Jersey Shore: Guidos in the Wilderness
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During the greatest sociological experiment of our time, we've seen our eight subjects in their natural habitat in New Jersey, in their adopted homes of Miami and Florence, but never have we seen them actually interact with, you know, nature. There is a reason for that.
Last night our hapless band or pranksters decided they would go camping. When Deena floated the idea, it was met with a resounding, "Guidos don't go camping." That makes sense. This is an urban race. Even from far back their ancestors come from the bulging metropolis of Rome. It has been thousands of years since they have had to live without the creature comforts of living in a cosmopolitan city. Well, Great Neck isn't really cosmopolitan, but it's on the LIRR, so you can get to New York pretty easily from there. But, you know, it's not rural.
In order to trudge out into the wild, the guidos first engage in one of the activities they are adept at: shopping. Yes, this is like their form of hunting where they go out into public and stalk things that are essential to their lifestyle. They don't kill them with bullets, they kill them with money. That is the guido way. They go to a camping store and buy tents and coolers and a toilet and some other strange stand up tent thing and take them into the woods and make a little tent city. This is how the guidos need to operate. Even when in the wilderness, they need to make some sort of cityscape in order to feel comfortable.
The Situation had the hardest time of all adjusting, paranoid that he would be crushed by a bear or eaten alive by a giant spider that has been crawling through the bowels of a mountain for the past ten decades. It's the sounds. The sounds that he just can't place. That is what is driving him crazy, like he's the most steroided-out hero of a Hitchcock movie (a Sitchcock movie?). He reacts by burning a tree that is still alive. This is stupid, as the other guidos point out. Not only will it be smokey and barely burn (without copious amounts of lighter fluid poured on it) but it is a destructive and aggressive act to the environment around him. Maybe it was some sort of sacrifice to the Duck Phone for abandoning it. Maybe it was a way to show nature that he is, in fact, the one in charge. Maybe he's just a stupid Beavis who wants to say "Heh Fire Fire Heh."
Then, in the morning, Sitch is rounding up everyone to leave as soon as possible. He can't take one more minute away from the sources of his strength, the gym, tanning salon, and laundromat. They clean up the extensive mess they made (seriously, how can six creatures make such a mess in the woods?) and head on their way. If there's one thing we learned, it's that guidos shouldn't camp.
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Speaking of the Situation we had a Situation of the most Situationiest Situations. When he wakes up to discover Jionni alone, he asks him to sit down and chat and tells him, as a man, that he hooked up with his girlfriend. This was always a really stupid plan that the Situation seems to have concocted after one too many screenings of Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo. It really was the end of the world in that it didn't end with a bang, but a whimper. Jionni said, "OK, thanks for telling me," and then went back upstairs to tell his girlfriend what happened.
And he was laughing about it. Jionni has the exact appropriate reaction in this (har har) Situation. He sides with his girlfriend and doesn't believe the clown that thinks a guy will take his side over his girlfriend's. This probably has to do with the tying binds of Guy Code, but The Situation only evokes Guy Code when it serves his purposes. Still he thinks that if he appeals to Jionni, as a man, that he will get some sort of reaction. He does not.
The Situation, of course, thinks that he dropped some giant bomb that is going to change things in the house and he's just waiting for the explosion. However it never comes. He played his hand badly. He goes around telling everyone in the house what he did like he's a toddler showing off the giant turd he took in the big boy toilet. This whole thing is just so foul, and smells even worse than toddler turd.
The strange thing is that all the other guidos in the house think that Jionni's reaction is bad. Sammi thinks that he should be pissed. For her a man shows his affection through his anger, and if he doesn't fight with her, it means he doesn't love her. The boys think it means that he's cheating on Snooki. From what we've witnessed of Jionni, that doesn't seem to be the case. He's too mild mannered. They just assume that he is because they would be sleeping around. Maybe that means Jionni isn't, in fact, a guido. Maybe he's just a real person, because he acted like a real person should act in the face of the Situation's situation.
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Snooki eventually does have a reaction to The Situation, but it comes much later after the group has a food fight. It starts innocently enough with the crew tossing food back and forth over Family Dinner, but Snooki soon finds an opening to take out all of her aggression on Sitch and they start just hurling food and condiments at each other. It becomes entirely personal.
This is so the guido way. They can never resolve their issues unless there is a prank involved. The wronged party has to prank the other one and, if the prank is good, then all will be forgiven. This fight is ideal for a guido resolution because both Snooki and Sitch feel wronged so they both get to "prank" each other with food.
Then Snooki uses the food dripping off her body to soil Situation's bed. We all know that in the guido culture the bed is an embodiment of the guido's soul, so for her to sully it like that is like attacking his very essence. It just gets worse from there and we see this screaming match above.
Nothing is ever going to be resolved between these two. It's classic he-said-she-said. We'll never know the truth and they've both behaved horribly. They should evoke the great guido concept of "neutralizing" and say that the harm they've inflicted on each other voids itself out and move on. No one cares about this anymore. The Situation needs to find a new way to feel important, because this just isn't working anymore.
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Speaking of pranks there was a strange altercation last night between Deena and Joey, the boy she's been sweating all summer. Last time we saw them at Karma, Deena was all up in his grill about if he really liked her and he got so annoyed with her that he called her crazy and flirted with another girl. She said she was "done." We all know what that means.
Apparently, somehow, they started talking again. Why he would call her after she freaked out on him, I have no idea and why she would continue to humiliate herself by calling him, I also have no idea. I just don't know with this. Why is Deena calling boys anyway. Why can't she just be a happy lesbian? Why?
She sets up a date with Joey but wants to make sure that he's not just using her for sex. When is that ever a problem for the guidos. They're always using each other for sex. That's part of the culture. Why does that have to change? I think that Deena has a bit of relationship Stockholm Syndrome because all the other girls have boyfriends and now she feels like she needs one too.
But everyone in the house, for some reason that is never made quite clear to us, thinks that Joey is wrong for Deena. That seems to be true, considering he has so far treated her like crap, but it's almost as if they know something they're not telling us or not telling Deena. What is Joey's big secret? Did he have a threeway with Vinny and DJ Paulie Debauchery or something?
They set up a date, but then Deena decides that she doesn't want to go, because all of her housemates hate him so much. When he gets there, he calls to tell Deena he's arrived. What, he can't knock on the door? This guy is a supreme asshole. So, first DJ Paulie Dejected and then JWOWW get on the phone to tell him that it's over and Deena is sick and he is an asshole. Oh the strange ways in which the guido clan churns. We'll never fully understand it.
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As we saw earlier pranks are a way for the guidos to settle their differences, it is also a way for them to get respect. That is when when everyone else goes camping Vinny and DJ Paulie Disser stay at home. Mostly it's because guidos don't camp, but it's also because they want to play the ultimate prank.
After thinking of some ideas they come up with the brilliant scheme of literally turning the house inside out and putting all the inside furniture outside and all the outside furniture inside so that when everyone gets home, they will be shocked, amazed, amused, and maybe a little bit pissed. They're moving out in a few days anyway, so who cares if they have to pack up all their possessions. They'd have to do it anyway.
It's a brilliant move on DJ Paulie Deception and Vinny's part, another example of why they are such a sterling couple. It's also the perfect objective correlative of Jersey Shore they took the things that were happening inside their house and put them outside for all the world to see. And they took the things from the outside (like fame and attention) and turned them inward, as if we wouldn't notice. This is the world we live in now, with a hammock in the living room and our beds on the room. It's an empty house that is cluttered with furniture we can't really use.
This is how they'll leave the house, confused and convoluted. With us knowing as much about them as they exit as we did going in. And when the last dresser drawer was set and the last inch of astro turf laid down, DJ Paulie Done and Vinny surveyed what they had done, the brilliant mess they had created, and for a moment they were happy. Then it woke them out of their smug trance, the honking of their household god, The Duck Phone. It blurted out its mutant call, bringing them to his attention, lording itself over them, calling them to action. "Do you think it's them?" DJ Paulie Destiny asked. "I don't know who it is. It could be anyone," Vinny replied and they just looked at it, not sure what to do. In that minute, Vinny felt more alone than he'd ever felt in his life, knowing that this would all be over soon. The crew would come back and see their handiwork and they would be gone the next day. It would all be over, this thing he loved so much, all these friends he made and respected and thought were just hilarious. The fights he had and the assholes he worked for. It would all be over and he didn't know what was next, what he would do with himself. He loved the opportunity he had and hated it for spoiling him. He would never get so rich having so much fun again. Never. And he wondered if this was it: the peak. If it was all down hill after that. Just as he was about to give in to anxiety and despair, the doorknob turned, and something wonderful was coming in from the other side.
