The Real World: Back to New Orleans, Episode 03
“I don’t give a fudge what anybody thinks.” - Knight
Despite what many people think, Mardi Gras isn’t some devil weed that transforms ordinary people into stark-raving-mad lunatics who drunkenly lurch around New Orleans fueled by an insatiable thirst for cheap, plastic beads and their own depraved desperation. While the level and frequency of one’s intoxication may be slightly above average for the two or so weeks that parades run down St. Charles Avenue, the scale of Mardi Gras debauchery seldom reaches wide-scale and wanton corruption of moral decency.
The true phenomenon was very accurately documented in the episode of Treme that was set on Fat Tuesday proper. Even though alcohol and drug use was prevalent, few - if any - of the characters behaved in a way that was totally unexpected. Sure, the drinkers started drinking earlier, the smokers smoked more often and the cokeheads did coke under less sanitary conditions, but even the expanded revelry for which the season is notorious was shown to have limits. Mardi Gras is crazy and people do cut loose, but the mere fact that Easter is nigh does not turn virgins into sluts, sluts into boozehounds or boozehounds into crackheads.
Given the fact that no one had to be rushed to the hospital or took part in a PCP fueled street orgy, I’d say MTV has given the holiday a pretty fair shake so far. There was, however, something about this week’s episode that I did manage to find extremely troubling.
The Real World: Back to New Orleans, Episode 01
“Boom! Let’s pose!” - Preston
In the months before and during the filming of this season, I made a pretty big stink about MTV coming back to the Crescent City. Not since Real World: Seattle has a season of the show made the host city look like anything more than an hedonistic enabler for a group of bilzer-brained chuckleheads’ desire to drink alcohol in a manner that most people outgrow by the time they graduate high school. While I quickly discovered that New Orleans nightlife has more to offer than over sized beers and cheesy cover bands on Bourbon Street, it would be disingenuous to act like these things do not exist or that some people do not like that type of stuff. But after a noteworthy season of Treme gave America a glimpse of the magnificent splendor that is found on some of the other sides of New Orleans, I will be disappointed if MTV spends 13 weeks chronicling the adventures of shitfaced attention whores as they pass out in a dark corner of Razoo.
Only time will tell how the Big Easy is portrayed during this go’round, but thankfully nothing came of my bigger, more pragmatic fear about a reality TV production crew descending on the city: I assumed it was only a matter of time before these clowns started showing up at my favorite bars and completely ruined my social life. I only crossed paths with the cast on one occasion, and while it was plenty annoying, my world did not come crashing down upon itself. So I guess that is something to build on, right?
