Personal Statement: Unfit for "The Real World"

By Courtney Ratkowiak  On  September 30th, 2008

It started as a joke. A friend told me last spring that MTV’s “Real World” was accepting casting applications on its website for the show’s 22nd season, so we both sent in our name, age and a picture and promptly forgot about it.
But then, a few weeks ago, an e-mail appeared in my Gmail with “RW Casting” in the subject line. The Real World crew was coming to Scorekeepers on Saturday, Sept. 20 and that I was invited to come to the casting call, with a guest, as a “VIP applicant.”
Well, what the hell? I thought. I might as well go all the way on this one.
When I told a few of my friends I was going to try out, their reactions were mostly the same — disbelief, then laughter. “You should just tell them that you love to have sex and throw up on television,” they advised. I chose the friend I had originally applied with as my guest. He wanted to go to the casting call and act like a stereotypical “bro” - popped collar, raspy voice and an air of arrogance. We went into it with low expectations. And we quickly found out it really was that bad.
It was when we were approaching Skeeps that our decision to try out looked less like a snarky inside joke and more like a bad idea. Girls in low-cut tops and skimpy dresses were leaning against the front of the building, filling out applications. A teenager in a white, collared shirt and spiky, gelled blonde hair strolled past us on the way into the bar — his fake diamond studs were so big that his earlobes sagged from the weight.
The first part of the application asked if we had ever acted professionally and where we attended school. The second half was a list of short-answer questions like, “What do you want to be when you grow up, and will you use the Real World to pursue those interests?” and “What is your most embarrassing moment?” We had to describe how well we get along with our parents, what we look for in a “mate” and how our friends would describe us.
The guy filling out his application next to us had used up all the space on the front of the paper and was feverishly writing on the back. I looked over at my friend’s application. For “best attribute,” he had written “ghetto booty”; for “worst attribute,” it only said “my tail.”
Once we finished registering, we waited about 30 minutes for our casting group to be called. Nobody had come alone — a lot of people had two or three friends who weren’t trying out but were just there for support. We watched football until a casting assistant came up and directed seven of us to a long table in the back of the bar.
The “tryout” was simply a 20-minute group chat with one of the casting directors, a twenty-something woman in jeans and T-shirt. She asked us to go around the table and introduce ourselves. Besides the guy in the diamond studs, our group included a husky guy who proudly proclaimed during that he was “Kwame’s cousin” and a 19-year-old girl whose mother sat at a table behind us for the entire interview.
“Where’s a good place to start?” the casting director asked us after the introductions.
“Sex,” replied Kwame’s cousin.
“Well, why don’t we start with oral sex?” the director responded, not missing a beat.
Having been acquainted for only minutes, our seven-person group shared our attitudes on oral: “Yes or no, should oral sex be considered sex?” The conversation then evolved into a comparison of the merits of dating versus sleeping around. Most of the group agreed it was easier for young people to just hook up, no strings attached.
Then the casting director wanted to know what we thought about politics. It was painfully clear that the people around that table knew more about past seasons of the Real World than they knew about current events.
One girl said she was voting for John McCain — because of his experience in Vietnam, he would know best how to manage the Iraq war. Another girl, who said she was pro-life but anti-war, said she had to “do her research” because she wasn’t sure where McCain and Barack Obama stood on issues.
Diamond Studs was the only one with strong political views. The teen explained at length how the United States has had the opportunity to capture Osama bin Laden several times but has let him go free. He was stealing the show and loving it, and the rest of the table looked on silently. Eventually, the casting director interrupted and posed a question that everyone at that table could answer — if you could hook up with one celebrity, who would it be?
Britney Spears. Sid Crosby. Rosario Dawson. And a porn star for Kwame’s cousin.That got everyone interested in the conversation again.
Finally, mercifully, time was up. As a closing remark, we had say one word that best described ourselves. My friend and I had been making side comments the whole time, prompting dirty looks from the casting director. I decided on a word that would ensure I wouldn’t be getting a callback: “Smartass.”
Diamond Studs looked at me. “That’s two words, not one,” he said smugly.
“It can be both,” I said, rolling my eyes and leaving the table.
I was almost out of earshot when I heard him say to the casting director, “If I have to use one word, it would be ‘awesome.’ But if I can use two words like that girl did, they would be ‘super awesome.’ “
Right before I left, I bumped into a friend who was working the door. He rolled his eyes when he found out we had just left the casting call. “I have so much less respect for you right now,” he said.
I said it had been worth it — at least we got a few good stories out of it.
“You definitely should have seen this one guy at our table,” I told him. “What an idiot.”
The casting director, talking on her cell phone near us, took her phone away from her ear to respond to my comment.
“Excuse me,” she said indignantly. “I thought he was nice.”
And that was our cue to leave.

Printed from www.michigandaily.com on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:15:51 -0500