At Lulu’s Club Mardi Gras in downtown Washington, D.C. last Saturday morning, approximately 700 people waited for hours in the spring sunshine in the hopes of securing a place on the 17th season of MTV’s “The Real World.” Beginning at 10:00 a.m., hopefuls were herded past the bouncer at the door in groups of 20 for the club’s first-ever daytime opening.
Among those in line was Georgetown student Jessica Rucker (CAS ‘05). Rucker recalled that people were desperate to be cast in the show.
“People were willing to do anything to get a spot on the show,” she said. “There was this one girl from a suburb in Maryland with a normal family life who was willing to tell MTV that she was a conservative lesbian from a broken family.”
According to Rucker, even more appalling was that the interviewers appeared to believe outlandish stories and patently provocative remarks. During the group interview portion of the try-outs, she observed what she described as several people dissenting from the norm when asked about controversial issues such as gay marriage, the war in Iraq and race relations.
“Many people of color stated during the interview that they believed race relations had been satiated,” she said. “I thought it was very farfetched and people were attempting to fit a mold and play into what they thought MTV wanted.”
Despite Rucker’s worries about MTV buying into prospective applicant’s charades to gain a spot on the next season of “The Real World.”
Casting Director for “The Real World” Megan Sleeper believes that her crew is able to pick out those who are true to their character from those who are simply good actors.
“We’ve been doing it for a while now and we’re pretty good at picking up if someone is being genuine or not,” she said. “If someone is being over the top and performing, it’s pretty easy to pick up. People have different points of view and if we put up a topic like the war or racial issues not everyone is going to have the same view point.”
Rucker also expressed concerns about how MTV uses token representatives to portray the diversity of the world. Among 15 previous “The Real World” seasons, over five have included people from the gay and lesbian community and every season has featured a minority cast member. Sleeper, however, attributed the diversity of the past 15 seasons of “The Real World” to pure chance.
“When you have so many people trying out from such diverse areas such as Washington, D.C. you’re bound to get people from all walks of life,” she said. “It’s really up to the person on the show to break the stereotypes.”
According to Supervising Casting Director Damon Furberg, MTV conducts between 10 and 12 casting calls per season, typically yielding around 7,000 potential participants. Another 30,000 apply via videotape.
In the seventh season of “The Real World,” Georgetown student Irene McGee (‘99) from Pleasant Valley, NY was a cast member in the Seattle location. According to her profile on the MTV web site, McGee was 22 years old and battling Lyme disease at the time of filming.
McGee, the web site says, left the show midway through filming due to her disgust with the lack of ethics in media. She has since toured colleges lecturing and informing students about the corporate structure of reality television and the manipulation of the media.
For the 17th season, MTV is sending casting teams to cities across the country, including Chicago, Houston and Gainesville. Auditions will continue until the end of April.
