One Unique Token

Every now and then I go on YouTube treasure hunts, looking for lost documentaries and TV shows from my childhood. Sometimes I hit the jackpot and sometimes my hands end up empty. Today I solidified my status as a high roller when I found “The Real World: Boston.”

I’ve been looking for this show forever. It’s one of my favorite seasons. Who can forget Jason‘s sex appeal, Syrus‘ swagger and Montana‘s mindlessness (she cheated on Vaj AND she gave alcohol to a young child she was supervising)? Plus, so far Boston’s cast is the only one to yield a United States congressman, though I haven’t given up on Puck‘s electoral chances. My favorite member of the Boston septet was the driven Kameelah. Assertive, articulate and the house’s ultimate token, Kameelah was my idol.

She was notorious for telling it like it is. As some dudes whispered in the hopes of getting her attention at a public transit station, she fiercely walked over to them and said four empowering words, “My name is Kameelah.” She was a woman, not some girl who you catcall. Plus at 19, she was one of the younger people in the house and from the beginning was honest about not drinking.

“I don’t put alcohol in my body,” she said ON THE FIRST DAY.

At 19, I more than liked Kameelah. I was Kameelah.

This is who the token becomes when she stops being polite and starts getting real. (Photo from MTV.com)

OK, so I wasn’t Kameelah. I just silently made fun of the guys who catcalled me, usually mocking them as I showered to get their stink off my skin. I didn’t drink when I was 19 either — I waited until age 21 just as Uncle Sam and Johnny Law mandated — but I wasn’t tough about it. People offered me drinks and I usually rejected them politely, making it sound like it was a one-time objection, or I more often muttered something sarcastic about not having a liver.

But I’m all grown up now or something. So why is the One Unique Token rallying to save a reality franchise that, in terms of quality, is down to the final petal on the rose?

Because we NEED “The Real World.” I write that with the firm belief that almost all of the seasons from the show’s last decade are downright deplorable. But I also know this: I’m not the world’s only Kameelah wannabe, and I surely won’t be the last.

I didn’t model my life after Kameelah, nor do I encourage anyone to do something because you saw some reality show participant do it first. But it was nice to have an attainable and relatable TV role model, especially during my childhood and the mid-90s, when there were two universes on television: One containing the worlds of “Seinfeld” and “Friends” with people I emulated but never resembled, (people with my skin tone were either guest stars or not represented at all) and the universe of “Martin” and “Living Single,” where I looked like everyone but talked like and thought like no one.

The highly diverse (in various ways) cast of my favorite season of "The Real World." Im still clinging to the hope MTV will release the show on DVD. (Image from iml.jou.ufl.edu).

The mid-90s glory days of “The Real World,” with its mission to depict people when they “stop being polite and start getting real,” bridged the gap in some ways. It’s a common meme (and the source of some hilarious satire) to say that each cast member fit into certain archetypes every season, and they did to some degree, but those archetypes were often jumping off points. What was really so great about those seasons was seeing people get into actual discussions about the differences between people.

Current iterations of “The Real World” feel horribly contrived. The recipe now seems to be:

7 really hot (and seemingly different) strangers

Unlimited booze

A hot tub

Contrived conflicts

Shake until combustion. Voila: Ratings Gold.

“The Real World” of today masquerades as intelligent and progressive social commentary, but it’s less controversial than ever because it’s more artificial than ever. On “The Real World: Denver” gay white southern Christian frat bro Davis hurls the n-word at token black stud housemate Tyrie. Trenchant social commentary, eh? Hardly. Tyrie forgives him by the end of the episode and there’s no real discussion of why racial slurs are so potent and why Davis’ upbringing and background may have led his drunk self to believe words like that are OK. Instead everyone held hands and learned that racial slurs are naughty but make for great ratings. I swear this was almost the same narrative arc as an episode of “A Different World,” only done much worse and almost two decades too late on MTV.

Back in Boston, in a private interview, Texas-bred Elka tells the camera she knew her roommate Kameelah would be black because the name “screamed black.” To me that’s a much more honest depiction of ignorance. Most people I’ve met who hold outdated ideas about race aren’t raging bigots; they’re people who don’t know any better. Most of the racist comments I’ve heard came from people who believed they were open minded, people who wanted to learn but hadn’t been exposed to the world yet to realize that it’s not kosher to tell the world you think someone is black because her name is Kameelah.

MTV has reduced its reality potion to include only its key ingredients on their purest levels. Casting for “The Real World” now seems to rely on getting a bunch of stereotypes in a room to see how much they’ll fuck and fight. Let’s get the rural Christian virgin whose never been drunk and liquor her up so she’ll lose it to the aetheist boy from the big city. Go! Let’s get an insecure feminine straight guy and see if he’ll threaten the confident gay guy!

The only season that rivals "The Real World: Boston" for sheer awesomeness and social commentary is this one, the cast of "The Real World: Seattle." In the lower center and right-hand corner are Irene and Stephen, in happier and less-violent times. (Photo from MTV.com)

I’d much rather see the slap heard round the world, and not just because it’s a moment of unfettered and ultimately disturbingly entertaining drama. When Stephen slapped Irene in Seattle because she called him a homosexual, it was shocking. Not only that, it was a moment of real human behavior. No one could blame that on the crutch of alcohol. The truth is that Irene cracked under the insane stress of having her every move filmed and Stephen, a then-closeted homosexual, was struggling with the pain of denying his true sexual identity. That is so much more powerful and penetrating than having a transperson in the cast as insta-conflict. Stephen was discovering his identity (which included anger management issues that Stephen had to deal with on camera in counseling as a direct result of his actions involving Irene) in front of MTV’s audience. Katelynn, of “The Real World: Brooklyn” was just a drop of Alka Seltzer in a premixed Molotov cocktail. The producers should’ve explored her personality and struggles as a trans adult, but instead she was a just another source of controversy and another token for the producers to cross off their list of groundbreaking cast members.

It’s not totally the producers’ fault though; the biggest problem with the current incarnations of “The Real World” is that they’re populated by cast members who grew up watching “The Real World.”

We need a return to the original intent of “The Real World” because our country is polarized and paralyzed. We’re being taught there’s a real America and another, assumedly anti-America within the United States. Instead of being forced — metaphorically by a camera crew following you and your polar opposites for four months as you live together – to learn about how the other half lives, we’re just surrounding ourselves with like-minded peers and demonizing the “others.”

The cast responsible for the rapid descent of "The Real World." Ugh, "The Real World: Las Vegas" is the worst thing to happen to MTV, reality TV and quite possibly all TV. (Photo from icydk.com).

I’m not naive enough to say that bringing back the original intent behind “The Real World” will make the world a better place or even change lives. I am saying that, with a media landscape so focused on the us vs. them and opposing ideologues trading low blows, it would be a beneficial change of pace to show arguments with a little more nuance, where people are more than the sum of their political positions and people are ignorant and unaware, not simply bigots and birthers. The ’90s cast members of “The Real World” for the most part were pretty average; they weren’t smarter or more articulate than anyone else, they just wanted to be on TV. And in a country where the Internet and an insatiable appetite for reality TV has made everyone a potential star, wanting to be on TV isn’t exactly a fringe desire.

Ultimately we’re a nation of housemates on “The Real World: America.” The liberals aren’t leaving and neither are the conservatives. You may not believe in gay marriage but that can’t stop a gay couple from living in your neighborhood. The least you can do is try to learn to coexist peacefully.

For the record, there’s no better model of this than Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.). He’s as conservative as they come — though I was pleased to see he voted against defunding National Public Radio — but even he figured out how to live with and respect his lesbian housemate Genesis. He even got along with Kameelah.