‘The Real World: Go Big or Go Home’ premiere review: Not the same world
About thirty minutes into the premiere of “The Real World’s” 31st season entitled “Go Big or Go Home,” we anticipated that our review was going to just be coming on year and ripping the show a new one. The entire subtitle was absurd, as was the notion of getting people like Dione a.k.a. “Jungle Boy” giving themselves their own nickname, as was the fact of even casting someone who has a Confederate flag in their audition video.
Yet, this is “The Real World,” and they pride themselves on giving you people from all walks of life, however ridiculous they may be. So when someone like Jenna starts off a sentence with the equivalent of “not to sound racist,” you know that there is NOTHING GOOD that can follow it. Nothing. She wins the award for most uncomfortable cast member through one episode, mostly because there is nothing that people like Ceejai and Dean probably enjoy more than having a young, white woman from the south try to teach them about the way things are when it comes to race in her neck of the woods.
Yet, Ceejai’s history with domestic violence broke our heart, and her story coupled with the cast signing away their memories into the sky in the closing minutes were somewhat moving. It was a nice reminder that there is humanity here somewhere with these people, even if we do think that they are at the same time people who compare certain parts of the female body to gold, silver, aluminium, or probably any other metal on the periodic table.
Here are a few odds and ends from the premiere:
1. Having people “earn their spot” by jumping out of a hot-air balloon is pretty stupid. If we want to watch that, we’ll go check out “The Amazing Race.”
2. Maybe Kailah and Jungle Boy will hook up. Maybe not. Really, we don’t care too much one way or another. Just never let Dione wear those pants again that he had on at the start of the show.
3. Jenna’s entire M.O. on the show seems to be A) talking about her appearance, B) being offensive, and C) talking about some of the things that she can do, such as cooking, while wearing a bikini.
4. Sabrina may actually think that she is the greatest person to have ever lived.
So yea, this show is a terrible mess that is so far from its original premise, it’s not even really “The Real World” anymore. Yet, we watched, we were slightly moved near the end, and we plan on continue watching the rest of the season. We suppose that this goes for something. Grade: C+.
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