am pretty sure I would never sleep with J-Woww, on account of her unpredictable face and trademarked STD: Herpes Simplex J-Woww.
The Catch Phrase
From the mouths of the resident womanizers: Joey had “How you doin’?” and Mike has his name, “The Situation.” I liked Joey; I may or may not have been one of the devotees that watched every episode of his ill-conceived spin-off. And I may or may not have used “How you doin’?” way too much. I would like to say I used it to accompany my many other romantic tricks, but it was pretty much my only tool. It had its place in other parts of my life too: My friends and I would prank call people, say, “How you doin’?” and hang up. I am not ashamed to say that on multiple occasions that game kept us occupied and entertained for hours (I know you twats are judging me right now, but I didn’t get my license until I was 18 and my headgear wasn’t removed until I was 19, so I didn’t have many options in the social scene).
As for Mike’s moniker – “The Situation” – it’s in a class all its own. Because of it, I can’t even hear the word “situation” without thinking of him. In fact, because of Mike from Jersey Shore, I think Wolf Blitzer needs to change “The Situation Room” to “The Room,” or “The Room Formerly Known as the Situation Room.”
Unavoidable Proboscis
The pictures say it all, no? And in case Sarah Palin reads this: Proboscis in this case means – the human nose (especially when it is large).
Token Fat Girls
Snooki and Monica battle eating disorders and body image issues. Both these chubby little fatties provided us further proof that it’s hilarious to watch fat people dance. One parallel that only a man who has immersed himself in Friends and Jersey Shore episodes for two solid weeks hammering out this article would notice: Chandler poked fun at Fat Monica, which led to her weight loss and their eventual hookup. The Situation poked fun at Snooki’s rolls leading to her skipping a meal and their eventual hookup. See, this column has a point; I am not making this shit up. This also proves that if you want a girl to sleep with you, you should eviscerate her self-esteem. My new line when I see a girl I like: “How you doing… fatty?” It hasn’t worked yet, and I have been slapped twice, but don’t worry, there is a hot girl out there with daddy issues and a bad self-image just waiting for me and my charm.
Rampant Drug Use
Chandler’s Vicodin addiction led to his body’s non-stop vacillations between “Fat Chandler” and “Grossly Skinny Chandler.” I didn’t understand the fat phase. When I was hooked on Vicodin for 3 years I was always too sleepy to eat. Maybe his pills weren’t actually Vicodin – maybe they were a placebo, probably sugar pills. That makes much more sense – eating sugar pills like Vicodin would make anyone fat. The Jersey Shore clique openly extols the virtues of steroid usage. The roids work wonders, as evidenced by Ronnie pre-roids in the blue singlet compared to his current chiseled little physique. We know that steroids have been used successfully – just ask Rosie O’Donnel or Lebron James, but until the Shore, roids have come with a negative connotation. Chandler helped introduced recreational Vicodin usage and remove the negative stigma associated with it. The Shore guys are fighting the good fight, trying to remove the pejorative connotation of steroid usage.
Major D-Bag Moves
Why would the stupid writers make Joey and Rachel attempt to have a relationship? No best friend would ever do that. This plot twist highlights the fact that Friends was written by pimply faced 40-year-old virgins. This is probably where The Situation learned his douchey backstabbing ways. He made a move on Sammi Sweatheart while Ronnie was downstairs snorting HGH off the Italian flag. He also pulled “The Robbery” on Vinny. The more I write about The Situation, the more I want to bust a bottle of Corona over his shnozz. Isn’t there some kind of Gotti-boys-bro-code he needs to abide by?
When Worlds Collide
If I described a moderately attractive, greasy, self-absorbed, womanizing, Italian man with pomade filled hair that reeked of Axe body spray– what would you think of? Jersey Shore? Tsk-tsk. I am describing Paulo, a recurring character on Friends that may have been the first Guido on mainstream TV. Fuck, Jersey Shore may actually be a Friends spinoff. Paulo may be The Situation’s father for all we know. My gast is completely flabbered that Kudrow would detest the Shore. Friends basically gave birth to Jersey Shore.
“Hey Kudrow, do you like apples?… Well, suck on those apples.” Wait. That doesn’t sound right. How did Good Will Hunting pull that line off? Whatever.
Bad Spinoffs
I watched Joey, and it was horrible. The only thing worse is the potential Asian Jersey Shore that is reputedly in the works. I like Jersey Shore because they are dumb. I don’t want to watch the Asian Jersey Shore full of karate moves and Good Will Hunting-level mathematical proofs. And I just won my bet with Pinky… I seamlessly mentioned Pinky and Good Will Hunting twice; next time we get black-out-drunk he’s driving.
Well, Miss Kudrow, I think the proverbial case is closed (I know she’s married, but Miss sounds more demeaning than Missus). I hope I’ve highlighted the similarities between the two television programs to your satisfaction and that you now understand that Jersey Shore is basically Friends 2.0. Any ill will you have towards your successors should be aimed at yourself – because you are to blame. As for me, well, I would like to thank you. Your work on Friends led to the creation of the seminal Italian-American comedy. Your hypocrisy is upsetting, but I am a forgiving soul. I can’t be mad at you, Phoebe. Your show playing on a constant loop on basic cable has subsided my unemployment depression and is tiding me over until season two of Jersey Shore.
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its actually wierd how every time i think of something on one show now, i can actually think of the same exact thing on the other. Phoebe is a dyke.. i always liked ursula better.
this is insane in a very brilliant way
I liked this.