Deviant Essay

Submitted By aprilhise
Words: 861
Pages: 4

Stephanie Hise
SOC-100
February 13, 2015
Dr. Rafieei

The Jersey Shore’s Deviant Behaviors
The Jersey Shore is a reality television show about Italian-Americans who are known for their deviant behaviors. This show started in 2009 and ran until 2012 with scenes of random sex partners, belligerently drunk moments, fights, and crude, degrading names for each other (Reality on MTV, n.d.). Even though this show had many behaviors that usually would seem “delinquent” many people still fell in love with the characters. Surprisingly many people “men and woman” that watch this reality show are as young as the age of 12 and up to the age of 34. In this paper I will discuss the lifestyles these people portray, what people’s reactions are to this behavior, and how it is affecting teenage girls today.
The Jersey Shore portrays a lifestyle of partying, sleeping around, binge drinking, drama, and bad work ethics. This is not someone’s “normal” everyday lifestyle as they portray it to be. It has a way of glorifying the party life style and all the deviant acts that come with it. It is portraying casual sex without any consequences. The show makes it seem casual sex is amusing and normal which is being seeded into people’s heads, especially adolescents. Not only are they portraying a lifestyle of destructivity they are creating a stereotype for the Italian-Americans of deviant behaviors. The image that jersey shore portrays causes many different reactions from a variety of individuals.
Shows like Jersey Shore are how society forms its opinion on what deviant behavior is and is not. While some may labels these individuals as a nuisance to society and should be punished. Others will view their lifestyle and acts as hilarious and entertaining rather than punishable. This is because of the way reality shows are constructed of the people’s lives which are forming society’s view on what is accepted behavior. We form judgments on the individual behaviors and decision making and then label whether it is socially accepted and whether we can approve of their deviant behaviors. For every person who loved the show there were just as many who hated it and the image it gave New Jersey (Fichera, 2014). Even with all of the opinions the show clearly shows a destructive lifestyle with no attempt to change. This seems to be a problem with many parents thinking these TV role models are influencing young teenager’s particularly girls more than we realize.
Reality shows such as the Jersey Shore have woman on their constantly insulting each other and describing other woman in negative terms. The way the men on the show talk to each other are with positive names like big man, super hero, and dawg. However, the woman use negative vulgar names such as skank, ho, and rodent (O’Shaughnessy, 2012). Some girls that watch this show start to think this is the right way to be and will even try and change their appearance and who they are to be more like that. This is something that can really lower someone’s self-esteem especially young woman and teenagers. Even those who do not take the show seriously still might be impacted by the actions. Girls who watch reality television usually either accept or expect drama and bullying in their own lives (Reality on MTV, n.d). While some believe it all has negative affects others think reality television allows teenagers to be more assured of their self and