last time i found you to write the discussion not very well. The professor said It would be good to see more direct connection to the reference you make from the reading.

9

Country Hicks and Urban Cliques._

Mediating Race, Reality, and Liberalism on MTV's The Real World

Jon Kraszewski

Within the very first minutes of its premiere, MTV's The Real World an­ nounced that race would be one of the show's most prominent cultural concerns. As ifs premise, the first season brought together seven strangers between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six in a luxurious New York City loft for thirteen we'eks.1 The s�ies seemed to capture-a real-life portrayal of young adults living in the wake_ of the Rodney King trial and Los Ange­ les. riots, both of which occurred just a few months before The Real World's May 1992 debut. As·the roommates sat down for their first dinner, conflict erupted between three housemates: Heather, Kevin, and Julie. Heather and Kevin were twp African Americans already living in New York City; Heather was working � a professional rapper, and Kevin was a professional writer. Julie, still in a Mt of culture shock, had just moved to the city fr�mAlabama. As Heather's. beeper went off during dinner, Julie asked, "Do you sell drugs? Why do you have a beeper?"

,b,lthough the very title The Real litlorld propounds that the show simply presents reality, we should interrogJ:Lte such face-value claims and explore how this opening· scene mediates race and reality itself. The Real World does not simply locate the reality of a. racist statement arid neutrally de­ liver it to an audience. Although not s¢pted, the show actively constructs what reality and racism are for its audience through a variety of produc-

. tion practic�-:- .

For instance, the reality: encountered .

on the show .

was par- tially created through the casting decisions of the. producers, Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jon�than Murray, who .chose these three individuals who.

179

180 ]ON KRASZEWSKI

The friendship between Julie and Heather was constructed as a solution to the · problem of rural white racism on The Real World (season one).

might have .

potential conflicts over race. The !

reality was also shaped by the decisions made about where to film and what to film.,the producers chose to set the ·show in New York City; which automatically put Julie in the ·po­ sition of outsider, and the directors chose l:o film. the dinner in the first place. Thus, the producers selected potential element$ of racial conflict and misunderstanding, setting up possible versions of reality for the show�' Editing also shaped· the reality of the issue. The show produces millions of hours of footage that the producers, in the case of the New York season, cut into thirteen twenty-two-minute episod�s: Numerous events took place when the roommates first moved into the loft, and the producers could have focused on any of them to stap: the show.· Odds are that some of them raised different issues of racism. For example, what if the show fi:x:ate.d on a racist statement fi:on;i. one of the white, liberal, and urban roommates? The very idea of racism and where-it is located would be cliff-

Country Hicks and Urban Cliques 181 .

erent ]finally; the narratiye structure of the series placed the event as a cat.: alyst that brought Julie and Heather together, where they would eventually

. overcome this incident and become best friends ,Hence, the show narra- · ,tively constructs this opening event less as a quintessential moment of U.S. racism, and inore as a lesson of how people can overcome and discard. · their ·own racisms. Rather .than assuming that this incident involving Julie, Heather, and Kevin displayed the reality of racism. and race relations in the United States, it's better to ask why The Real Woi-ld would use this event to mediate racism and reality to its audience.

Jn exploring this issue, it helps to conceive of a show like The Real World as, on some level, a media event: John Fiske defines this term-as

an indication that in a postmodern world we can no longer rely on a stable relationship or clear distinction between a "real" event and its mediated rep­ resentation: Consequently, we can no longer work with the ideas that the "real" is more important, significant, or even "tnie" than the representation. A media event, then, is not � mere representation of what happened, but it has its own reality.2

In other weirds, media that attempts to 1ocument reality actually shapes it, filtering it through a variety of discourses and unequal fields of social power. But in ·using Fiske's concept or' the media event, we should pay ·car.eful attention to key differences between Fiske's project and my own.o One is the nature of the event itsel£ Fiske analyzes events that happen once: the beating of Rodney King, the Los Angeles riots, or the 0. J. Simp­ son trial. Part of Fiske's goal is to examine how these taped events are re­ peatable when various agents rt;play and alter them in legal and media in­ stitutions, recasting the tapes in new: discourses and different fields of so­ cial power. The Real Wor-ld, on i;he contrary; uses a different concept ofo time. A new episode arrs during each week ofa new season, and the pro­ ducers create one or two :new seasons each year, with a season lastjng be­ tween three and six months. �s brings with it different strategies for me- diating reality, most notably the casting of roommates, the editing of theo · show, production de�isions of what to :fihn, and the organization of events into a serial narrative. We need to .consider how these production .deci­ sions specific to a reality TV show construct · cultural representations ofo racism. Another difference between Fiske's project and mine is that Fiske draws on a large number of media outlets, ranging from the courtroom and court coverage to CNN a.nd televised debates to amateur video. I amo

18::l. JON KRASZEWSKI

more concerned with ho� mediations on The Real World fit so well into MTV's identity as a cable channel. In other words, whereas Ffake studies how different social players use different discourses to mediate reality; I • analyze how The Real World qiscursively constructs racism for a. specific det11ographic: the MTV audience:

Fiske can therefore help us see how the recording of reality on a show like The Real World is never neutral; its mediations draw on distinct dis­ courses caught up in fields of social power. Yet.we need to adjust Fiske's

·etheory to suit the production practices, network goals, and textual strate­ gies that go into a show like The Real World to understand its cultural res�e onance in a cable environment like MTY, aimed at the identity of a youth­ ful, liberal demographic.

.

Given this, what's most � ab.out this opening incident on The Real World is not that Julie associated Heather's blackness with drug usee and criminality. What's most interesting is why The Real World would usee this controversial incident with conservative views to start their series on ae channel that prides itself on having a liberal viewership. With this ine mind, just as important as Julie's claim is the way her background as ae rural southerner gets associated with her statement. Throughout itse twelve-season run, The RealWorld has mediated race and reality through discursive tensions between urban and rural America as well as liberal ande conservative politics. Wrthin these tensions, white rural fi�es such ase Julie, and later Julie from season nine an9, Mike from season teµ, cc,ver sig­ nificant discursive terrain in the_ way the· show addresses racism. Through mediations of casting, filming practices,· editing, and narrative strategies,e .The Real World suggests that racism is a phenomenon located within rural conservatives, not liberals with an urban feel. '.And here I use the·phrase urban feel to call attention to the way the channel promotes a certain type of image so that rural viewers in the Midwest can feel urban if they buy the right clothes and have the right attitudes. "Because of this, the show.e constructs a reality that frees the audience of any implications in racisme by blaming rural conservatives for the problem. A;nd yet, these rurale figures contain a certain hip quality, both in their app�arance and man­ ners, that in some ways suggests they are urban· and liberal. The rurale characters discursively experience a dual existence on the program, livinge partly as members of a liberal urban clique and partly as conservativee racist outsiders. The show then constructs serial narratives to expel racism from these characters in· order to make them full-fledged, city-dwelling liberals. Yet by using discourses about the rural UnitedeStates and conser-.e

Country Hicks and Urban Cliques 183 .

vatis� to construct racism as a problem of individual opinions, the show• as well as channel overl<;>ak the systemic nature of racism· and the way it. . operates in liberal urban environments ... ;

Mediating Racism as a Rural Conservative Phenomenon

From its inception, Mzy has promoteq itself as a hip. liberal channel with a predil�ction for youth. One of its earliest slogans was "MTV, some peo­ ple jµst don't get it," a declaration implicitly naming teenagers and young adults as its target audience. Yet in these defining.years, MTV faced a crisis that "implicated its hberal identity in the perpetuation of racism in the United States. As Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis argue, racism "is now embed­ ded in a iniquitous capitalist system, where economic rather than racial laws ensure widespread racial segregation and disadvantage:'3 White liber­ alism, however, often envisions racism as a problem of individual opin-· ions, not economic structures. This, as Jhally and Lewis contend, places a tremendous amount of blame on African Americans, who are disadvan-

. taged by their own actions, not an unfair class system.� Jn their early years, MTV hardly had the luxury of. maslang its own structural racism and rel­ egating discrimination to the level of personal ·belief. The channel refused to air black music videos, claiming its white, middle-class target audience lacked interest in black artists. This is a prime example of the way racism works in the U.S. economy, here disempowering a group of black artists by' denying theni a major market for record sales�" Many black artists · protested this policy, most· notably Michael Jackson; whose record com­ pany threatened to pull all of its vid�os from· MTV if the channel failed to air Jackson's Thriller, Billie jean, and Beat It videos. Through a combina­ tion of artist, audience, and record company protests, MTV eventually de­ cided to air black videos, fearing ·that their refusal to do so would hurt the charmePs economic well�being.

Certainly it is a good tb:ing that: MTV lifted its black artist ban. By doing so, the channel offered African American musicians access to· a wider economic market while allowing audiences to experience the plea­ sures and politics of black music. As Andrew Goodwin notes, to counter. its implication in explicit and systemic racism, MTV created black music progriµns like Yo!, MTV Raps; aired cutting-edge, politically controversial music videos such as Public Enemy's "By the Time I Get to Arizona," where the band <;lSSassinates white offi.ci� in Arizona, a state that fails to

184 JoN Kl<A,SZEWSKI

celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day; and supported a Free James Brown campaign when the singer was jailed on drug charges. 5 At the same tinle, by stJ,Jrting a voter registration drive, campaigning for the ethical treat­ ment of animals, and counterbalancing anti-Soviet propaganda in the 1980s, the channel increasingly looked to support liberal causes in general. According to Goodwin, these liberal specials helped MTV regiment a stan­ dardized schedule arid redefine itself less as an around-the-clock video

·jukebox. Even music videos were organized mto· half-hour- shows.

• • or hour-longe

6

The Real World is part of MTV's explicit efforts to create a routinee schedule, promote liberal values, and amend its previous charges ofe racism. It offers the chan:ri.el a tl:i:irty-minute weekly show for viewers toe watch regularly.;

-

Yet as much as the show wants to take cutting-edgee stances on race and racism, it mediates racism through discourses of ru- ralness and conser:vatism, masking the racism of liberals, propounding that .racism is a matter of personal beliefr and. failing to address the sys­ temic nature of racism. This construction begins during the Cl!sting process of the progr� · As stated earlier, The Real World is not scripted, so the producers do not order the roommates to talk explicitly about racism in the United States. Nevertheless, -throughout the .seasons BJ.Urim ande Murray have consistently cast innocent, sheltered, and young white rural Americans in houses with two African Americans from urban areas. Cer-

. tainly the seeds of a specific type of racial conflict and misunderstanding are in the house. In focusing on the culture shock these rural Americans . face, the show suggests that racism is primarily a problem of misinformed individuals. For instance, early in an episode fro� the New Orleans sea­ son, Melissa, who is biracial, asks Julie, a white Mormon from.Wisconsin, to pass her a paper towel. Julie responds by saying, "What color do I look?" shocking Melissa with such an offensive statement and the fact that· Julie 9riginally thinks she has done nothing wrong. The show resolves this problem with Julie claiming that her parents 'brought·her up to say things like tliat, and Melissa then helps Julie try to overcome her naive and racist upbringing,:As awful and hurtful as ·this statement is, it is fairly easy for viewers to digest, primarily because the liberal viewership of MTV is not implicated in such a racism discursively :filtered through Julie's· conserva­ tive upbringing in rural Wisconsin.'

But the casting process is more complex than simply picking rural ·con­ servatives to m�diate racism, and it speaks to the _complex ways that white­ ness operates in society. Richard Dyer'approaches whiteness as a ph_enom-

Country Hicks and Urban .Cliques 185

enon of color, claiming it .functions both as a visible system of prhrilege and an invisible regime· of power.7 Whiteness demands visibility in order to mark its subjects as empowered. Yet I?yer devotes more time to explor­ ing.how whiteness is invisible. White people tend. to see themselves as un­ marked or unspecified. As such, whiteness largely remains unseen, operat­ ing as a position from which a dominant social group can survey and con­ trol other races.8 The very power of whiteness, according to Dyer, stems from its apparent neutrality and ordinariness.

Not stopping his analysii; there, though, Dyer also makes . several im­ portant claims about the battle. over whiteness itself. Because whiteness

. offers power and privilege, its borders remain highly contested. The Jews, Irish, and Italians are grouped as white sometimes, but not other times, when situated in .fields of social power.9 But even within its borders, whiteness orders various levels of itself, some more acceptable than oth­ ers . .In these cases, certain ·regimes of social power graft themselves onto the skin. For example, working-class whites often come across as an infe­ rior version of the race. Theid_ack of economic power shows. up. in their tainted hue, darkened because of numer9us hours spent performing man­ ual labor outside. Their whiteness is visible, and hence inferior, because their skin stands out. In this system of economic discrimination and dis­ empowerment, middle-das�. and upper-class whites offer .a more genuine version of the race _because their labor·does not tarnish the color of their skin.10 The casting process of The Real World picks specific types of rural Americans, ones whose whiteness ts perched between hipness and 'inferi­ ority. Rural America has stereotypically be.en associated with the working class due to aiI of the fanning there. The many hours in the sun because of man:ual labor taints the white J:me of these workers. As Dyer rightly. notes, this social group faces discrimination since their connection to labor somehow makes them less white. In all of the seasons with these rural characters, the show always dedicates an episode to their parents' visits: The parehts are more strictly defined rural Americans, with_ the� accents, skin color, and clothing. Bu,t the actual rural American cast mem­ bers are much more urban than their family. In fact, their bodies aren't marked as an inferior version of whiteness, as Dyer would claim; rather,

·etheir mannerisms are. As college students or aspiring.entertainers, theire skin has not been tainted by labor, and they dress rather hip. Mike lookse like a J. Crew model, and Julie is the quintessential skater girl. That said,e their connection to their inferior whiteness has more to do with their rela­ tionship to their parents and their vie":7s, not their own bodies. Sincee

·186 ]ON KRASZEWSKI

MTV has always been antiparents, marking this social unit as the center of racist beliefs makes it easy for viewers to distance themselves from this so­ cial ill. By casting such people, the show says that one .can shed this infe­ rior version of whiteness attached to racism simply by changing .one's views.

Beyoni:l casting, filming practices also contribute to this specific media­ tion of racism and reality. !The decis�on to film in major cities automati­ cally positions these rural characters as outsiders. What is particularly fas­ cinating, though, is the fact that these supposed rural conservatives all hail from urban areas in the South or Midwest-Julie. fro� Birmingham, the other Julie from a Milwaukee suburb, and Mike from a Cleveland suburb. Thus, the filming locale does not so much automatically or naturally func­ tion as a strange land for these characters; rather, the show discursively constructs these characters as rural Americans, positioning the city locale as another world that can cleanse their racism,,�But more important than where to film is what to film. In an intexview for a book on The Real World: Chicago, Bunirn talks about the show's production practices:

Well, it begins with the p roducers and directors and crew in the field as they are documenting each day in the lives of these cast members. They are watching to see if the events. are more·than mundane, if they have signifi­ cance. So, the directors-and. we have five of them who lead th� .crews-are focusing the .cameras on any situations that are meaningful. So, it begip.s with the directors in the field detjding where to put the cameras because.we only have one camera, maybe two, on per shift11

Coproducer Murray responds to this by saying, "We have seven cast mem..' bers, so if Chris and Tonya are going to the gym and Theo and some girls are going on a date, we'll go with Theo and the date, thinking that's the better story."12 Given this, much of the focus on the discursive conflicts between rural whites and urbl!D. African Americans is a reswt of the film­ ing process, in which directors decide that shooting $ese roommates might eventually produce usable footage. In the case '.of Julie's argument with Kevin and Heather on the first season, it was logical to shoot �e din­ ner because all seven roommates were there. Nothing else was happening. In the. case of Julie and Melissa's conversation about the napkin on. the New Orleans season, however, there were only a few people in the room.

•oThis desire to document rural conservatives with urban liberals is eveno more apparent on the tenth season of The Real World, again set in Newo

Country Hicks anci Urbo.n. Cliques · 1B7 .

York. In the �st episode, �e, billed as the rural American from Ohio, goes 01:1-t to breakfast with Coral and Mali<, two African Americans from California's Bay Area. While there, the cameras capture Mike_ saying that his uncle, who owns a business, will not hire black people as they are slower than whites due to their lack of education. Coral and Malik chal­ lenge Mike's racist statement, pointing out that it illuminates his uncle's own racism more than our education system's., ['his mixture of the rural white and urban blacks is something to which the show always pays close attention in order to document it as much as possible;)

Of course, this documented event gains significance through the edit­ ing, which po�itions rural conservatives as enactors of racism and urban liberals as decoders of it. While the statements made by: the two Julies and Mike might seem naive and blunt, they are actually more complex than they_first appear. For instance, none of them explicitly state racism or de­ mand the economic oppression of African Americans. Instead, their racisms cloak themselves in other discourses. Julie from New York ad­ dresses-blacks through the discourse of criminality while the other Julie as well as Mike claim their statements stemmed from their family: This is ul­ timately what Stuart ;Hall calls inferential racism, and what Fiske refers to as _nonracist racism. For Hall, overt and inferential racism operate as two different modalities, the former entailing intentional statements explicitly declaring hatred against racial others, and. the latter functioning more dangerously because spealcers do not necessarily intend their racism. In fact, people often express antiracist intent in nonracist racism, perpetuat- · mg racism in less visible and less overt ways.13 As Fiske note_s, · this tactic reframei; a statement about race in other discourses such as family, educa - tion, economy, or law. 14 For examplee., Fiske analyzes Dan Quayle's refer­ ence to the 1992 Los Angeles dots as a crisis of family values. By refram� ing a race problem in terms of _the family, Quayle sidesteps placing blame

. on white hegemony in the insurgency and locates all fault within black families, who are unfairly accused of being a center of immorality. 15 /rart of what lends credence to the hipnei;s of the liberal chara�ers on The Real Worl� is that .the editing·calls attention to the way they can unpack the inferential racism of the rural conservative{! After Julie's comment on Heather's beeper, the show cuts in a series of personal interviews with the cast-members. Both Kevin and Heather, the two African American room. mates, remark that Julie's castin,g of Heather as a criminal is trenched

·ein racism. Moreover; Andre, a white roommate pursuing a music careere in New York City, also mentions the potentially offensive nature of thee

188 JoN KIHSZ.EWU(r

comment. On season ten, after Mike says that his uncle won't hire black people because they are poorly educated, Real World editors piece together footage of Malik, Coral, and Kev.in, a white roommate from the University of Texas, each separately in the confessional discussing how Mike's state­ ment was indeed racist.

In the process of putting together the episode, the editing uses footage that foregrounds these rural conservatives as. the locus of racism in the United States, but editing choices also include clips that highlight racisrti as a problem of individual intentions. While there is footage of white lib­ eral roommates ·.decoding J�e's and Mik�'s inferential racism, the· editors also add clips of those same roommates questioning whether or not Julie and Mike intended the statement to be racist. According to this logic, the statement is not as racist as it seems sinte that might not have been the in­ tention of those individuals Racism can be eci.Sily solved if roommates can make the rural conse:rvativ�s aware:of their ·statements and have them consciously change their opinions The same issues coalesce around Julie in.New Orleans when many .of the roommates believe that her opinions about race stem from her parents being conservative Mormons, not from Julie's own intentions.

· If the editing plants the seeds that racism can be sol�ed through indi­ vidual attitudes, then .The Real World's narrative grows this idea to its fullest potential. 1n· all of the seasons mentioned so far, the show fore­ grounds the friendships between a white rural conservative and a black urban liberal. While these :friendships occurred through genuine interper­ sonal communication, they nevertheless were not the.only ones to develop in the house th.at season. The producers·gave these interracial, politically opposed friendships priority when piecing together the narrative. Bunim's background in soap operas is extremely useful in illuminating the way that narrative operates on The Real World. Soap operas resolve narrative confl­ icts through serial narratives. As Jeremy Butler argues, the serial proyides connections between episodes as the problem/solution dilemma.expands

·eover several episodes or seasons; characters have a history as they learne from issues featured on previous episodes. 16 Given this, we can see re­ peated narrative constructions in the way each of The J<eal World seasonse develops friendships between white conservatives and black liberals. Thee seasons deal with th:ese initial events of racism by having an urban black·e teach the rural white about black culture over the· course . of severale episodes. For instance, Malik educates Mike· about a new figure in black history each day. After hearing Julie's remark about the· beeper, Heathere

Country Hicks and Urban Cliques 189

talces Julie to a recording session for her upcoming albun:i, allowing Julie to· see African Americans working professionally, not selling drugs. Melissa teacne,s the other Julie that many of Julie's own beliefs about African· �ericans are ster.eotypes.

The serial narrative always follows how the pedagogical nature of these relationships turns into friendships, in the process amending the rural American's personal views on racism. Most of the episodes in season one dedicate time to showing Julie and Heather going out and having fun to­ gether. On the very last episode, both Julie �d Heather discuss how they have become best friends. During the New Orleans season, the last_ episode devotes time to Julie and Melissa planning to move to los Angeles to­ gether. Milce becomes extremely close to Malik and eventually Coral. But The Real World extends its narrative issues beyond the run of the season itself ]?y :finding ways to reunite casts. On the :first reunion show, which brought together the casts from the :first four seasons,. Julie and Heather arrived together and spoke about how they talk on the phone every day. The producers also hold athletic challenges between. the casts of The Real World and Road Rules, another reality TV show on MTV where contes­ tants between the ages of eighteen, and twenty-four ·travel in a Wmnebago and perform extreme stunts across the country. On the latest Battle of the Se.asons, .Mike and Coral represented season ten, �d many of the cast members from other seasons talked_ about how Mike and Coral acted like a" husband and wife even though tj;iey were not married or even dating.

Their friendship was that strong. ijy stretching these events throughout the seasons and beyond, the show foregrounds how racism can be solved by changing your opinions.

Masking Liberal Racism: Mediating Blackness through tlw City.

In-many ways, the mediations that coalesf;e around Julie on the first sea­ son of The Real World functioned as a blueprint for how later seasons would filter race and reality through rural ·conservative character?:' The casting, filming, editing, and narratives of the ninth and tenth. seasons a.Ii. remain similar to the original New York show. Yet the mediations of race on the first seaso:p. through Keyin, an African American character, repre­ sent an important moment .for The Real World. In casting an African American with a background :in political scie�ce and a career :i,n pole�iatl writing, the producers. of The R.eal liVorld promised to deliver a reality

190 JON KRASZEWSKI ·

about race that hardly accepted the liberal wish-wash of racism simply being a matter of personal belief. Kevin added a different spin, insisting that racism operates through complex systems 'of power and economic · suppression, and for a while, it seemed as if the show was going to mediate race partly through these discoursei:".,Kevin would write proclamations about U.S. racial orders and place them next to the .entrance to the loft. In one instance, ·the editors show Andre, a white liberal, telling Kevin that no one in the house•is racist, while Kevin claims racism exists in more com­ plex ways than p·ersonal beliefs. Au.other moment where Kevin calls atten­ tion to the racism of white liberals comes in an episode where Bec:;ky, an­ other white liberal, states that the United States is a great country and everyone has the opportunity for success; Kevin insists that the economic system denies African Americans the same 9pportunities as whites. The show then cuts to a poetry reading of Kevin's where he recites the line, "All I want is the opportunity tb have an opportunity," punctuating Kevin's point

. These moments, -however, were all too unique for the show .. Never again would the show cast �omeone·who so explici1;ly critiques economic systems of racism in the United States, and/or devote so much narrative time to having a character like this express his views:·rn fact, a character's ability to critique racism in the United States and not be represented through stereotypes wocld even become problematic by the end of the first season of The Real World, and this speaks directly to the contradic­ tory way that the show uses discourses of urbanity to mediate· race and reality to its viewers. While the city functions as a liberal location that cleanses racism from rural Americans, it also constructs African American male characters as potentially violent, hence relegating them ipto complex systems of stereotypes. The second-to-last episode of the first season is particularly telling about th.is transition. The episode opens with Julie cry­ ing, her tears brought on by a fight she had with Kevin. According to Julie, she picked up the phone, was angered that Kevin was on it, and then­ hung up. This led Kevin to come downstairs, say "Fuck you'' and "Suck my dick," and then throw a candleholder at her. Kevin's version of the story differs, as he explains how he was on the phone with a future em­ ployer, trying to get a job� since his stay on The Real World and teaching · gig at New York University were coming to an end. While Kevin agrees that he yelled at Julie,· he insists he never said "Suck my dick" and never threw a candleholder at her, One of the most fascinating aspects of the episode is that it never shows the fight between Julie and Kevin. Instead, it

. Country Hicks and. Urban Cliques · 191

pits Julie's story against K�vin'i" In the process, the episode balances Julie's tum to the other roommates for emotional support with footage .of Kevin visiting the neighb_orhood where he grew up. Oddly, the episode before this one is dedicated to a "homecoming" theme. Julie's family visits New York City, and so does Andre's mom. Additionally, the episode includes · footage of the housemates finding a lost dog and .eventually returning it to its owners. Certainly the editors could have put Kevin's story about re­ turning home to Jersey City in the previous episode and have it fit more thematically. Moreover, there is no direct tinie correlation linking Kevin's going home to Julie's talking to the other roommates, and The Real World manipulates the timing of everits to connect different stories in the same episode thematically. Why crosscut between scenes where Julie relies on the housemates for emotional support and Kevin returns home to Jersey City?

Linking Kevin's supposed threat of violence against Julie to Kevin's up­ bringing in a lower-class, black, urban neighborhood discursively con­ structs Kevin's blackness in stereotypical, yet complex ways. There is a long historical trajectory connecting black sexuality to violence in the United States. According to Donald Bogle, the buck is violently sexual and ulti­ mately a threat to white woman.17 As Robyn Weigman argues, the buck stereotype emerged in the United States of the nineteenth century after the .freeing of slaves had given white and black men supposedly equal claims to citizenship. Numerous; and most often false, tales of black men raping white women circulated in order to brand African Americans as criminals and deny them citizenship. Because the buck represents a threat to ·white authority through his own sexuality, he needs to be disciplined, frequently through castration.18 Of �ourse, the legacy of socially position­ ing black males as sexually violent is discursively complex. While whites can mobilize these fears to disempower blacks, blacks can also seize such stereotypes as sources of empowerme�t .. As Weigman notes, the Black Panthers promoted the image of the black buck to suggest potential ways to overthrow white. power.19 Cert�y urban gangs and gangsta rappers offer another instance of African Americans appropriating fears of black sexuality to represent themselves as subverting a white social system that disempowers them economically. Ice-T's song Cop Killer was a :fitting re­ sponse to the Rodney King ruling and unfair police brutality in the early 1990s. Other gangsta rappers of that period, such as N.WA., Snoop Dog, · and Dr. Dre, connected gang life to an·ultrasexuality in music videos that fbcused on violence and/ or sexual

.

exploits . .And yet, white institutions use ,'

192. JoN KRASZEWSKI

these. same images to. dismiss African �erican claims and position them as. socially abject.

When Kevin visits Jersey City, The Real World places· him in .this long line of stereotypically violent black men.'•·& Kevin ·walks through· his neighborhood; the show's editors play nondiegeti.c gangsta -rap beats and cut back to Julie expressing her fear of Kevin. �evin walks his current girl- friend through the neighborhood and points out all of its p.otential d�­ gers, from violence to drug dealing. Although thls,discourse is available for · do:m.iri.ant and subaltern groups to seize, this clearly is the case of thee dominapt using this discourse to.dismiss and disempower the subaltern. Having Kevin walk through his dangerous old neighborhood cut withe Julie, who claims Kevin is dangerous to her, directly goes against Kevin'se ·own argument about the fight, where he insists he never threatened Tullee and was only looking out for his economic well-being. Even more fasci­ nating, tlie show ·ends with Julie stating that her fight with Kevin had ·e . nothing to do with rJice or racism; it was only an interpersonal conflict.e .What the show does, .then, is position Kevin,· an articulate social critic. ofe the way race operates in the United States, as a stereotypical, violent black male, and then deny that these issues have anything to do with race, plac­ ing them within a liberal discourse of individualisxre

As a pivotal moment in the history of The Real liVotld, this incident sete an important precedent for the ways black males would be represented tlµ-ough stereotypical sexuality. It also represented, as mentioned earlier,e the last moment where The Real. World would allow black characters toe have screen time to explicitly critique the social system. Although the city ·e functions in The Real Worl� as a place that cleanses racism from rurale conservatives, it also operates as a space where dangerous black sexuality·e lurks. In season two, set in Los ·Angeles, David, a young black male, pulls the· bedsheets off of Tammy, another African Ameri�, and. is accused ofe attempted ·rape. In· Seattle, Stephen, a black mal.e, is coded as .gay throughout most of the season, and yet he is staunchly homophobic. Midway through the season, a white hoeral roommate, Irene, has to leave the show because of a relapse of her Lyme Disease. Although . she hade joked with Stephen .throughout the season that they �hould get married,e on her way out, Irene tells Stephen that a marriage between them woulde never work.since he is a·homosexual. Stephen, enraged, fakes masturbat­ ing to prove Irene wrong and then hits her in the face. Here, Stephen's body is discursively positioned as sexually. out of control. He has desirese for men, himself, and women. The editing of both ·the scene with _Davide

Country Hicks and Urban Cliques 193

and ·Stephen emphasizes how violent black sexuality can be. The editors constantly return to these events in flashbacks, often excluding the events that lead up· to the violent act and just focusing on how violent these black

1

characters are. .l3ut if these incidents mediate race through urbanity and a historical

trajectory of stereotypes, other seasons use editing to erase history and historical trauma as a source of racis� Take an episode from season eleven, · set in Chicago. After seas�:>n four, the show had its cast work to­ gether on a specific job througho�t -the season. In Chicago, midway through the season, the cast had to script and then perform a Halloween play for the Chicago City Parks District. Keri, a white female, suggests a play where 8; woman becomes pregnant out of wedlock and kills the fa­ ther. A jury sentence� the woman to .death by hanging, but postpones her execution until she gives birth to her child. At that point, Theo, an African American on the show, requests. that the play not involve a hanging be­ cause many of his ancestors were lynched. While Theo is willing to per- form the play as long as they change the style of execution, all the white roommates who discuss the issue insist that his pleas are petty and that Keri in no way intended the stery to be racist. After splicing together inter­ vi�w clips of Theo talking about the historical trauma of hanging and white roommates maintaining that Keri's story in no way relates to the · history of. slavery, the episode ends with an interview with Kyle, a white liberal, who frames the conflict not as a battle to define U.S. racism but as the possible outcome of a conflict on the job.

As such, The Real World never interrogates the ir¢erential racism of white libeFal characters on the show. Kyle!s cloaking of the racism present in this scene through discourses of work goes unchecked. In fact, by giving Kyle the last word on the. :fight, th� episode punctuates the conflict with Kyle's perspective. In this way, the rural conservatives on The Real World. are not the only house members to express nonracist racism. It is just that the editing and narrative structure on the show both fixate on the rural conservatives as the source of thes1: social ills and ignore how the :liberal house members are implicate¢!. in them as well. In fact, dwelling on Jhe racisms of the rural conservatives deflects the show's· own racism.'No doubt, part of the reason why the program has remained so popular for so long on the channel is that it encourages the audience to position the�­ selves as liberals against racism wit]:i.out r�flecting on how this strategy for viewing race perpetuates racism itsel£ While it's certainly noble that

. MTV's audience usually does �ot participate in, a:n_d is in fact appalled by,

_194 ]ON KRASZEWSKI

explicit racism, they have ·certainly found rather blunt and misguided tools for combating racial oppression on The-Real World.

Conclusion

Many of the production strategies for mediating reality that I've discussed in relationship to The Real World also take place on other reality TV

·oshows. Survivor and· The Amazing Race hold extensive casting calls ando pointedly choose specific types of people to represent reality cin theiro shows, and they structure i:iiterpersonal conflicts and :friendships through· serial narratives. Shows like these, as well as reality dating shows such aso Dismissed and Elitnida.te, edit in such a way that characters comment ono the actions of other. characters. And with any reality TV show, too much happens during the filming process to capture everything that every char­ acter does. Directors have to decide to film some actions and not others.o What I've tried to argue is not so much that these production practices ono The Real World are unique but that they have played a specific role in the way the show mediates race, racism, and liberal identity for a particular cable channel.o

Recently, Bunim and Murray's production company crune to Indianao University in Bloomington, where I teach, and held an open casting .callo for the upcoming thirt�enth season of The Real World, set in Paris. Beforeo class _one day, I was talking with my students about this open call and asked if anyone planned_ to audition. Pne student, .a huge fan of MTV, ad­ mitted wanting to try out but not knowing what to say. _Another student quickly chimed in with, "Ju.st say you're a ratjst from a small-town in Indi­ ana and you want to expand :your mind. T hey'll pick you;' To which the first student responded, "But I'm not a racist. I don't have a racist bone ino my body." And the other student �eplied, "That's okay. By the end of the show they'll portray you as a nonracist They always do." This incidento speaks to the complex: cultural operations and mediations of race ono MTY. The show airs on a self-purpm;ted liberal cable channel. My one stu­ dent was an astute observer of how the mediation of race qn MTV starts during the casting proc�ss, where the show surveys the country to look foro a rural American to represent racism and plans to expunge racism from this person through the serial nanative. All of my students, black and·o white, laughed at the comment, perhaps because .MTV makes us feel like we're :µot imp).icated in the perpetuation of racism at all-as my one stu-

Country Hicks and Urban Cliques 195

dent thought. Racism in this lib�al cable environment discursively exists only through rural conservatives. It's no surprise that in other classroom discussions about race, both formal and informal, students often feel more uncomfortable and less willing to laugh. Understanding racism as sys­ temic, subconscious, and inferential is less fun, yet ultimately necessary. Perhaps to lead to a more critical understanding and mediation of race and racism in the United States, MTV should ·make us feel a little less comfortable,

NOTES

I would like to thank Susan ·Mu�ay and· Laurie Ouellette for their insightful revi­ sion sugge;rtions. I have received feedback. on many of the ideas in this article in a C190: Introduction to Media class that I taught during the spring 2002 semester at Indiana University. I am especially grateful to Liz, �arrie, Tory, Claire, Martha, Jen, Bria, Courtney, Chnstine, Kathryn, and Ali for their comments. Finally, to my wife, Sue, who commented on this article and watched more episodes of The Real World than she probably would have liked; I owe special thanks.

1. Seasons now usually film for five or six months and can also take place in ae house or, in the case of ·the Las Vegas season, a hotel suite. Current seasons cast people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four.

2. John Fiske, ,Media Matters: Race and Gender in U.S. Politics (New York:e Routledge, 1992), 2.

3. Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis, Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream (San Francisco: Westview Press, 1992), 97.

4. Ibid.e 5. Andrew Goodwin, "Fatal Distractio�s: MTV Meets Postmodern Theory;' in

Sound and Vision: The Music Video. -Reader, ed. Simon Frith; Andrew Goodwin, and Lawrence Grossberg (New York: Routledge, 1992), 62-63.

6. Ibid., 53.e 7. Richard Dyer, White (New York: Routledge, 1997), 44.e 8. Ibid., 45-46. . . 9.e Ibid., 51-53. 10. Ibid.; 57.e 11. Cited in Alison Pollet, The Real World; Chicago (New York: Pocket Books,e

2002): 1-2.

12. Ibid., 2. 13.eStu!).rt Hall, "The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media:' ine

The Media Reader, ed. Manuel Alvarado and John Thompson (London: British Film Institute, 1990 ), 8-23,

196 JON KRASZEWSKI

14. Fisk�, Media Matters, 37-59. 15. Ibid., 38. '16. Jeremy Butler, Television: Critical Methods and Applications (Belmont,

Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, ;i.994)> 30-33. Butler also discusses the narrative structure of a seri�, whose episodes are self-contained narratives. For a more detailed look at the q:iffe:rence between a series and serial, see ibid., 25-33.

17. Donald Bogle, To-ms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpre­ tive History of Blacks in American Films, expanded �d. (New York: Continuum ·Press, 1989 ), 10. · 18. Robyn Weigman, American Anatomies: Theorizing. Race and Gender

. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995), 90-95. 19. Ibid., 107.