Real World Austin: more disgusting, morally bankrupt

[hoosier]

Austin installment of MTV reality series merely another parade of over-the-top 'types'

11:03 PM CDT on Monday, June 20, 2005
By MANUEL MENDOZA / The Dallas Morning News
After 15 seasons of plying young people with alcohol, encouraging "hookups" and fights, and filming it all for the entertainment of the MTV generation, The Real World has finally made it to Texas.
Lucky us.
The Real World: Austin, premiering tonight, nods in the direction of Texas clichés like other reality shows shot here. The cast is first seen together riding in the back of a pickup truck. After the credits roll, the camera takes in a field of cows. And awaiting the seven shallow strangers about to "get real" in their plush industrial digs is a neon Big Tex.
But The Real World isn't a physical place. It's a cynical way of looking at American youth culture, so it doesn't matter where the series is set.
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A few years back, a gal named Ruthie was repeatedly shown getting intoxicated. At one point, the producers even followed her in a camera-equipped car as she drove drunk, ostensibly to help her. It became just another chapter in that season's saga.
This time, one of the houseguests has already been clocked in the face by the end of the first episode, threatening his vision and requiring surgery to repair a broken bone. The fight happens because the cast has been drinking heavily at a bar. After a squabble between two of them, two others mistakenly challenge a guy in the street who has nothing to do with the disagreement.
Though the action unfolds over several minutes, there's no sign that executive producer Jonathan Murray or his crew tried to intervene and stop the fisticuffs.
More benign high jinks play out during the first two episodes: a girl-on-girl kiss in the hot tub, a girl-on-boy kiss in a bar (after the cast gets drunk their first night in town), naked running around the house, a group shower and more talk about getting jiggy with it than at a rap summit.
By the way, none of these idiots is from the Lone Star State.
By now, anyone auditioning for The Real World knows the drill. The producers are only going to cast hyperbolic "types." And in its 16th season, that means houseguests willing to raise the stakes with even more outrageous stunts than previous casts.
Melinda, for instance, is the designated house hussy. She has a boyfriend back home but doesn't know if she can be faithful. "I am a nymph," says the 21-year-old from Wisconsin. Soon, she's proposing an orgy; rubbing against Danny, the guy who eventually gets punched out; and walking around in various states of undress.
Then there's Johanna, 21, who inadvertently triggers the fight. She's one of those people whose personality changes when she drinks. Shy when sober, she turns racy and belligerent after a few. And let's not forget Wes, 19, a frat-boy type from Kansas City, Kan.
"She's going to probably hook up with every guy here," Wes says of Melinda. "And I don't mean in the house. I mean in Austin."
Meanwhile, Nehemiah, 19, fills the bill as the token black guy. Every black man on The Real World has to be either a thug or a peace-loving black-power advocate. Nehemiah is the latter.
After 9-11 people asked, "Why do they hate us?"
If it's for the more disgusting, morally bankrupt aspects of our culture, The Real World sets a fine example.