Reality Show Analysis

Every summer, thousands of young adult’s head to the Jersey shore to take part in the East Coast rite of passage, in which a group of people will come together and share a house for the summer. In 2009 a new reality show called The Jersey shore first aired, on the MTV network. There were eight Italian American cast members who came together for the summer to live and work in Seaside Heights, the show was based on real world-type situations, and as any other reality show, it features a lot of absurd, immature behavior, a festivity of party-culture, anti-intellectualism, and capitulation to the pornification of American culture. Through these show viewers observed the glorification of the party life-style, bad behaviors, public drunkenness and

The definition for the word Guido, means a man, especially an Italian American, viewed as vain, aggressively masculine, and socially unsophisticated. Various viewers like myself, would of never known what a Guido was not unless we lived in that state or were Italian Americans. The way they dressed, partied, danced and presented themselves to society would be labeled as socially deviant. They began their days by out at the gym, tanning, perfecting their hair, getting ready for partying at a club, drunk in public, and ending their night by taking a random stranger from the club home. I believe that before this show it wouldn’t be socially normal, however, during and after this show ended we have seen more young adults acting in similar behavior and being consider social

However, the way the show is constructed forms our judgement on individual’s behavior and decisions, which formulae society’s view too acceptable bad behavior. This is called Primary deviance, because this is the way TV networks present the initial act of deviance to younger viewers. As various young viewers began to watch this show and believe that the shows way of life and behaviors are acceptable. Several viewers will begin to act on the bad behavior, and continue to veer away from acceptable behavior, making this secondary deviance. We then decide to label them to be socially acceptable, and decide whether or not we can approve their behavior. Once a person has been labeled by others through secondary deviance, it is common for that person to incorporate that label into his or her own concept. They then develop a stigma or a powerfully negative label that greatly changes a person’s self-concept and social identity. Usually someone who has been stigmatized usually has lower self-esteem and may find it easier to come to terms with the label than fight it. We see it today in younger adults, where they are known to be party-crazy, go out and get wasted drunk while others label them as a hot- mess, but are acceptable to their bad behavior due to the fact that many people watching this shows think its ok for people in their early twenties to act