New York has always been my favorite Real World, because they seemed to be the only cast with even a vague sense of intelligence, and they did try to address racial, political and social issues, no matter how piss-poorly it was done.
However, upon reviewing the videotape that Strega (big shout-out to Strega) mailed me, I realized I had forgotten how whiny, awful and horrible a lot of the season was. But, in a way, it was exciting, and it was the only cast to react to the camera without any preconceived notions of what should happen. Also, I'd forgotten how much I love to hate Eric Nies. Be forewarned that I really hate him, and that I in no way attempt to be fair or impartial when writing about him.
Let the frenzy begin.
Eric Nies flapping his gums. Here is one of the few shots we'll see of Eric without a goofy hat, and with a shirt on. He's talking about how he thought it was going to be a nightmare living situation, with all of them living in a tiny box.
Close-up of Julie on a bench, introducing Birmingham, Alabama. We see shots of Birmingham, then Julie saying how she wants to go to NYC to learn about herself, while her father wants her to be a computer operator. Then we see Julie pumping and grinding away competently, if not exactly Isadora-Duncan-like, in a dance studio.
Cut to Julie's father, who says in a slow-as-molasses, dead-pan voice, that Julie needs something to fall back on if the dance career doesn't work out, and she should learn that when she's young. The frightening thing about her dad is that his eyes do not move once in any of his scenes.
Cut to the St. Francis of Assisi church, while "Personal Jesus" plays. We get a few hilarious moments of the minister preaching about how alternative his church is (exact words) and quoting the Talking Heads: "This ain't no party/this ain't no disco/this ain't no foolin' around."
More three-second shots of Julie, her hometown, and Julie leaving church. Cut to Julie and her family in the kitchen, and Julie and her dad fighting. Julie says she doesn't think her dad doesn't realize she's leaving soon, and her dad says she'll be seeing him sooner than she thinks.
shot of Julie's dad driving her to the airport and telling her that if she "stays in your little neighborhood there, things will be great." shot: Julie at airport, saying goodbye to her family. Kisses are exchanged. Julie tells someone to "be happy," that this is a good thing. Her dad asks her if she's going to kiss him goodbye. She does so. He asks if she's going to call him at eleven, her ETA at the loft. She says, "If I feel like it," and he says, "Well, remembuh, Ah've got yoah number," and they both laugh. As she runs down the boarding hall, her dad says dryly, "I believe I could shed a tear."
As Julie stares contemplatively out the airplane window, we get a cut back to Julie and her dad arguing in the kitchen, about how Julie's dad is hung up on appearances, and other stuff that Julie doesn't like about her dad, and I have to say, this is the politest family argument I've ever heard.
Cut to Julie disembarking as "Welcome to the Jungle" plays. Oh, Bunim-Murray, your originality astounds me.
Julie has a conversation with the cab driver about the Urban Jungle that is New York. The cab driver tells her how it gets so busy he can't pee. Julie displays a lot of easy likeability in these scenes.
Close-up of an aquarium. Eric Nies, wearing a doofy hat that makes him look like a refugee from the Australian Outback enters, saying, "Oh. My. God." Cut to Eric, sans hat, saying that when he walked into the loft, he saw a whole new world. As he ticks off various items, the camera cuts to the different parts of the loft that house them: "I saw weird things, exciting things. I saw furniture, a kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom. It was like my house, but just right here." So now we can deduce two things: (1) the first season of The Real World, at least, was definitely not scripted and (2) rocket scientists of the world can rest easy. Eric Nies will not be intruding in their territory.
Eric proceeds to try and sound like a homeboy as he calls all his friends and tells them about his phat new pad. Minutes it took for Eric to annoy me: one.
Eric's voice-over follows as Becky enters. Eric says, "All I have to say is, you're a queen, I'm a king. Just walk around." Well, more to the point, you could say that Becky has no talent and is sort of a tramp, and that you're an ass and definitely a tramp, but I don't want to give anything away to people who might not have seen the episodes. Becky: "This is where we live?!"
Eric's voice: "My roommate was Kevin." Kevin: "I almost fainted. Oh my God, the loft is like Fantasy Island, it's incredible." roommate: Norman, with his dog. Norman: "This is insane." Eric's voice: "Heather is a rapper." Heather comes in, with a cat perched on her shoulder, and starts scurrying around the apartment, saying, "I'm just running from the dog." , Andre: "I saw five other people who look nothing like me or the people I hang out with."
shot shows Andre asking, "So, who doesn't smoke?" interspersed with a shot of Becky lighting up.
Julie gets out of her cab.
The N-whine-Cs have congregated around the big dining room table. Julie walks in, and the rest of the group, obviously adrenaline-drunk, crows in unison as a greeting. Julie immediately sits in Norman's lap. I knew I liked Julie for a reason -- an instinctive fag-hag.
Cut to Julie and her one-on-one saying how it was an immediate relief to meet everyone, finally, and how excited and friendly everyone was.
Cut back to the group at the table. Some desultory chit-chat follows, then Julie bursts out with, "I'm really glad I like y'all, because that would suck if I didn't!" Awww. Somehow, Julie manages to remain genuine and likable despite statements and mannerisms that could be seen as annoying, cloying or barf-making. She's also a hard act to follow, as the rest of the Southern-Belle-naifs-introduced-to-the-big-cities can attest (Genesis from the Boston cast, are you listening?).
Each cast member launches into their little bio. Each of them get little quick shots of what they "do" interspersed with their "who I am" monologues. Of course, Eric, being the model, and Julie, being the dancer and the cast favorite, get the longest Career-day montages:
Kevin was a poli-sci major who wanted to be a freelance writer, and moved to New York in 1990 to pursue that and (gak) spoken word.
Becky moved to New York to go to NYU and film school, but decided to go back to her first love, music.
Eric is a male model who's just starting to get into "acting" and commercials. (Julie asks if he makes big money; he says, no).
Norman left Michigan to paint in NYC, and he and his partner formed a company, with their dog (awww!) called Gouda.
Heather B. is "with a major rap group now." She talks about the group she was with previously, going on tour and Arsenio, and how she has to start from scratch now.
Andre moved out to NYC with his band exactly a year ago from the day he moved in to the loft.
Julie is nineteen, and the youngest of seven kids, and also the baby of the loft.
At this point, Heather's beeper goes off. Julie asks, "What is that?" Everyone choruses, "A beeper." Julie turns to Heather ingenuously and says, "Do you sell drugs? Why do you have a beeper?"
Heather talks about how she's anxious to talk to Julie, and to see what she really thinks, especially after the drug dealing comment.
Cut to Julie at the table saying jokingly how everyone's going to be against her because she's the only Southerner.
Andre says how he could definitely see Heather taking offense to that, but he didn't think Julie was serious.
Kevin shakes his head and grins and says, "The beeper. I knew it." And that he was hoping it wouldn't be a series of comments like, "Kevin -- you play basketball?" And of course the shot shows Eric asking, "You play ball around here?" as Kevin plays with the Nerf basketball set.
Julie sits in her workout sweats and says that she doesn't consider herself racist at all, and she doesn't know how the situation ended up the way it did. Which just goes to show you can be decent, likable and fairly smart, and still be naïve and clueless as all hell.
Back to the round table. Everyone's talking about their high school/racial experiences. Heather says she went to a black high school, and college was a completely different experience, and Becky says how hers was the opposite -- white as could be, and how her college was also a culture shock. Eric talks how his town, and how you could go two miles to Asbury Park, and it was a whole other world. Kevin tells about how one time he got called "nigger" as if it was totally normal. Heather talks about how she gets followed around in stores.
Cut to Heather saying she doesn't know what to expect from the three months, but she just hopes everyone gets along. Then, in a classic bit of Bunim-Murray subtle editing, the dog chases the cat up the stairs as the Stray Cats sing "Stray Cat Strut." It's almost worth it, because the dog and cat are so cute.
Eric announces that he and Kevin are going to room together. A few uncomfortable minutes ensue wherein sleeping arrangements are figured out, and it emerges that Eric is a self-absorbed prick. I may be projecting into the future a little.
Andre and Heather room together since they both snore and stay up late. Or, as Heather says, "Andre's the only person who snores -- or who confessed he snores, anyway." I love Heather.
Shots of the roomies unpacking.
Andre, Becky, and Julie are sitting in the kitchen as Andre asks them questions from a little book entitled Love & Sex. We learn Julie is not sexually experienced, that Becky has been in love with someone and not told them, and Becky's views on long-term relationships, which have to do with fear of rejection and some common-or-garden neuroses. We also learn that Andre would rather be afflicted with a paralysis that affected his genitals rather than lose his hearing, because he couldn't play music.
Eric bumbles in and asks about his first kiss, which, in typical Eric fashion, is an excuse for him to launch into a big monologue about himself. Eric says how his first kiss and the girl he kissed (at age seven) are more memorable to him than the first time he had sex with a girl, at age fourteen, and how if he "really thought about it," he could probably remember the first time he had sex. Julie makes a sarcastic remark about how he's just been screwin' all his life and that's why he can't remember. And then he leaves. Hey, Eric, you may not remember, but I can guarantee you that the girl's memory runs something like, "One man, two minutes."
Everyone says nighty-night. Andre strums his guitar. We get some nice scenery shots of Manhattan.
The morning after. More scenery shots of Manhattan, this time in daylight. The cast is up and about, cooking, making phone calls, wandering around. Becky talks to her mom about her "gig" that night. During the conversation, the camera lovingly follows Eric's terrycloth-clad ass around the apartment.
Becky goes to her band practice. Which is fascinating. NOT. Becky returns to the loft, and admits how that day was the first time she'd learned the song, and she was not ready.
shot: Becky in the club, singing in a flat, off-key voice. It's not unpleasant, but it's definitely not a voice you'd pay to hear sing. The song is something vaguely Johnny-Cash-ish about setting a girlfriend on fire.
Norman confesses that her singing was not quite his bag, baby, but she was so honest and into what she was doing, that "it moved him." That Norman -- remind me to ask him how I look when I'm having a fat day.
On the subway. Heather, Kevin and Julie get stuck in a car, for, like, forever. Heather says, "I'm takin' [this car] down." Once out, Julie tries to get her token back from a totally inert subway station clerk while Heather and Kevin snicker. She is cracking them up as she tries to get her token out of the clerk.
Kevin, Heather and Julie at dinner. Kevin says racism is alive and well. Julie asks if Kevin thinks if she's prejudiced, then says she thinks he's prejudiced and bitter toward white people. Kevin says he isn't, because if he was, he wouldn't be in that house.
Kevin, in his one-on-one, says that he didn't think he was bitter or prejudiced, but the more he thinks about it, the more he has a right to be.
Dinner table. Julie's saying how she's prejudged, that it's not only blacks who are prejudged. And boy, if you couldn't tell that Julie was genuinely a nice person, you'd sure want to slap her with the bread basket right about now.
Kevin, in his one-on-one, saying how he thinks Julie is open-minded, but he's wary because Julie confided that her father was prejudiced.
Dinner table. Heather talks about how in her own community, most blacks were hustling, trying to get a sports scholarship, or just buggin'. She then says, "Heather gotta do for Heather," in reference to her own career, although she's not doing any of that. Kevin talks about how a large part of his history was denied to him. Julie points out that her history is his history. Kevin says that may be, but most people don't realize it. Julie, voice squawking, "Who doesn't realize it?" but she is genuinely indignant. Heather is spouting some generic ABC-after-school special-isms about how she doesn't base judgments on color, it's just ignorance she can't stand.
Julie, one-on-one, talks about how everyone in the loft is really smart, and is really opinionated, and how she was worried about being the "big screw-up of the loft."
Montage shots of Julie experiencing the big city. Eric, in his one-on-one, saying how someone who would choose to come from Alabama to New York has gotta be tough. Norman, in his one-on-one, says how Julie is open to new experiences, and how curious she is, and how he feels like a big brother toward her.
More Mary-Tyler-Moore-ish shots of Julie in New York. Norman's voice-over tells us how Julie coaxed a ride on a nice Harley Davidson from some scary biker dudes. Julie says that she's not a big gear-head, but she just wanted a ride.
Cut to Eric in his one-on-one saying, "I love Julie. She charmed everyone. She, uh, she definitely charmed me." Number of times Eric has not annoyed me in this episode: one.
Last shot: Julie roaring away on a motorcycle, while one of the biker gang asks if she has birth control.
week: we get to see Eric "model," which means walk around in his underwear and make out with scary man-girl "models."