Even after all these years, the wonderful guido participants in the greatest sociological experiment of our time can surprise us with their skills and knowledge. In this case it was The Situation. Who knew that he had been a stripper? Well, we all kind of did, but we never saw his ecdysiastic skills before and when he unveiled them they were…well, they were awful. The culture at large might be experiencing a deluge of male stripper projects in the wake of Magic Mike, but this once again shows the disparity between mainstream culture and guido culture. Even though Sitch was a stripper back in the day (when he was in college at the age of 22) his stripping is a gross mocking of the skills that we see from Channing Tatum and crew in the movies or even the average Chippendales stud. The Situation is stiff, has no rhythm, and refuses to take his pants off, all moves that no stripper would condone.
It is typical for the guido culture to take something and warp it to fit their own reality. What is strange is that it usually takes something and makes it more tawdry and sexual than it normally is. The guido equivalent of a male stripper should be some greased-up muscle dude whose skin is the color of the Burnt Sienna crayon in a box of Crayolas. He should basically be a body builder in one of his little thongs that he then takes that off so that he can slap the woman he’s giving a lap dance in the face with his giant Italian sausage. But no, The Situation, in a keen reversal of the usual trend, just gamely rocks back and forth in front of JWOWW and rips off his shirt, revealing his namesake abs, something that she – and the rest of the world – has seen more than they’ve seen Lindsay Lohan stumble into court in an inappropriate outfit.
Speaking of stripping, let’s take a look at our new vocabulary word for the week.
Downgrade Dancing: The act of dancing sexually with a person who is less attractive than another person in the club who has already shown sexual interest in the dancer.
This brings us to a discussion about Paula. I don’t know about you, but I kinda love Paula. Like the rest of the guidos were when we first met them, Paula can’t help but be anyone but herself, and that authenticity is comforting in the world of the guido which is continuously being changed, warped, and coopted thanks to its exposure to the world at large. The problem is that Paula needs to get over The Situation. She showed up at the club again looking totally banging for a guidette. She had her hair curled (they usually prefer straight hair since most of the women naturally have curly hair, but for the straight-haired girls like Paula, curly hair is preferable because it shows that she is willing to work hard and put time into her appearance) and a skintight outfit that was both too short and too tight. It also had gold sequins. It was perfect. She keeps showing up in order to attract The Situation back into being her boyfriend. She says this isn’t the case, but it’s obvious.
The problem is The Situation is stringing her along. When he talks to her at the club he is nice and cordial which, I get, but then when he is about to go home with another girl and Paula storms up and gets all up in his grill, that’s when it all goes awry. He needs to tell Paula that her behavior is unacceptable. Instead he doesn’t chase after the girl, he lets Paula win and he tells her that he cares more about her than any girl in the club. No, that is not what you say to a girl who can not get over you. You have to tell her that it is over, in no uncertain terms, and you are sorry that she is hurt, but it is not going to happen. They are not together anymore. Period. Maybe it’s that The Situation, as alpha dog, is such a narcissist that he needs that validation of an attractive woman who can’t get over him. DJ Paulie D, who is secure in his manhood and love of Vinny, doesn’t need stalkers, but The Situation does. He needs to know at all time that he is being sexually desired. Maybe this is a remnant of his days working as a stripper.
What else happened? Snooki and Deanna had “Meatball Auditions” and continued the proliferation of the guido identity into the mainstream. Before being a guido was something that was disparaged but now it is something that is championed. It is something that girls from as far away as Scotland want to identify with. That is the worst thing in the world. It’s no wonder all these fake guidettes annoy everyone back at the house. They think that being a guidette is an outfit to put on or a performance to play, but it is an entire lifestyle. Nay, it is a subspecies that one must be born into.
JWOWW got in a fight with Jionni about saying that Jionni hasn’t been around Snooki enough while she was pregnant. Basically there was a breakdown in the ideals of Guy Code and Girl Code. The guys told Jionni what JWOWW was talking smack so he called Roger, her boyfriend, and told him to tell his girl to shut up. In the guido culture the men talk to the men and the women talk to the women. Everything that happened was in accordance with the great treaties they have always known. JWOWW, never one for convention, got upset by this after hearing about it from Roger and called Jionni directly. He got upset with her breach in the societal pathways and finally explained to her that she does not know what goes on in his relationship to Snooki, that he has spent all this time with her that she didn’t know, and that she should just butt the hell out. I like when Jionni gets a little bit aggressive. JWOWW apologized and the natural order was restored.
The only other thing that happened, and it was a small moment, is that Snooki, Deanna, and Sammi could not figure out how to open a bottle of wine with one of those jumping jack wine bottle openers. This is symptomatic of the problems with this show as it enters its final season. These are not the poor guidos who we met in season one who only wanted to drink Ron Ron Juice and shots that could glow in the dark at Bamboo. Now they’re drinking wine that is so expensive that it has a cork. They are older, their tastes have evolved, and they now have the money to afford it. However hte guido, which has always had trouble with simple machinery, doesn’t have the means to achieve their new lifestyle. They want wine that doesn’t have a screw top, but they can’t extract it from the bottle. They are defeated by technology, they are defeated by culture, they are defeated by what they fundamentally are, and while their struggle to become like us is fascinating, it is not what we want to know. We want to see them as how they are, as an unspoiled pocket of authenticity in this continuously transmogrified world. We don’t want them to get into the wine, we want them back in the hot tub swilling gross vodka out of Solo cups. That is what we want. Forever and always.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: MTV]
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