Jersey Shore may have started with a dumb and offensive premise — eight over-tanned men and women of supposedly Italian descent take over a beachside apartment and all hell breaks lose — but the creators turned out to be pretty shrewd. The show ultimately changed the world of reality TV.
When the reality series premiered, there was an outcry over how the show played on crass stereotypes about modern Italian-Americans, while others laughed at the ridiculousness displayed on screen.
But over the course of six seasons, Jersey Shore did “as much to dismantle stereotypes as reinforce them,” writes Esquire. The show pointed out how preposterous the stereotypes were, and in the end, the cast members were really portrayed as family. They always had each other’s backs, and the show was based around the idea that you want to root for the stars, even if they acted a little ridiculous at times. Since Jersey Shore premiered, other shows have tried to follow this formula, and some have failed. The Bachelor in Paradise practically begs viewers to root for members to fall. But Real Housewives covers financial instability, metal illness and the death of family members in very frank ways.
Jersey Shore is back on air, and the new episodes, set in Miami Beach, don’t even pretend that time hasn’t passed. But the new show does reckon with the past: The Situation is two years sober and faces tax evasion charges, which he pled guilty and addressed on camera. Snookie and JWoww tear up as they talk about missing their families. The show continues to display real, flawed and surprisingly relatable people, Esquire writes.
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