Immaturity, ignorance, and a gay dolphin trainer: The Real World: Brooklyn

Although the Real World: Brooklyn debuted last Wednesday (making it old news in today’s fast paced pop culture world) MTV has replayed the first episode once every four hours since then making it fair game (and difficult to avoid).

The Real World has sucked for years. I used to love it as a gay teen, especially back during the New Orleans season in 2000, which featured the dangerously sexy Danny Roberts. Since then, with its gaggle of steroid-injecting meatheads cavorting with vapid big breasted blondes, it's been hard for me to relate to or care about the show.

So when I tuned in for the latest season, I expected massive disappointment, embarrassment, and queasiness. Surprisingly, by the end of the hour-long episode (do we really need sixty full minutes devoted to these kids every week?) all of my dinner was still in my stomach. Only the post-show special caused the occasional bout of dry heaving.

The Real World: Brooklyn is perhaps the gayest season of the reality television series ever (and given its history -- from Pedro to Ruthie -- that’s saying a lot). It features J.D. Ordonez, a gay dolphin trainer who's reportedly canoodled with Anderson Cooper, Sarah Rice, a tattooed (former) lesbian, and Katelynn Cusanelli (above right with beauty queen Devyn), the Real World’s first transgender roommate. Upon seeing them onscreen together my queer little heart nearly exploded into a spray of rainbow confetti.

Continue reading after the jump...

Unfortunately, the other cast members ranged from totally unremarkable to downright douchey. The ruling monarchs of that latter category are the comic book hero-named Chet Cannon and Iraqi war vet Ryan Conklin. Chet -- Mormon and so hipster it's painful -- seems keenly aware that most people perceive him as gay due to his ... er ... flamboyant style. Yet he's so shallow he's totally incapable of showing the slightest bit of sensitivity to his queer roommates.

While Chet's homo-ignorance is fairly subdued, Ryan revels in it like a professional street heckler. He really goes to town when, after calling Katelynn "she" and "her" the entire first day day, he starts "confusing" his pronouns and goes so far as to refer to her not just as "he," but then, upon learning that she is a transwoman, as "it".

Despite spending years in Iraq seeing people die and risking his life -- and continually lamenting the fact that he has to "come out" to his roommates about his military service -- he's perhaps the most immature cast member to grace a Real World mansion in years.

Luckily Katelynn has enough grace, maturity, and intelligence for the entire cast. "I could shy away through my little normal life and stealth through it, or I could stand up and be a voice for the community," she said in an interview with Out several weeks ago. "With Chet and Ryan, I was like 'OK, tranny talk time -- what do you want to know?' [Ryan's] from a small, Podunk, Gettysburg military background -- a very accurate representation of the exact demographic I'm trying to reach. By educating him, he becomes the best person for reaching out to everyone else."

You're quite a woman, Katelynn. Our other favorite TV trans personality of the moment, Calpurnia Addams, would simply deliver a swift chop to the throats of these prepubescent imbeciles with her "it is not my job to educate you" approach to stupid trans questions, which you can check out here:

-- JOSEPH ALEXIOU

Previously > What's gayer than gay? The Real World Brooklyn

Comments

[NativeNYker]

Your commentary is a valiant effort but not enough to make me regress to the vapidness of MTV's Real World. I care not and gladly skip over the channel entirely on my way to Animal Planet!

xo
Rants, Thoughts & Merde
http://rantsthoughtsmerde.blogspot.com

[NativeNYker]

ps: Even with the tranny, the water loving Cooper canoodling dolphin dude and the rest of the your round up!

xo
Rants, Thoughts & Merde

i donno, i gotta give MTV some props for their Brooklyn cast. what other popular-youth reaching cable network would illustrate the unnecessary and hateful consequences of ignorance? they put a tranny, a gay man, an ex-soldier, and a mormon in the same house!! (is there even a tranny ANYWHERE else in television?!) they probably won't get along, but at least we can hear everyones side and see what is being said and what is happening. and maybe they will get along and everyone will realize that people are just people. what MTV is doing is pretty socially progressive. i'm impressed.

[Vicky]

whoops, that last comment was from me.