So Hot It's Retarded

I've written about The Real World here before, and you can refer to that post for enlightenment on the history and rationale behind my fixation with the show. The new season begins next week, and will likely command my attention at least for the rest of the summer. I watched the trailer (which you can see below for yourself, if you please) and it indicates a viewing experience much in line with the series norm: a handful of fit, samey youths live in untold excess for a few months, occasionally finding random miseries with which to briefly disrupt their revelry for our viewing pleasure, etc.

The one aspect of this year's set-up that kind of sticks in my craw is the setting. It's not like it really matters much where each new version takes place; the cast utilizes their house and the nearby booze dispensaries to the same general effect each year. (Though I did find the un-forced lushness of the Hawaii season especially alluring.) But the Mexican city of Cancun, which I'm sure is quite a beautiful, industrious place in any context, takes on a special significance in the MTV dominion. It especially refers to the brief but intense pleasures of the vaunted college Spring Break vacation, and the network's past coverage of such events has a certain flavor that doesn't necessarily jibe with the slower, more minutely focused (albeit fancifully so) style of the reality series. I remember enjoying the MTV Spring Break programming in the mid-nineties, watching Sugar Ray and Puff Daddy prance around onstage as tanned babes bopped in unison, drinks in hand, projecting a careless spirit that I found genuinely moving. Perhaps it's this younger, less critical version of myself that doesn't want to see the two franchises muck each other up with incompatible attitudes. Don't get your Spring Break in my Real World--I don't think they'd get along.

The creators of the show actually made a movie, years ago--The Real Cancun--detailing such a scenario. I don't intend to ever see it; I don't imagine one and a half hours is nearly enough to convey the breadth of encounters, however repetitive, that occur on a regular season of the show. The only reason I watch it anymore is the chance to slowly get to know the personalities of each housemate every week, and then reel in ecstasy as they drink and fuck their way into TV oblivion.

I must also mention that one of the cast members (apparently the one selected by popular vote, and--according to Wikipedia--the second in the cast to work at the Hooter's restaurant establishment) is named Ayiiia. Yes, with three i's. I'm not usually one to ridicule another human's given name, but, I mean, Jesus.

Real World 22 Cancun - MTV Shows