MTV Moves the ‘Real’ Fishbowl to Honolulu

Meet Colin. He’s 19, is from Thousand Oaks, has a body like a swimsuit model and wants to get into sports broadcasting in the worst way.

Right now, Colin’s just another show biz wannabe, but starting Tuesday night, people all over the country will start to have intimate knowledge of his innermost desires and most closely held secrets. That’s because he’s one of seven “cast members” chosen for the newest season of MTV’s popular reality franchise “The Real World,” that virtual video look into the lives of a hand-picked group of Gen-Xers that must have served as inspiration for the recent films “The Truman Show” and “EDtv.” This year the show--which has used New York, Boston, Miami, San Francisco, London, Los Angeles and Seattle as backdrops--was shot amid the cobalt-blue splendor of Honolulu. MTV premieres the new group in a one-hour special before slipping into the normal, half-hour, weekly rhythm the following Tuesday.

When asked why he wanted to submit himself to “The Real World’s” round-the-clock monitoring, Colin (the show doesn’t divulge the surnames of its cast members) says, “I had been taking a large load of classes at UC Berkeley, and I wanted a semester off. I’d never been to Hawaii, either, and the idea of being on TV didn’t hurt.”

Time was that when kids got the itch to try new experiences, they took a semester at sea or purchased a Eurorail ticket. But this is the era of “The Real World,” a TV show that has made voyeurism a sexy pastime for millions of teens, and the prospect of becoming a 15-minute celebrity a very real, if remote, prospect. This year, more than 23,000 applicants submitted audition tapes for “The Real World’s” five-month Hawaii sojourn--that’s more applicants than Harvard received for its fall semester (18,183, but who’s counting).

Of all the shows that MTV has developed over the years in an attempt to gain a share of the 20-and-under audience, “The Real World” is its only rock-solid franchise, the one show with ratings that have actually gone up over time. Along the way, “The Real World” has turned into a real hit. It is MTV’s highest-rated series, averaging 800,000 viewers per episode for last season’s Seattle shows, and it has won its 10 p.m. Tuesday time period among viewers 18 to 34 against all other basic cable programming for the past three seasons, according to Nielsen Media Research. Most encouraging for MTV, the audience has continued to grow each season, with the series now drawing 73% more viewers than its first year, and last year’s audience was up 24% over the previous one.

Now entering its eighth season, the half-hour documentary series, which tracks the lives of a group of college-age kids living in the same location for 20 weeks, has a loyal and rabid following. Just check out the numerous chat groups on the Internet devoted to the show, or the reams of fan mail the show’s co-executive producers, John Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim, say they receive on a weekly basis.

“Online message boards receive thousands of postings right after each episode airs,” Bunim says. “It’s very exciting to know that our viewers are engaged in the process of living our cast members’ lives.”

The key to “The Real World’s” enduring appeal is the way it mirrors the lives of its viewers at the same time that it provides a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy life. The hot-button issues, which mostly revolve around sex, relationships and career aspirations are authentic, but the settings--like this season’s impeccably appointed beach house--are pure Disneyland, and the participants usually look like they just stepped out of a Tommy Hilfiger ad. Mostly, though, it’s about the rush of feeling that you’re privy to the private lives of very good-looking strangers.

“We try to cast really interesting people who, when they come together, something interesting is gonna happen,” says “Real World’s” Murray. “It’s like a chemical experiment--you wait to see what kind of compounds are going to be created, and then apply all of the principles of drama to it.”

An Eighth Season of Daily Life as Soap Opera

During its eight seasons, the lives of “The Real World’s” participants have played out like a soap opera in real time. Some cast members have dated roommates and the occasional crew member, while others have been kicked out of the house. One member of the San Francisco cast, Pedro, revealed his HIV-positive status and taught youths about safe-sex awareness on-camera. He died of AIDS hours after the final episode of the season aired in November 1994.

But if it’s reality the program strives to present to its viewers, it’s certainly a mediated version of it. More than 80 hours of videotape is shot each week during the show’s five-month production schedule. Of that mountain of footage, only a tiny portion will make it to the final broadcast. Six loggers on the Bunim / Murray payroll look at everything, then hand over the tape logs to the company’s story department, which weaves together the season’s story lines.

“We consider our choices very carefully,” says Bunim. “It’s a documentary, but it’s still the lives of real people, and we want the audience to understand their positive attributes as well as their negative ones. Editorial decisions are discussed in great detail.”

Murray and Bunim--who started out in the worlds of TV news and soap operas, respectively--have gone to great lengths to impose order on what is for the most part a show that thrives on capriciousness. Because “The Real World” has become such a popular phenomenon, each year it becomes increasingly hard to weed out the careerists from the willing truth-tellers. Candor is the show’s lifeblood, and self-consciousness is deadly.

“We try to cast people who have a natural openness, and we interview them in-depth on camera,” says Bunim. “By the time they’ve reached the finals, they’ve had over 12 hours of on-camera experience.”

Nonetheless, many “Real World” alums have tried to make the giant leap into a career in show business. Former New York participant Heather B. got a record contract, and fellow cast member Kevin Powell transitioned into author with his book “Keepin’ It Real,” a reflection on race, sex and politics. San Francisco cast member Rachel was recently a finalist for a hosting job on ABC’s daytime talk show “The View.”

“You go on this program, a casting person calls you, that person will go in for a reading, and will find they can’t read at all, cause they aren’t actors,” says Murray. “If they think this is a shortcut to a life of ease as a movie star, they are sadly mistaken.”

Films That Send Up Show Are ‘Flattering’

If the actual participants haven’t quite made it as stars, the show itself has became emblematic of TV’s never-ending quest to provide cheap sensationalism at any cost, even if it means depriving people the sanctity of their private selves. “The Truman Show” and “EDtv” provided scathing Orwellian critiques of programs like “The Real World” and “Road Rules,” Bunim / Murray’s sister show on MTV. How do Bunim and Murray feel about Hollywood’s fictional take on reality as entertainment? “It’s very flattering that they would base these two movies on ‘The Real World,’ ” says Murray. “We were honored when ‘Saturday Night Live’ did two parodies of the show.”

But certainly they must examine their own methodology when confronted with high-profile cautionary tales such as these? “We don’t feel those films are a critique of us, necessarily,” says Bunim. “Our participants know what they’re getting into, and we really try to choose people who can handle the situation.”

Adds Murray: “We discuss the implications of everything. We have a lot to choose from, and we err on the side of kindness to our cast members. In fact, there are so many ethical questions that come up that those movies didn’t even deal with.”

Perhaps Bunim and Murray will have a chance to broach those issues in their own movie soon--they’re in development to produce a feature film based on “The Real World.”

“The Real World” premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. on MTV. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).