Guidos and Guidettes

Just a few weeks ago I started watching a show on MTV called “The jersey shore” and I think it applies very well to popular culture. The show is about a group of people who move to the jersey shore over the summer to work and have fun and have their experiences filmed and then aired on television. It is a reality show and apparently all the housemates are of Italian American decent, I had no idea about this new form of stereotype called guidos for males and guidettes for females. During the first episode the cast member talk about guidos and guidettes, and I was curious to know what this was. A guido is a slang term for someone that is from a working class or lower class urban Italian American, in the show guidos are portrayed as having a tan, muscles, flashy clothes, listening to techno music, clubbing among other factors that make a guido. A guidette is someone that like the guidos takes care of themselves, dresses with heels, and has nice hair; sometimes they have puffy hair too. Apparently it is considered a complement to be called a guido or guidette.
The show has sparked some controversy because the influence the show has on the viewers. Based on the actions and behaviors of the cast members this creates possible manifest and or latent consequences. The cast members love to tan, some of them even own a tanning bed and this has been criticized for portraying tanning as a good habit, when in reality tanning is very bad for ones skin. One of the cast members called Snooki has a particular puffy hair style that apparently has been copied by girls all around; Snooki is even launching a “Snookit” with fake hair so people can easily get her hair look. The show is very open to sex and especially the guidos go out during the weekends to clubs to bring home a different girl every night. This has not created much controversy, but I think it comes to show that sex is normal in popular culture, when perhaps openness to sex should not be portrayed this way as it creates latent consequences; young people engaging in sexual behavior when they are not ready, infections and other negative factors. Another controversy of the show is the stereotype of Italian American young people. The cast members talk about guidos and guidettes all the time and they are in fact guidos and guidettes. Elder Italian Americans are not happy about this stereotyping, but the cast members claim that it is a positive stereotype. The show even stirred legal debates between MTV and the New Jersey Italian and Italian American Heritage Commission, MTV responded by saying “Jersey Shore is a reality series that follows eight young adults spending their summer at the beach. The show continues MTV's history of documenting various subcultures, rites of passage of young people, and the ways they self-identify. The Italian-American cast takes pride in their ethnicity. We understand that this show is not intended for every audience and depicts just one aspect of youth culture.”
Personally I really enjoy the show and watching other people’s way of life. This guidos and guidettes is all new to me, I knew about metro sexual people; people who take care of themselves but I did not know about the Italian heritage connection. I agree that being called a guido or guidette is probably a complement. The show is rather simple; all the cast memebers work on a T-shirt shop, but for being such a simple show I was shocked to see that the guidettes appeared on “Harpers Bazaar” one of my favorite magazines and the guidos had a photo shot with Bar Rafaeli, one of the top models of the world. I googled guidettes and so many pictures of girls that fit the stereotype came up; also on youtube there are even videos on how to become a guidette. This show is definitely part of popular culture, and it was neat to also learn a little from it.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_%28TV_series%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_%28slang%29
http://www.hollyscoop.com/bar-refaeli/jersey-shore-guidos-pose-with-bar-rafaeli_23570.aspx#axzz0la31LHIj
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAj_5UXs4z4&feature=related