I watch “Jersey Shore” for the drinking and fighting and terrible clothes and irresponsible sexual activity, but I’ve always felt that there was something MORE that I was missing, some kind of deeper meaning. Thankfully, someone at the elite University of Chicago organized a symposium to analyze “Jersey Shore” in the most pretentious terms possible.
[Deena] popped up frequently as a subject of academic discussion, particularly for an episode in which she thwarted the Situation’s attempt to bring home twins by swiping one for herself. In the process she became a trickster figure, upending the show’s heteronormativity and its power dynamics.
*kisses fingers* Ahhh, now THAT is some Grade-A pretentious academic codswallop if I’ve ever seen it. Nevertheless, I could use some more references to Marx and Foucault:
“MTV gets this,” insisted Ellie Marshall, a McGill undergraduate with the distinction of having interned for the show’s executive producer, making her the only conference participant with hands-on experience. One of the slides in her presentation was titled “Bodily Discipline: Foucault + Snooki = BFF.” After she showed a clip of Snooki getting arrested on the beach during Season 3 while onlookers gawked at her celebrity misbehavior, Ms. Marshall argued that it was the audience that was being arrested and rendered docile, not Snooki.
If she didn’t use the phrase “fourth wall,” I will eat my hat.
Atle Mikkola Kjosen, a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario, suggested that the show upends Marx’s proposition that the optimal worker is a regulated worker, one who’s allowed to rest. “Jersey Shore” labor is 24-hour labor, both on and off camera, and the show improves in proportion to the toll that ruthless schedule takes on the protagonists.
And to think, some people saddled with six figures of debt from private universities can’t get jobs in today’s market. It’s unfathomable.
