Hello Blogosphere! So this week I was watching one of my favorite stations, MTV, and I was a little shocked. I know we have all seen or heard about the infamous "Snooki Punch." If you don't recall or are not familiar, I will fill you in.
After an episode of Jersey Shore, back in December 2009, they were previewing the episode for the following week and low and behold the cast was out for a night on the town. In one segment, you see Snooki getting annoyed with this guy at the bar because he was trying to take shots with them. Then the guy just turns around an socks her one right in the face. The next day and until the episode aired it was ALL OVER the television. On news channels, entertainment shows, promos for the show, etc. But, this time the tv would black out the exact time the Snooki would be getting punched. It became a HUGE ethnic fight for it's "bad representation" of Italian Americans. I don't know the statistics but I am pretty sure that episode probably had more viewers on that day then any other episode of the show that season. I just think it's odd that with all of the stuff they would show on television now-a-days that MTV wouldn't show this 10 second confrontation. And it's not like any of us haven't seen this before when we were out with our friends. This kind of thing happens all the time. So "bad representation" or not, it's life. But man, was it great for publicity for the show. Don't ya think?
ABC News Covers Jersey Shore Snooki Punch
At the time I could kind of understand why people didn't want this to be shown on television. But then I'm sitting home on Tuesday, and found myself watching an episode of Teen Mom. Throughout the week you saw promos showing that is was going to be "the episode to watch." What really caught my attention was the clip they show of one of the couples, Amber and Gary. Gary finals grows a pair and stands up to Amber, but she's not having it. They are standing at the top of the stairwell of her apartment, arguing as usual, when Gary tells her to basically just get out of his way and to stop yelling at him. She then just says she'll hit him, Gary calls her bluff and tells her to. And guess what....SHE DOES! Again, MTV did the same thing that they did with the Jersey Shore, show the actual hit on the preview for that weeks episode and then in all the promos show everything up to the hit and cut to the date and time of the next episode right before Amber's fist meets the side of Gary's face. The difference occurs on Tuesday when the episode airs. Now don't get me wrong I get that they were trying to get people aware of domestic violence, but how is it different than what happened to Snooki on the Jersey Shore. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. Not going to lie, my jaw dropped. Amber made a solid connection with the side of Gary's face. You could even hear it when she did. There was no blurring of the hit or black out of the seconds that it took to happen. And what gets me, is that it didn't bring up a stir in the media at all. This stuff happens everyday but when it's happening to those families some people are afraid to speak about it, it's personal. The news will cover a story on drunk stupidity but not cover a topic that is subsided by people's insecurities.
MTV Teen Mom: Amber Hits Gary
So my question is....What was the difference? What makes one episode worth blocking out and not the other. Is it because one is a male hitting a female and the other is female hitting a male? Is it because one involved alcohol with people who should be acting like adults and the other involved teenagers who have a child? Is it because one episode someone is under the influence of alcohol and the other episode they are completely sober? Realistically none of this should matter. Both occurences are done by choices made. Both situations were instigated in some way by someone. We definitely only see the build up that they want us to see. Media is aware that this stuff happens all the time, but they actually get it on film.
Can people learn from other people's mistakes? Absolutely. So why should one incident be ok to show and not another?
This doesn't mean that I'm going to boycot the shows because I'm definitely not. But I just found it weird that they would be forced to block out one incident and not the other.
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