By Lee Cole
If I’d been asked four years ago what was meant by the term “Snooki,” my first guess would’ve been some kind of pastry or perhaps a board game. I can hear it now:
“Hey, pass me that Snooki. I’m starving.”
“Gather ‘round everyone. We’re going to play a game of Snooki!”
Whenever I hear that lovely word now, however, I will always think of Nicole Polizzi. For those readers who are not familiar with the cast members of MTV’s hit show “Jersey Shore,” she’s the short one who eats an abnormal amount of pickles and was arrested this season for causing a drunken scene on a New Jersey beach. You may have also seen her being punched in the face in the show’s first season by a burly man whom she called “ugly.” But who hasn’t gone through exactly the same things in their own life?
To really understand the third season of Jersey Shore, airing Thursdays at 10 p.m., a person would have to have some grasp on the relationship dynamic between the characters, as well as the storyline of the first two seasons, both of which are far too complex, strange and bacchanalian to recount in any detail here. Those familiar with the show will enjoy the continued drama between Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, as well as the exploits of Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino.
Those unfamiliar with the show are probably asking themselves, “Is The Situation a person? An event? A top secret government plan?”
To call The Situation a mere mortal man, however, would be to insult all that he has achieved. The Situation, or just “Sitch,” as he’s taken to calling himself, has always been my favorite character. He continues to entertain and to inspire me with his courage each week, disarming grenade after grenade. Replacing Angelina Pivarnick, who left the cast in the second season, is one of Snooki’s friends, Deena Cortese, who has slowly been accepted into the group but has yet to really do anything of note. The most recent episode, entitled “Should We Just Break Up?” was concerned mostly with the ongoing relationship between Ortiz-Magro and Giancola and its recent rocky patch.
So I know some of you must be thinking: “I don’t get it. What’s the appeal?”
I hear this often from those who have watched the show only briefly, infrequently or not at all. The answer is not an easy one. Could Michelangelo have explained the appeal of the “The Creation of Adam”? Could Sigmund Freud have described psychoanalysis in a few sentences? Could the Immortal Bard himself have told us in a few words the gist of “Macbeth”? The similarities between The Situation and William Shakespeare may not be immediately obvious, but once you’ve experienced the show for yourself, and seen the master at work, you’ll be certain of its merit as high art.
