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MTV’s new reality series Douchebag Island Jersey Shore certainly wouldn’t be the first to depict Italian-Americans in a less than ideal light, but it’s pissing people off more than your warm and fuzzy Sopranos and it hasn’t even aired yet. The show presents a setup similar to The Real World in that a group of young, nubile attention whores move into a summer share and things get “real”, except this time the lens is fixed firmly on “guidos” in Seaside Heights, NJ.

All of the usual guido stereotypes are in place and they are resplendent–the obnoxious tans, pointed gelled hair and crass narcissism. A Google query for “douchebag” will typically yield these kind of images, basically. This sounds like par for the course for MTV, but now that they’ve gotten around to Italian-Americans, UNICO is pissed. Haha. The president of the Italian-American service organization, in fact, calls it “trash television” and wants the show pulled.

I wish I had it in me to sympathize. You see, MTV and their sister networks BET and VH1 have done so much to perpetuate many of the hot messes in American sub-cultures since the upstanding don’t provide a great deal of entertainment. Although most of the exploitation is at the expense of Black folks, they touch on notions of “white trash” and seem to go out of their way to throw women under the bus. It was only a matter of time that guidos would get the treatment, what with the recent popularity of The Brooklyn Fade.

I understand the danger with a show like this. The impressionable may walk away thinking they have a handle on the ways and wiles of Italians when this show is only an exploitation of North Eastern Italian-Americans magnified for high drama and comedy. But too bad. After all the uproar coming from the Black community and women’s groups over the Flavor of Love franchise to zero effect, the only way MTV and Viacom can set things right (short of ending production on all these shows) is to simply go down the list and figure out which ethnic group or minority they want to exploit next. America is a melting pot, so they’ll have plenty of pitches for years to come. I’m all for exploitation if it’s equal opportunity.

Tags: douchebags, guidos, jersey shore, mtv