‘Jersey Shore’ topic of U. of C. conference

Jersey Shore, under the academic microscope. University of Chicago students are holding a conference Friday on the MTV show. "We're not going to suck the life out of the show," organizer David Showalter insists. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Updated: October 26, 2011 9:47AM

David Showalter works out at the gym. He does his own laundry.

But he doesn’t tan, which left him time to plan Friday’s UChicago Conference on Jersey Shore Studies.

A U. of C. senior and “Jersey Shore” fan, he and a group of friends gather weekly to watch the show and discuss the broader cultural issues of gender, sexuality, ethnic identity and “the game of reality television.” Out of this was born a daylong academic look at the MTV show that gave the world the drunken, smutty antics of Snooki, the Situation and their crew.

“I don’t know if it’s just my nature or that the University of Chicago has done this to me, but I couldn’t help trying to, I don’t know if I would say intellectualize [“Jersey Shore”], but think more thoughtfully about it,” he said.

Showalter, 21, originally from Stillwater, Okla., received money for the conference from the university’s student-run Uncommon Fund. He expects between 200 and 500 attendees, most from the U. of C., on Friday.

This is not a joke, he said.

“It’s a serious academic event,” he said. “It’s not a satire or a mockery of academia. It’s going to be a bunch of students and scholars wearing suits and talking about ‘Jersey Shore.’ ”

It should also be fun, he added. “We’re not going to suck the life out of the show,” he said. “I was a fan before I was a scholar. You don’t have to choose between laughing at the show and thinking about the show.”

About 50 people, including academics, graduate students and undergraduates from schools in the United States and Canada, submitted papers for possible inclusion in the conference. Some of the topics to be presented include “Foucault’s Going to the Jersey Shore, Bitch!”, “‘You Dirty Little Hamster!’: The Abject and the Monstrous Feminine in Jersey Shore,” “GTL, Drunkenness, and Oompa-Loompa Party Girls: The Impact of Jersey Shore on the Jersey Shore” and “The Jersey Saga: Honor Culture in Medieval Iceland and Modern Seaside.”

Showalter, who hopes to eventually pursue a doctorate in sociology, believes this conference might be the start of a valuable, critical look at other lowbrow but popular reality TV shows.

“We should spend more time thinking seriously and thoughtfully and rigorously about what we are watching,” he said. “I hope this conference serves as a model, something to legitimize the idea that you could devote a day or longer to studying what most people consider trash TV.”

Jersey Shore’s Vinny Guadagnino

Vinny Guadagnino.Photo: Patrick McMullan

He's usually Jersey Shore’s answer to Dr. Phil, but this season Vinny Guadagnino inserted himself right into the drama by smushing everyone’s favorite Meatball while she was broken up with her camera-shy Gorilla Juicehead, Jionni, for all of five minutes. We spoke with Guadagnino ahead of tonight’s season-four finale, when the gang says Come se dice "good-bye" to Florence, about hooking up with Snooki, aspiring to be an actor, and avoiding The Situation.

Let’s get the Snooki stuff out of the way. Last we heard from Jionni, he was threatening to …
Kill me?

Well, I was going to say confront you, but yes, to kill you. Have you guys come face-to-face?
Well, it’s safe to say — I can put it on record — that I’m alive. In case anybody was worried. We’ve already filmed season five and I’ve seen the kid a couple of times, obviously, since he’s Snooki’s boyfriend. But I’m still here. The next season starts as soon as we get back to Jersey, so these story lines pick right up. But it’s all good. I’m not a confrontational guy. I chill back and only fight when I have to.

What did your mom think of the Snooki hookup?
My mother’s my biggest supporter. My mom and my family get it because they’ve been on the show. They know what I go through, and for the most part I feel like I do the right thing. You never really see me acting a fool on TV. Maybe once in a while, but they film us 24 hours a day and I’m a 23-year-old kid. There are some things that my family and I don’t talk about. But for the most part, I don’t think I disappointed anybody. If anything, it’s the opposite. They’re like, "Oh, Vinny, you’re so sweet!" My upbringing shows.

In last week’s episode, it seemed like the Florentines really turned on you guys. Was that hard for you, considering your Italian roots?
I don’t take it personally. That happens anywhere. You’re in a humongous club the size of a stadium with hundreds of people on top of each other and all of a sudden a crew walks in with cameras and security guards and every girl wants to talk to us. We’re famous and all eyes are on us. Mix alcohol with that and you’re going to get at least one guy that starts yelling something. But I don’t think that was about the Italians. I’m not even from that region of Italy, you know what I’m saying? My family aren’t haters; they would never do stuff like that. It is what it is, but I judged it as one particular club at one particular moment. The Italians were nice to us. Florence is all tourists anyway. 

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