"But early on, it seemed, the show was morally simpler, those behind and in front of the cameras less practiced, maybe. The episodes largely functioned to vilify the bad and legitimize the good who might not have been so accepted otherwise. And the subject matter meant we were having conversations about oft-controversial topics in our homes and schools. Remember Puck, and how much we hated him in the third season and following, or his co-cast-member, AIDS activist Pedro Zamora, who was so beloved? Zamora, one of the first openly gay men with AIDS portrayed in pop-culture media, died on November 11, 1994, hours after the final episode of season three aired. This was unbelievable (people we'd grown to love on TV did not die, not like this) and heartbreaking. It's no less heartbreaking now—but more believable, having grown up as we have on reality TV."
Jen Doll at The Atlantic marks the twentieth anniversary of MTV's The Real World.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment