Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: July 29, 1993
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The Real World: Los Angeles, “Is David Going Home?” (Season 2, Episode 6)
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The Real World broke ground with its very first season in New York and became a pioneer in the field of what we now call reality television. But in many ways, it didn’t reach its full potential as an engine for interpersonal conflict until its second season. Set in L.A., this season set the table for confrontation from the break, as it locked new roommates Jon (well-meaning but somewhat clueless Kentuckian), Dominic (self-consciously cool Irishman), and Tami (the greatest cast member in Real World history) in an RV and had them drive themselves to California. They did everything short of locking them inside the vehicle with an agitated porcupine.
Honestly, “agitated porcupine” might have described Tami for much of the season’s run. I say she was the greatest cast member in Real World history without much hyperbole. Think of everything she did in the span of one season of what was then a very young TV series: called out Jon’s racist statements from the break; worked at an AIDS clinic until the reality of getting close to patients who kept dying got too much for her to handle emotionally; got her jaw wired shut in order to lose weight and spent multiple episodes trying to communicate through a clenched jaw; recorded a single with her girl group, Reality; appeared on the dating game show Studs; was pretty homophobic in her reaction to Beth A’s ‘I’m Not Gay But My Girlfriend Is’ t-shirt; found out she was pregnant and got an abortion, all while still on the show and experiencing this all for the cameras. She was the Sally Ride of reality TV characters, and we should probably put her on the $20 bill instead of Andrew Jackson.
Of course, as massive as Tami’s impact was as seen in total, it always comes down to “IT WASN’T! NOT! FUNNY!” doesn’t it?
The first-ever instance of kicking somebody off a reality TV show was ultimately the result of what seemed like horseplay gone awry. Like so many things on The Real World, the truth of the incident depended on your perspective. Was David just playing the annoying older brother, yanking away Tami’s blanket to reveal her in her underwear to the cameras? Did it complicate/darken matters that David had previously expressed an attraction to Tami? Did it matter that Tami was laughing during the incident? Did Tami have a right to feel violated after the fact? Were the boys not taking her seriously enough? Did Irene ever get out of bed? Was Beth being an instigator? An advocate? A bit of both?
The moment was true water-cooler TV, or it would have been if the MTV demographic had been in jobs with water-coolers at the time. Honestly, I think there’s really only one thing we can say with absolute and total clarity: Beth getting bonked in the head by a door-slamming Tami was completely hilarious.
[You can watch episodes of The Real World on Hulu, but not the Los Angeles season, which is a complete outrage, and you should write your Congressperson about it]
Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.
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