The new MTV series Buckwild replaces the GTL-ing brood of Jersey Shore, a show that outplayed it gimmicks one season into a four-season run, but consistently drew crowds of reluctant-to-admit-they-watched-more-than-ten-minutes viewers. Shore and its spinoffs could not be rebirthed, so MTV has created a new degenerate-porn reality show; this time, based in West Virginia, a state “founded on freedom … the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want”
And for this reason – and the disclaimer warning viewers not re-enact any of the “wild and crazy behavior” they see on the show – Buckwild has drawn comparisons to Jackass with a narrative. However, the behavior within, while a bit wild, is tame compared to Jackass and relies on the viewer’s belief that they will see something crazy in the next twenty-two minutes. However, Buckwild is flat. The girls predictably argue about boys. One claims to be crazy; another notes that she can get angry. Cara is the “new girl” injected into the dynamic. She immediately draws the admiration of each boy and her hookups cause tension in the group.
The boys have no money, so they are often left to come up with some crazy scheme or activity as if it were an expose on Scooby Doo’s gang on their days off. They jump from trestles and bridges. They line a dump truck with heavy plastic to make a pool into which everyone leaps from the girl’s roof.
(The girls are conveniently evicted from their “city” house in the first episode titled “F the neighborhood” and conveniently end up at one of the girl’s uncle’s empty homes out in the middle of nowhere – so much the better for MTV is the brood can go buckwild without injuring or bothering other people.)
In truth, Buckwild feels more like an Appalachian version of The Hills, in which the documentary-style conceit is often disrupted by lines that feel as if they’ve been cleaned up and tightened by a third or fourth take. The arcs – while as predictable as anything in its predecessors – feel more like organic blips.
The bigger issue raised by Buckwild is its endeavor into poverty porn. The folks in Jersey and the sycophants in the Hills were wealthy. The show perpetuated their wealth.
The cast of Buckwild claims to be poor. Perhaps they are. But their status delves us into the genre of poverty-porn, wherein we delight in the circumstances, trials, and adventures of the seemingly-locked underclass. They play recklessly with a homemade potato cannon, break furniture, and light the girls’ possessions on fire. All of this is done with a jeux de vie that is fairly incredible, mostly because it feels so scripted.
The camera work hardly helps. Too often, moments that portend to be spontaneous are caught from numerous angles, but with each cut, the position of the former camera man is unoccupied. The crew disappears in the blink of an eye, and we’re meant to believe that we’ve watched a continuous take.
There is nothing wrong with seeing the potentially illicit lives of others, and MTV is hardly original in doing so. Intervention, Hoarders, Obsessed, and Moonshiners – all different in their subject matter – deal with seedy topics and, at times, illegal activities, but they – in some of their uncomfortable glory – feel earnest. Buckwild does not.
It is a shill among television shows. It is pretending to be what it portends and so blatantly does that it takes the audience for granted, assuming that its viewers are oblivious to the gimmicks.
Perhaps they are, and perhaps Buckwild will become the next Jersey Shore. Though, it’s more like Cops – not only the first reality show, but the first incarnation of degenerate porn – just with a narrative. Instead of three disparate criminals explaining why they shouldn’t be arrested, we get to witness near-a-dozen twenty-somethings get arrested / reprimanded / embarrassed and then we get to follow them home.