MTV’s The Situation recently released his long-awaited opus entitled Here’s the Situation: A Guide to Creeping on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades, and Getting in Your GTL on the Jersey Shore. In the coming days, I’ll post what I’m sure will be one of thousands of academic reviews.
Introduction
The book opens, as so many great works do, with a quotation from another famous Italian. The lines chosen from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations remind us of our own fleeting existence in this world, an existence that will most likely be forgotten by all in 100 years time. Will The Situation, like Aurelius himself, avoid such a fate? Will Here’s the Situation be recognized as one of the greatest collection of thoughts of our time? Will my first edition be worth millions one day? The Situation has given himself 133 pages to attain immortality.
Before beginning the main body of his work, Sitch (if I may be so cavalier as to use such an informal nickname in this review) addresses the first of what I’m sure will be many pressing issues in the Italian-American community: the use of the word “guido.” While he admits that it is not a word he employs frequently, he also champions the right his fellow Italians to reclaim the word, much like the GLBTQ community has reclaimed “queer.” In fact, he challenges Irish-Americans to find their own terminology to rally around by addressing this section to “Freckles McGee.” By doing so, he reminds the Irish of the racism they faced decades ago, and challenges their belief that they have been truly accepted as part of White society.
While he recognizes that guido can be used in a derogatory fashion, he rejects the idea that it is, by its nature, an insult. It is a word that is part of Italian-Americans themselves, representative of their lifestyle and heritage. Sitch argues that the spirit of guido goes back to youth, “To the days prehistoric kindergarten when we all thought the tooth fairy was alive.” (p. X) This quote raises fascinating questions: Those days of kindergarten, what made them “prehistoric”? Is The Situation making a subtle point about the loss of innocence? Was learning of the tooth fairy’s death so traumatizing for him that it marked the birth of his pessimistic view of life evidenced by the quotation that opened the book? Was the realization that such magic was not real so damaging to young Sitch that it led him down a path that resulted in the methodical training regimen he employs today? Having learned of the mortality of childhood figures, he perhaps set out to avoid his own mortality as long as possible.
Such an argument may seem farfetched, but let me add an additional piece of evidence. In the season two episode “Sleeping with the Enemy,” The Situation says the following regarding the unhealthy Sammi-Ronnie relationship: “And, uh, ya know, she just took it and smiled. Just like when you’re little and you want to believe Santa Claus is alive. F*ckin’ Santa Claus is dead.” Clearly, the wound is still raw for The Situation. He wonders why everyone won’t wake up and realize that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and (we assume) the Easter Bunny are dead. Why do we cling to these figures? Are we afraid to see how the world really is? Only the Sitch knows that the truth will lead to our empowerment.
Next: The G in GTL
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