Gender role switch in Jersey Shore

Cafe Society
1

The other day I decided I had too many brain cells and chose to catch up on popular cultural references by watching a few episodes of Jersey Shore. A few things stand out in my brain after watching the first four episodes (it takes a lot to kill my brain cells, apparently)

The boys are much, much more into their appearance than the girls. Hair care, working out, tanning, clothes…all big priorities for them, even when just hanging out around the house. Half the time the girls don’t even comb their hair until they are actually getting ready to go out (I’m looking at you, JWOW) and judging from a lot of the girls the guys bring home, clothes, hair and makeup are all pretty low on the list. Snooki scuffs around the house in the rattiest slippers I have ever seen, and all the girls are always digging through piles of clothes dumped all over their beds.

The guys are much more into cooking than the girls, and are apparently quite accomplished scratch cooks, the barbeque thing notwithstanding. They make big, elaborate family-style meals. I’ver yet to see the girls lift a single finger in the kitchen.

The guys are much more devout religion-wise…I’m pretty sure it was one of the guys who asked that they all say grace before their meals, while the girls sniggered. Ok, the guy that SAID the grace kept cracking up, but he tried to keep a straight face in spite of the girls.

The guys seem to have a better work ethic than the girls. They show up to work and don’t whine about it. I didn’t understand why Vinnie had to miss his ENTIRE shift for a doctor’s appointment for pinkeye, but he at least let the boss know and did his best to get a sub. Angelina could not begin to understand why her being bummed at a fight with her boyfriend 12 hours before was NOT considered a valid excuse for being a no-show…and when she DID make it to work she couldn’t muster the strength to hang up a few shirts, because, you know, she is a bartender and can do better stuff.

The boys seem much more sensitive about getting their feelings hurt. Oh, the girls are total drama queens about the slightest word spoken wrong, but the boys seem to lead with their hearts a lot more, and get more bummed out when they are rejected. The girls really don’t seem to care if they hurt anyone…it’s all about them.

All in all, the girls are acting like guys, and the guys seem to have accessed their feminine sides a great deal.

Fortunately, further episodes are not available for watching for weeks, so I can recover my hope for the future of the species by watching PBS documentaries and Dr. Who.

2

Okay, I confess to watching Jersey Shore too. I saw MTV’s “True Life: I Have a Summer Share” back in 2003, and found the Summer Guido culture strangely compelling. This series isn’t as good, but it’s still kind of fun to watch–in a reality show/trainwreck sorta way. :dubious:

I’m bummed that they cut off online viewing after episode 4–I want to see what happened after Snookie got punched in the face!

3

They show extensive highlights from the next couple shows…and then nothing available for the rest of the episodes. Since the series has just had its finale, I don’t know what their rationale is for doing it this way.

The whole guido/guidette thing is so…bizarre…but it’s obvious that Ronnie’s mom was a guidette! I tried, while watching, to imagine what any of these young people would be like as married, settled couples and would really be more interested in seeing how THAT transformation takes place!

4

This is not prejudice. It is an observation tempered by a lifelong wish that I was Italian. An Italian from New York and not Jersey or the western suburbs of Chicago. Y’know, the cool ones. But don’t tell my wife, who, at parties at the Accardo and Giancana places, had her chance to go for the gold. “But they herded all of the women into the kitchen where we talked about recipes and hair styles. I wasn’t interested.”

Knew some Guidos. Comes from living around Chicago. Dad was called by Chicago’s top gossip columnist to encourage him to look more favorably at a site The Guys owned when locating his next big project. Brother went to school with Big Tuna’s nephew, who went on to being a Secret Service agent. Wife was not a phlebotomist but was on duty in the blood bank when Big Tuna died on a gurney stuck in the corner of the ER. The consensus was that it was all for the best that his last confession lacked a human intermediary. :rolleyes:

5

Be careful what you wish for. MTV will follow these people for the next decade.

My college friends and I used to do a summer share in Belmar, NJ years ago when we first graduated college. Belmar is pretty Guido, but not as bad as Seaside Heights where the show is filmed. Seaside is actually pretty sketchy. And yes, we did have a fair number of guidoish Italian guys and girls from Jersey, NY and Long Island. Not as bad as what is in the show, but there definitely were visible guido influences.