Majority Of The Real World Cast Members example essay topic

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, type casted 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 anyone ethnic in the house. It is great that MTV is giving these people a chance do put a little diversity in their lives, but I think they are giving people the wrong impression. Not every African American thinks the world is out to get them, nor are all frat boys from small towns with a racist mentality. Not all gay males are flamboyant and into musicals. MTV is supposed to be representing America's diversity, but it is showing us that we as Americans cannot get along with anyone different from ourselves. Even though the cast members are forced to get jobs, these jobs are not regular jobs.

The cast did not have to fill out applications or even be fit for the job. MTV puts the cast in dream jobs. Many of these jobs revolve around show business, night clubs and advertisement. The Las Vegas cast promoted and threw parties at local clubs in the area.

So, on top of partying outside of work, they were able to party inside work. The only cast that had a real job was the San Diego cast, which had to work on a boat. They had to clean the boat and learn how to sail. Many of the cast members hated this job and rarely went to work. The cast also receives a gift from MTV on top of free loading.

Each cast received a trip to anywhere in the world. All their expenses were paid, and they usually were able to choose between 4 destinations. The cast members that get on the show and are able to get away from the problems end up having them exploited on the show. Why would you want to get away from your problems when in the long run they resurface on re-runs of your season.

The whole world will know every detail of every problem you have ever faced because MTV will plaster it all over the show. The Real World is not real. If people know there are cameras all around, they are going to change the way they act, it is human nature. MTV could make a real world, but they would have to use hidden cameras and the cast would have to be oblivious to the taping.

This would be unethical and im sure much of the cast would not give their consent for MTV to air the footage. The show is edited from 2,000 hours to 22 half-hour shows. How real can you get when you are not even seeing their whole stay. Many of the episodes are different scenes just blended together, you could be watching a scene from the first two weeks of their stay along with one from the last two weeks of their stay and not even know it. The Real World is not a good learning tool unless you are wanting to know how to stereotype people. This show will fill your head false preconceptions of a group of individuals.

There are already enough discriminatory problems in the world today, why make it worse? If you want to know how to be lazy all day and party all night, watch The Real World. If you want to fill your head with false hopes and dreams of living in luxury with out working a real job, watch The Real World. Do you want your children thinking it is ok to party or hook up with random people?

The Real World needs to start putting real people on their shows and stop creating characters based on how society views a group of people.

Bibliography

Berkowitz, Carol. American Academy of Pediatrics: Dedicated to the Health of all Children. American Academy of Pediatrics. 8 Dec. 2004 MTV Networks.
The Real World. 8 Dec. 2004.