Jersey Shore Neoliberalism Analysis

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Gym, tan, laundry - referenced by the acronym “GTL” - is a routine consistently abided by in the MTV reality series Jersey Shore, which follows the lives of a co-ed group of individuals who live together in a house on the New Jersey Shoreline (Sherry & Martin, 2014, p. 1273, 1279). This series, which began in 2009, quickly gained prominence in pop culture. “Jersey Shore: Part Fantasy, Part Train Wreck, Cloaked in Neoliberalism” by Mark Sherry and Katie Martin explores the aspects of the Jersey Shore that attribute to the show’s success. Sherry and Martin (2014) argue that a “neoliberal hedonistic lifestyle” - a lifestyle that thrives on individual freedom and the pursuit of pleasure - acts as the platform of Jersey Shore and led to this series’ widespread consumption by Americans (p. 1271). More specifically, this reality show’s strong reception is due to how the series was “framed within a discourse of stylized and commodified …show more content…
One framework in which to view Jersey Shore is transgression. The guido culture portrayed in Jersey Shore was the first of its kind in pop culture and led to a multitude of reality show spinoffs focused on New Jersey Italian-Americans (Sherry & Martin, 2014, p. 1272). Since this series initiated such a causal sequence of reality guido culture at a time when the world had not greatly been exposed to such, Jersey Shore transgressed cultural acceptance of profane, promiscuous hookup culture through the establishment of sexually promiscuous, violent, and indulgent Italian-American guidos. Moreover, Jersey Shore can be viewed through a lens of cultural work, as well, where the cultural work of Jersey Shore encourages viewers to question the social norms surrounding the behaviors of people in their twenties with respect to drinking, partying, and sexuality, based on the content of the

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