WASHINGTON — This is the story of two strangers, picked to go on an audition, have their lives photographed, and find out what happens when reporters stop prying into the personal lives of others and start getting real.
MTV’s The Real World is a half-hour-long show that follows the antics of seven strangers, ages 18-24, picked by MTV to live in a glamorous house in a well-known city. The show, which began in New York in 1992, has brought taboo social issues such as racism, homophobia, sexism, religion, homosexuality and HIV/AIDS to the limelight and is often considered the original source of the reality television fad.
When we found out open casting calls for The Real World 17 were going to be held at Lulu’s Club Mardi Gras this Saturday, we knew every curious Marylander who spends his or her Tuesday night with the 10-spot watching The Real World would want to know how to be the next Ruthie, Leah, Puck or The Miz. With stars in our eyes, we bribed a staff photographer into our ploy to try out for The Real World.
Washington is the second city MTV has visited so far. Four casting directors will have sifted through tapes and interviewees to select the final seven cast members by August to begin filming Season 17 in the fall.
By 10:45 a.m., we were standing in a line of about 130 other MTV hopefuls and filling out a two-page questionnaire about our personal lives. What began as a joke morphed into a psychoanalytical discussion about our love lives and deepest hopes and fears.
About 800 other hopefuls showed up throughout the day, including senior communication major Klye Thomas. He said his girlfriend convinced him to accompany her, and he wanted to try a new experience before graduate school.
“I came out because I’m graduating from Maryland so I thought it might be fun to defer for a year and do something crazy,” Thomas said.
Both Thomas and his cousin, junior English major Clyde Ireland III, thought their chances of getting on were limited.
“Not a chance in the world,” Thomas said.
Thomas’ girlfriend, senior family studies major Erica Mann, said she was anxious to get on The Real World to show viewers a more interesting persona.
“I only watch it when I like certain people,” she said. “I didn’t like anyone this season.”
The audition questions ranged from “Describe your most embarrassing moment” to “How do you approach a relationship? Are you the pursuer or the pursued?” to “What’s the most important issue facing you today?”
The two-and-a-half hour wait to get into Lulu’s gave us plenty of time to chew on our thoughts and pen caps. After about an hour of lackadaisical deliberating, our questionnaires were complete and ready to be handed to the casting directors.
We had figured out our defining embarrassing moments — including falling face first in the high school cafeteria — and whether we are the pursuers or the pursued (to which we said that any good relationship would be mutual). Then a few oversized guards ushered us into the bar area, where a tired and angry mob of 30 sat at eight tables, left to mingle and wait for interviews.
After a 30-minute wait staring at the neon lights, chatting with the bartender and planning our Live with Regis and Kelly appearances, we were taken to the “final” waiting area. Twenty minutes later, the moment had finally come — we were in.
A casting director led us in a group of 10 to one of three tables for group interviews. After the more than three-hour wait, everyone was ready for his or her 15 minutes of fame. As we went around the table, the overzealous auditioners introduced themselves with not-so-interesting facts, like “I’m goofy.” Some described their sexual frustration, while others focused on the diversity of their upbringing.
As our time to sell ourselves came, we felt the nerves of the day culminating. How could we impart our lives’ worth into one statement? The casting director had to know about our various world travels, our daily life at The Diamondback and how we saved the whales in the seventh grade.
With only about 30 seconds, the generic, awkward introduction gibberish stumbled out of our mouths.
The casting director asked the group how they defined cheating in a relationship. With no structure to the conversation, we sat dumbfounded as others recounted with pride past instances where they cheated on their mates. Responses were typical of what you might expect from a room full of cast members: comparisons of who cheated on who, where and how.
Like any good group of Real Worlders, there was the pious girl who chastised the rest for their immoral thoughts and behaviors. Still observing those around us, we found ourselves unable to contribute anything to the conversation. Just minutes later, the casting director called an end to the debate and spewed the typical line, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” — and only if you’re Real-World worthy.
And with that came the anticlimax to a six-and-a-half-hour saga. We hadn’t imparted our world of wisdom or wealth of 18 years of knowledge, we hadn’t even opened our mouths during the cheating debate.
We drowned our sorrows in a rousing game of good-bye foosball and exited Lulu’s. Dreams, hopes, life wishes … all crashed to the ground. How sweet it would be to end up covered in chocolate goo and crickets in an installment of the Inferno or Battle of the Sexes.
If we get our calls in two weeks, we’ll go through more interviews as casting directors choose from 2,000 call-backs from the open casting calls in 20 cities, as well as the people who send in tapes of themselves in sometimes outrageous scenarios, casting director Megan Sleeper said.
Of the groups of 10, Sleeper said they struggle to find even one person who stands out in the crowd. They aren’t looking for anyone who fits a particular mold of “Diva,” “Sheltered Suburbian,” “Spitfire,” “Ladies’ Man” or “The Gay One.”
“Everyone has a preconceived notion that we’re looking for stereotypes, but it’s the person who just can’t help to be themselves,” Sleeper said. “We’ve been doing this for a long time, we can tell. We don’t want actors, we want the person who’s unfiltered.”
As we boarded the Metro from a tiring day in the city, the stars in our eyes gone, we could only imagine the comfort of our dorm rooms. Sitting among the future cast mates made us realize how much we appreciate watching the crazy antics of these silicone-injected, makeup-adorned and steroid-infused men and women on TV. The Real World was a nice place to visit, but we would never want to live there.
