I’m Italian. My mother’s maiden name is Rotolo and my great-grandfather’s name on her side is Giuseppe Pasquale. If there’s one thing that came over to America with Giuseppe, other than a whole boat-load of more Italians, it was his pride in his heritage. This pride in being an Italian-American has lead my family to laud, and at times take credit for, Enzo Ferrari, the ability to eat pasta 7 days a week without fail, and anyone whose name has a whole lot of “g”s, “i”s, double letters and “a”s. Anyone that knows me, or that knows a proud Italian for that matter, can attest that we love to flaunt our heritage and way of living like it’s the greatest thing since sliced garlic bread.
So ask me why I’m going into a self-made bomb shelter on July 29th. Ask me why I’ll be suspicious of anyone offering me mostacolli with marinara and wonder if they’re testing me. Ask me why suddenly having Joe DiMaggio share a similar familial background with me is not cool.
On July 29th “Jersey Shore”, the worst thing to happen to Italians since Benito Mussolini, returns to television. “Jersey Shore” is a show where a group of 20-something, self-proclaimed “guidos” prance around in clothes made for 15-year-old boys and/0r clothes most likely purchased directly off a New Jersey Turnpike hooker and defame the living shit out of the Italian race.
The guys are more ‘roided up than the All-Star lineup of the 1998 MLB All-Star game. The girls make a Porn convention seem classy. They all drink, trade STD’s like they’re a 9-year-olds baseball cards, and generally make asses of themselves all while being followed around by a TV crew and being watched by millions too disgusted to turn away. And they’re all united by a common, ancestral thread. They’re Italian.
It makes me long for the days when everyone thought Italians were mobsters. Compared with the Ab-showing, tanner-than-a-tanning-salon-employee, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, I would much rather have back Jon Gotti or Lucky Luciano. If you gave me a choice between spending 15 minutes trapped in a room with either an angry, bat-wielding, Al Capone or Snooki? Give me the bat and the boss. Not the hooch with the poof.
I have to be honest, I’m a trash-TV junky. That being said, let me make it clear, I didn’t watch much of “Jersey Shore” the first season around and firmly believe that the only reason to watch the second season is that there will probably be more chances to watch cast members get punched in the face by other drunk morons. Call me old school, but I much prefer to watch Brett Michaels make-out with a ho-train of women or Flavor Flav force his crack-pipe-loving-lips onto women dumb enough to enjoy that sort of thing.
MTV has ramped up the craziness, using the cast from “Jersey Shore” in all kinds of promotional ads. They have taken a racial stereotype, dressed it up not in black-face but spray-tan-face, given those stereotypes enough hair gel and hard liquor for a group 10 times their size and sat back to watch the chaos ensue.
I’ll still proudly claim to be Italian. But I might fly into a rage the size of Snooki’s hair if anyone truly believes that the cast of “Jersey Shore” represent what real Italians are like. You can be sure that I won’t watch this season of the worst show on TV, the show’s so terrible not even Martin Scorcese could make it worth a damn, but unfortunately “Jersey Shore’s” impact will be felt all over the pop culture grid. If you need me I’ll be in self-imposed exile drowning my sorrows in a plate of fettuccine alfredo.
All I can say is this: thank God we invented Pizza.
FIN
Burnpoetry 