Ace Grim, The kidd.

Hidden Masculinities of the Jersey Shore: The Real Situation

There have been many writings on the ideas of masculinity and how the man is portrayed

through different mediums. Defining what a man is has been an intriguing task that not every man

engages in the conscious or unconscious decision of how a man should act. One institution that has

been at the center of this task has been the mass media. Society cannot see the problem of masculinity

because it is right in front of us; we become oblivious to the issue because we live in the moment of the

problem. Men are portrayed as happy go lucky jokesters, powerful jocks, strong and mysterious types,

action heroes, or complete bumbling buffoons. These images men are given are seen throughout

television, people believe them because they relate to some aspects of their lives, become comfortable

with the character and end up liking him because we can escape to the fantasy of watching someone

else’s problems. Stereotypes of men are used to keep on the mask of masculinity and enables society to

portray the role of being a man to children at a young age. Men are seen as in control, we give ourselves

this domination over women and it never leaves because the images keep the value alive. Women have

equal rights, but they are continuously subordinated into objects that men hunt for. Simply not much

more than that, we cannot progress from the problem when images we are given keep snowballing into

the same issue. I believe that the problem of masculinity is that society supplies the negative images

that we usually take as just entertainment. Men are supposed to be muscular holding a beautiful girl,

girls get tan and manicures. The images make up want what we can’t have, they make us feel like we are

always suffering and we need to fulfill our desire for sex appeal. This paper will describe the discourse of

masculinity portrayed in the television series The Jersey Shore.

 The Jersey Shore is considered the new Real World of MTV. Producers; Sally Ann Salsano, Scott

Jeffress, and Jacquelyn French, create a series in which the viewer follows the life at a rental summer

house on the board walk of Seaside Heights, New Jersey. The main objective of the show is quite clear,

show up to work on the days you’re supposed too and you get to stay in the house. The show is about

eight individuals, who are all of Italian-American decent, or what they call “Guido”. Not every Italian is a

Guido or Guidette, the Guido is a tanned, muscular, and blow out haircuts, the Guidette is a dark haired,

tons of makeup, and skimpy outfits. The cast consists of ; Sammi “Sweat Heart” Giancola, age 22, is from

Hazlet, New Jersey. In the first few episodes, Sammi had a relationship first with “The Situation” then

switched to Ronnie in a matter of nights, before the show, she played women’s soccer for William

Patterson University. Vinny Guadginino, age 21, from Staten Island, New York. Vinny is a self proclaimed

momma’s boy, and probably the most docile out of the housemates. Angelina “Jolie” Pivarnick, age 22,

from Staten Island, New York is the “Kim Kardashian of Staten Island”. She had a boy friend when she

worked as bar tender before the show, but that all ended within a few episodes. Jenni “Jwoww” Farley,

age 23, is from Franklin Square, New York. Before moving into the house, Jwoww gave herself breast

implants as a birthday gift to herself and worked as a graphic designer and club promoter, she is

considered the “Resident Big Sister”. Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, age 27, is from Staten Island, New

York. In the first few episodes The Situation gets a little crush on Sammi, but Sammi believes, “Mike

thinks he’s in control of the house”, Mike is a very confident man. Paul “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio, age 28

is from Johnston, Rhode Island. Not only does he have a tanning bed in his house, but his best feature

must be his blow out hair cut in which he works on for, “twenty minutes a day”. And finally, Ronnie

Ortiz, age 23, from Bronx, New York. Within a few episodes, Ronnie begins a relationship with Sammi

after following his own advice the first night the housemates were together, “Never fall in love at the

Jersey Shore”. Throughout season 1, the housemates take full advantage of the night life around their

neighborhood. The house goes out to clubs and bars for one night stands and fist fights. This show gives
a negative portrayal of masculinity and femininity on television. The show has constant themes of

domination, objectification, and violence. Throughout the show the hormone levels rise with each

conflict, most of the time the housemates yell at each other till they turn red trying to prove themselves

correct. The unattractive woman that nobody wants to get personal with is called a ‘grenade’, you

shouldn’t associate with grenades. There also have been some epic moments of violence, Snooki gets

punched in the face by a man at a bar, and Ronnie gets into a fight on the board walk. This show is fuels

the stereotype of male dominance and the objectification of women through media. The men in the

show portray themselves as big muscular power men and the women look petite and want a “gorilla”,

for a man in Snooki’s terms. These images give television a negative impact and cast stereotypes for

themselves.

Television over the past decades have used stock characters or representations of characters

that are stereotypically found in various social classes. These characters build and influence stereotypes

given to society through television. Since the 1950s television has portrayed men, women, child, and the

nuclear family in different roles giving them connotations on how your family should be living their lives.

Whether it’s a drama series or comedy series these stock characters aid their gender identities making

them appear weak or strong as characters. Men become devalued in character when being portrayed as

effeminate; adults become devalued by being portrayed as child like, revoking adult status. To establish

status, class is symbolically coded in gender terms. Higher classes in society become lowered to resolve

contradiction to favor the lower class status. The domestic comedy sitcom has been viewed as

persistently middle class which makes success the expected norm. During the 1960s the working class

heads of the household were usually portrayed as dumb, but loveable. This classification holds the

inversion of an adult to child status, the main character was usually a man, being corrected and saved by

the wife, mom, or female character. During the 1970s the blue collar families weren’t seen on television

sitcoms. During this time period, sitcoms introduced the real life problems that society faced; money,
racism, and abortions. The main characters actions related to the viewer, allowing them to look at

themselves for their own prejudice and beliefs. During the 1980s, television sitcoms still persisted with

character variation themes. Main characters were successful, but they succeeded in spite of themselves,

usually on accident with no aspirations to move upward in society. Depictions of middle class males and

their families subordinate men or assimilate them into their families’ success of failure. The effect of

these images gives the illusion of being contempt in middle class society, and the de masculization of the

working class mans gender confirms the status order of class. Men are given the ‘ok’ to be incompetent

and dumb but loved while holding a family without regard for behavior in society. Television shows the

male role, usually the father figure, as the dumb one even though he is the bread winner. The image

gives society the feeling that even if your life is in the dump, there is someone out there with a similar

problem in a similar solution and everything turns out fine with help of the family. Father knows best

and will give life lessons always helping the children prosper and the mother is usually cooking, keeping

the house in order and applying band-aids. When roles switch the mother can be lawyer, something

higher than just a high school degree, and dad would be seen as a blue collar worker, usually looking for

the lost remote when not working. Usually when one parent is superior, the other is inferior to the other

parent and that gap is obvious on most shows.

The Jersey Shore, seen as reality TV, portrays the characters as strangers that soon become a

family over the days spent at the shore house. “Characters are members of a family in which the major

portion of the actions is among the family members.” (Butsch, 1992) Ranked in the top twenty in the

Neilson Ratings, the show has very popular characters with conflicting personalities that fuels the show

with drama.

The show revolves around work in a T-shirt shop, booze, the gym, tanning, doing laundry, and

significant others. The show gives these characters roles in which they seem not to ‘play’ but actually
live. Imagine a house with eight drunken adults in Seaside Heights, New Jersey for a night? You wonder

where the ‘real’ in reality TV comes from.

Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino, appears to take the role of alpha male by his aggression and

violent behavior. “The heads of the house were consistently portrayed as dumb, but lovable men who

cared about their families.” (Butsch,1992)Not claiming that the Situation is in any way ‘dumb’ but he

gets himself into sticky situations. Due to irresponsible actions, the women in the house usually pick up

the pieces from the situation he created.

The women are not any different, they hold the roles that society must claim as a cultural norm.

The first night in the house, the housemates had a house warming party with themselves. Deanna

‘Snooki’ Polizzi, the first night became highly intoxicated, went into the hot tub in her underwear, and

acted promiscuous towards the other male housemates. On the first night, Snooki portrays the ‘dumb

blonde’, someone incompetent and incapable of surviving without a male ego to tell her to ‘calm down’

and to put her to bed so she can sleep her alcohol off. Television portrays the characters on the show in

their own way, because it is reality television. The characters are filmed living their lives, subjecting

themselves into the stereotypes they are thrown into due to television.

Everyman has a routine they wake up in the morning, regardless of what it is there are days that

the man steps out of his cave. There is something deeper than the routine of the normal shirt, jeans,

shoes image we are given. Men are not just models put up together once and rarely touched, in reality

men continuously ‘tune up’ their bodies. Is taking care of your body as a man seems to be against the

man-code of our normative masculine society? The fear of being perceived as homosexual definitely

puts an issue on the nature of mans embodied identity. Men constantly tune up their bodies by working

out, getting haircuts, even tattoos, but certain identities are needed more work to ensure their

masculinities. Every man has a routine they wake up to in the morning; men establish their identities
through their bodies. Men look at each other in a heterosexual way but to construct and police

appropriate masculine behaviors, constantly regulating ‘the normal’. Men are seen as in control, healthy

and powerful but how many actually feel that way, but can’t express it? That number may never be

known because men cannot exclaim to another male friend, “do these jeans make my butt look big?”

because he may get the wrong idea of his curious friend. The fear of being perceived as homosexual

definitely puts and issue on the nature of mans embodied identity. Men are supposed to be men,

sounds easy enough, if your gay, you’re not a man. This concept seems right to some, but who is right

and who is wrong? Why do men need to compete for power and conquer those who are inferior? “Men

are actually engaged in constructing and policing appropriate masculine behaviors regulating normative

masculinity,”(Gill,2005) the normative masculinity is what’s being perceived as wrong, because you

clearly are right. We are supposed to be fit, clean, and gentlemen, can everyone fit into that model?

Men gain identity through their bodies, usually in the visual culture casted for us, so men can keep their

image. These identities created helps men express themselves with unique forms of fashion and

opportunity, or does it? The body sends messages to others that defines our sexuality. Society keeps

these norms in place by portraying the homosexual and heterosexual in stereotypes that our culture

follows. If it looks gay, the message your body is sending to others is that you are gay. The idea of being

able see and detect a gay person doesn’t help, but in fact oppresses the idea of expressing ones true

feelings. Masculinity is defended by images of the dominate male who is always in control, we must

follow that norm or become shunned from society for being perceived as different.

The men of the The Jersey Shore flaunt their bodies, they appear obsessive. A man is humble, in

control and a gentleman-according to the normative perspective society created. The Jersey Shore cast

violates the normative and hegemonic masculinities that is the ideal man and makes him into a

immature, drunk, muscular, party animal man’s-man. Men try not to flaunt themselves because they
tend to look obsessive. You need to take care of yourself but can’t show that that’s how you get up in

the morning. The Jersey Shore men take care of themselves, that’s no lie. Abs, nice hair, and always

followed around by dressed up women. Their motto, “GTL, or Gym, Tan, Laundry.” This concept seems

to be feminized, how do the men retain their masculinity? Through domination and submission, by

looking big and muscular, but sadly, a girl in your arms doesn’t make you man. These masculinities are

portrayed negatively in society, they go out to night clubs, work out, sleep around with random people,

and it becomes civilized because it is watched through the television medium.

In television the image of the man has changed throughout time to build and enhance the

representation of the man to meet the standards that the country needed in society. Throughout time

man was portrayed differently by the media, building the ego of the working class. The working class

man becomes a back drop for the question, “what is man?” The image of man changes throughout time;

Hollywood put together the gentleman to the psycho-path vs. the hero saving the damsel in distress to

the mysterious rebel. Hollywood tired to portray the working class life, after the Vietnam War ended,

movies portrayed the man as powerful and rich, a genre of working class films. Movies such as The

Godfather, showed a genre of ethnic working class films. This portrayed the brother hood of male

bonding, people stuck in a society they cannot control and escape and get out through power and

dominance. They are shown as rough, powerful and aggressive with money but lack sensitivity. In the

film, Bloodbrothers, portrays the struggle of an attempt to feminize the working class by a struggle

between a construction job or being a pediatric hospital assistant. The hospital job is looked at as

feminine and the protagonist must choose either to fit in society or pursue his career. Then comes a

different story line of the underdog in Rocky, the protagonist has a conflict of defeating his opponent,

and the conflict in his own life being himself. Showing dominance and power, but fighting to keep your

family together seemed to be the image society had to see. After historical events like Sputniks and

Vietnam, men weren’t just portrayed as workers holding up the family, but as in control and powerful,
not to seem inferior to anyone. Lighthearted violence came into television during these times; men

could not be seen as living in a inferior country to another country. Movies gave us the image we went

to see, a hero saving the day from evil or the underdog success story through an aggressive struggle

from outside means. People turned to sexual revolutions and human potential to move the portrayal of

man as the powerful being. The characters of these times tell the tales of men who have potential of

power, sex appeal, and sensitivity. These images are ideals that apparently appeal to women and are

used in a way of dominance over women through Hollywood movies and media images. Masculinity

used to be seen as effeminate, but when privilege of power is in jeopardy, media will reinvent the man

to become the powerful, assuring people of their masculinities.

When did the raw domestic social ideal fade and allow holiigans like the Jersey Shore come into

television? When did TV turn from cowboys, spacemen, and superheroes go to middle class of eight

individuals who drink and fight eachother ? The Jersey Shore depicts a house of primarily Italian,

“Guido’s”, and making them work to keep rent. Their job is to run a t-shirt shop on the board walk of

Seaside Heights, New Jersey in season 1. At night they drink, party, and make bad decisions with

eachoter, is this the social realism that society see’s as acceptable and is this an accurate depiction of

the working class people ? The Jersey Shore seems like the dream life; big house on the shore, being able

to whatever you please-whenever you please. These dreams though could pose a problem for society,

which class do these people actually play role in? If this is the depiction of the social class, how do

people get away with this behavior? Throughout society and television time line families, male roles,

female roles, and children’s roles were all precieved as different throughout time. Pre war, war time,

and post war television changes almost for the times being lived. Pre war they broad casted cowboys,

Indians, and war-is this America getting excited for fight? During war time it becomes family time-family

is ok if you love them. You must become close to your family because you never know what you can lose

till you lose it, we all need to support one another. During the post war time period people started to
see outside the box, women are not just bodies anymore. These ideas are played with during the times-

but what about our time? Today reality TV appears to portray what society wished they can have; a

worry free , rich life style where you have no responsibility for your own actions.

The best example of civilized masculinity is through organized sports. Football, boxing, rugby, and any

other full contact sport attracts millions of viewers. Men’s sports have numerous full contact sports that

women normally don’t have the option of playing, or its less aggressive due to restrictions. Little leagues

and junior teams introduce kids at a young age and recruit them to play contact sports. The human body

is turned into a weapon regularly and used against othes for supriotiy or recognition. These practices

often result in pain, injury, and even death. The advantages of winning becomes an ideal for a sense of

priority and superiority. Having power taken from you ultimately becomes a loss of privilege in society,

something is greater than yourself. Not winning simply means losing, there becomes little honor in

‘runner up’. Masculinity in sports is about who can hit harder and be more aggressive; this idea is

civilized and idolized early on in childhood development. Here boys are taught to destroy, level,

annihilate, and bench their opponents while girls are marginalize to limited contact, this form of

masculinity is taught and ascended from the elders. These ideas make the structure in which society

forms itself around, the idea of being respected, intimidating, aggressive, and violent holds superiority.

The idea of sports is a very simple and straight forward idea of competition through the practice of a

shared activity. Today, football has become a center for masculinity, and almost a guideline of how you

should be in order to gain the respect of most people. Because little leagues and junior teams recruit

kids at a young age, children are able to experience sports as a way to gain commitment and youthful

growth. Sports itself is not a negative impact on children, the ideals and current standards of sports uses

its machismo to dominate over women. The men in the NFL are big and muscular who tower over most

average sized people. The problem doesn’t lie with the concept of throwing a football, or the rules of

the game, or who plays the game, the problem starts at the beginning. Growing up, children get thrown
into a caste system of their body sizes. Tall children are asked if they want to play basketball, big

children are asked if they want to become football players. Football players bodies tend to not be

average, but are supposed to be big and muscular, superior to their size, nobody would want to mess

with a big guy. A sport portrays masculinity as something you need to work for, something that only

champions can achieve. We see huge, muscular men wearing nice clothing and fancy jewelry and envy

their power. Failure is for those who are weak; the only way to get to the top of competition is to beat

your opponent. There is a constant sense of having to be superior to others; masculinity becomes the

fear of losing the privilege of having power over others. (Messner, 1990)

When fueled with five shots of Jaeger, four Corona’s and two Irish car bombs your reasonability

and rational mindset is shot backward like the first shot of that night. The Jersey Shore cast tends to be

in that state of mind quite a lot. During the show the cast gets into numerous heated arguments with

themselves, and what you can’t exactly call an ‘innocent by-stander’. In season 1, Ronnie, fights another

man on the boardwalk of Seaside Heights, New Jersey. The fight starts in a bar when the man apparently

becomes aggressive towards Sammi and Ronnie. When Sammi and Ronnie leave they head out of the

bar and down the board walk, as the man and a girl follow them outside and being to taunt the pair.

Ronnie, walking with Sammi, trying to walk away from a possible series of unfortunate events, gets

caught up in a mess when Sammi starts to talk back to the two trouble makers. Ronnie in the end gets

into a fight on the board walk, easily taking down the man showing his aggression and superiority over

him. In season 1 as well, the housemates are at another club and someone calls Jwoww ‘fat’. Clearly a

bad decision, Jwoww punches, pulls hair, and scratches the girl getting pulled away by a few bouncers in

a matter of seconds. The cast seems to need to show their superiority, their alpha male or female by

curing and fighting each other and other not-so-innocent bystanders.

 Commercial TV sells audiences to advertisers, audiences are gendered by the programming men

and women look at. Programming is a gender bias; women can find shows appeals to them and when

they would most likely be home, during the middle of the day. Men can find shows appealing to them

when they would most likely be viewing television, at night. Advertisers know this and decide what

commercials they should buy channel time slots to play specific commercials. Programming decided by

what the advertising companies know will appeal to what gender and age by gender bias for the ads.

The industry of television customizes programs for audiences, or ‘gendered television’. Television

portrays different images of masculinity and femininity; it serves to emphasize a dominate version of

gender while de-emphasizing others. During most day time soap operas for example, commercials are

aimed to appeal to the female homemaker. Women are targeted with commercials that sell weight loss,

hygiene products and make-up. Sports programming has appealed towards men, airing commercials for

automotive products, business services, and beer. What appears to be the next thing you need to

purchase in reality is just a planned scheduled ad that advertisers created for viewers to fall into and buy

the item being advertised. Cinema, television, and magazines become technologies of gender,

representation develops interest, identity and desire.

The Jersey Shore cast seem to be obsessed with themselves and how much better they are than

their own housemates. The ‘family’ encourages each other to drink excessively, hook up with random

men and women, party, and get into fights in public. These characters become role models, their

behaviors are mocked and it sells, why? Then men on the show work on their hair, bodies and kill count.

What man doesn’t want to be the best looking, most intimidating alpha male? The alpha male they

create deletes the normal morals of a hard working person. The famous, Paulie DJ is known for his blow

out hair cut, which he works on, “twenty minutes a day”, yet he is one of the two housemates who

actually ahs a college degree. Mike, “The Situation”, keeps his laundry clean and fresh on his washboard

abs, women die for it. During the commercials, thankfully they advertise everything you need to be just
like ‘The Situation’ or Paulie. Continuously throughout the show commercials for the ‘BowFlex’, Pro-

Activ Acne Medication’, protein suppliments, work out bras, shoes, and make-ups. Conveniently we all

now can get big, clean faced, and healthy like the Jersey Shore cast. Commercial television sells

audiences to advertisers. Audiences are gender decided and the programming decided. As television is

gender divided so are the programs to be seen by the popular gender viewing the product, this process

makes it easy to sell what you should want to be seeing.

The Jersey Shore is a living example of machismo at its finest. The men flaunt their muscular

bodies showing off their dominance towards women. These ideas of that what they are doing is what a

man does, subordinates the women into objects in which they want to acquire. The women believe that

they want a man like that, and they must dress themselves up a certain way to acquire that man. This

paper has looked at the masculinity behind the Jersey Shore and the ideas and figure heads behind it.

How the cast portrays the Guido lifestyle puts masculinity into jeopardy allowing such behavior to

become civilized and idolized on television.

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Craig, S. (1993). Selling Masculinities, Selling Femininities: Multiple Genders and the Economics
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Gill, R. (2007). Gender and the Media . In Gender and the Media. Malden, Ma: Polity Press .

Gill, R; Henwood, K.; Mclean, C. (2005) Body projects and the regulation of normative

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Messner, M. (1990). When bodies are weapons; Masculinity and violence in sport. International review

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