Does President Obama really know who Snooki is?
Do you know who Snooki is? Do you care?
Let’s recap. On the daytime TV gabfest The View, when asked about Snooki, Obama replied, “I don’t know who that is.” But two months ago at the White House Press Correspondents Dinner, Obama dropped Snooki’s name as part of a joke about his indoor tanning tax.
So, either Obama has forgotten about Snooki or he’s flip-flopping on Snooki or he never really knew who she was in the first place and he simply went along with a joke that some speechwriter composed for him.
To be sure, Snooki is quite a joke.
She ain’t one bit funny, but she is a joke. She’s a sick joke on all of those who watch the inane TV show Jersey Shore And the show is a sad, sad commentary on the state of the popular culture in this country.
I thought we had reached a new low when someone asked then President Clinton whether he wore boxers or briefs and Clinton actually answered: “Usually briefs.”
But now we have the President of the United States nattering with a bunch of hags on daytime TV about the trashiest show on cable.
Jersey Shore is cheap and tawdry and its characters are dumb, self-centered, hoodlums.
Recently, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi was arrested at the Seaside Heights beach for disorderly conduct and cast member Ronnie Magro was arrested in the same town last November for getting into a fight with another young thug. And when the cast of the MTV reality show made a personal appearance in North Jersey earlier this year, fights broke out among the crowd forcing the closure of a thoroughfare and leading to the arrests of four people.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is right when he says that Jersey Shore is a “negative” for New Jersey. Christie noted that the show “takes a bunch of New Yorkers, drops them at the Jersey shore, and tries to make America feel like this is New Jersey.” And the Governor added: “When they say this is New Jersey, it’s not New Jersey. If you want to come to the Jersey let’s go. I’ll show you the real New Jersey. The Jersey shore is a beautiful place.”
Christie nailed it. This gutter-level, manipulative TV show is nothing but an excuse for a bunch of loud-mouthed, bronzed young jerks to defile themselves and others while showing off their tattoos.
In its casting phase, Jersey Shore was reportedly called “The Guidos.”
So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone at all that the show is offensive to Italian-Americans. The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) has blasted Jersey Shore for reinforcing the “guido” stereotype of Italian-Americans. Philadelphia lawyer and NIAF President Joseph V. Del Rasso, pointed out that “the reality of the Italian American experience is much different” from that depicted on Jersey Shore.
“New Jersey’s ‘reality’ of Italian Americans includes Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., General Raymond T. Odierno, Bruce Springsteen, and Governor Chris Christie,” Del Rasso noted. “It also includes a diverse group of white- and blue-collar individuals with varying socio-economic and educational levels who share a common position: that the outrageous behavior evident on Jersey Shore, which is laden with promiscuity, debauchery, and violence, is a disgrace.”
Even The View’s uber-liberal Joy Behar has admitted that the characters depicted on Jersey Shore “make it hard for young Italian Americans to be taken seriously in the work force.”
And the New Jersey Italian-American Legislative Caucus has gone so far as to say that the Jersey Shore “violates the spirit of the New Jersey’s hate crime laws.”
Caucus Chair, Senator Joseph Vitale said: "The bias-related acts displayed by employees of MTV Networks in the production and marketing of ‘Jersey Shore,’ by their nature, are confrontational, inflame tensions and promote social hostility. These acts are contrary to the spirit of New Jersey law and jeopardize the active and open pursuit of freedom and opportunity."
Though its cast members may be breaking their share of laws, I’m not sure Jersey Shore is illegal.
And I’m certainly not advocating that a pay TV program should be censored. You buy the channel, you get the program. It’s your choice.
But you also have the choice not to buy and/or not to watch.
Still, Jersey Shore is filthy and relentlessly assaultive.
So, with tough midterm elections approaching, I can understand why President Obama might want to put a little distance between himself and Snooki., Ronnie Magro and the other members of the show’s cast.
I certainly wouldn’t want to be associated with them.
Mr President, Jersey Shore is a national disgrace.
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