Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Sandwiched between the cultural reset that was New York and the iconic and oft-rerun San Francisco, the Los Angeles-based second season of The Real World is something of a middle child in the pantheon. There is no famous focal character like a Julie, no timeless villain like a Puck. The show wasn’t new anymore, but its rhythms weren’t quite set. Put simply: there was a hot tub, but the housemates weren’t fucking in it. 1993 was a transitional time.
Starting this week, (some of) the Los Angeles cast will reunite for a second season of The Real World: Homecoming, and I’ll be recapping it here. But before I do, I think it’s worth revisiting The Real World: Los Angeles, which is available for streaming— with the original music!— on Paramount+. If you remember it, it’s better and more important than you remember. And that’s a Truuuu Stow-ray.
If the cast of Real World Season 1 were the first to take part in this kind of social experiment, the Season 2 housemates were something I think is just as significant: they were the first to arrive with a clue about what they were in for. They show less awkwardness about where to look in interviews, and more cunning about how to get screen time. And it’s not just the cast who climbed that early reality-tv learning curve; the casting people carefully chose seven people who would get on each other’s nerves. And they sure did, which also makes them the first cast to kick a housemate out. (Don’t worry, we’ll get into it.)
To review, our original seven housemates were:
- Jon, our 18-year-old Kentucky naïf, whom we meet onstage singing a cover of “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” through his nose. If you liked season one’s Julie, but wish she wasn’t remotely interested in broadening her horizons, Jon is your boy.
- Beth S., who wants to be an actress and proves it by creating drama at literally every moment.
- Dominic, a charming Irishman whose regret over participating in this show reveals itself immediately and is never diminished,
- Aaron, exactly what your mind conjures up when you read the words “Orange County fraternity bro.”
- Irene, a Los Angeles policewoman who gets married about halfway through the season and doesn’t really do much else.
- Tami, a singer/rapper/AIDS counselor who gets most of the interesting storylines, and…
- David, a comedian (in the sense of “all the way on, all of the time”) who gets on everyone’s nerves right away.
The latter two are at the center of the show’s most famous moment, in which some initially good-natured horseplay takes a serious turn. David tries to pull a comforter off an underwear-clad Tami, who gets uneasy and later concludes that the incident WASN’T! NOT! FUNNY! I remember watching this episode in 1993 and siding with David; they were all laughing, I thought, what’s the big deal? But in 2021, you can’t miss the discomfort of the un-comfortered. You can’t help but hear Christine Blasey Ford saying “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.” Knowing what we have come to know about consent, and the ways people process discomfort, it’s a rougher watch than you remember.
Much rougher is the music of Perch, the band for which David’s replacement Glenn is the lead singer. Perch hails from Philadelphia, Perch follows Glenn to Los Angeles, and Perch spends a lot of time in the house, because Glenn did not keep his promise to find Perch a place to stay. Perch really thought The Real World was going to be their ticket to the top. Perch did not learn the right lessons from the story of Reigndance.
It is clear the producers wanted Jon’s country music career to be one of the season’s main plot lines, but aside from appearing in a few talent competitions on LA’s west side, Jon doesn’t seem to have much interest in moving his country music career forward. He meets some industry people and immediately tells them he doesn’t write songs and probably never will, he gets called in to test for a movie and tells those industry people he doesn’t act and probably never will, he sleeps until noon and then lies around the house drinking Kool-Aid. He is also unbelievably squeamish around all talk of sex or masturbation or the fact that human beings have bodies. Throughout the season, Jon looks like he’s trying to one-up Will Smith: ”Oh, you used to have so much sex that you would vomit during it? Well, if anyone says the word tampon around me, I will pass out.” Obviously the kid wasn’t going to be on mushrooms in a drum circle by the end of the season, but there is legitimately zero personal growth on display here. (Though his assessment of Perch’s sound— “Does it have to be so different?”— is right on the money.)
I wonder whether I would have clowned Jon as mercilessly as Aaron and Dominic do all season long. I hope not. They’re brutal, just openly laughing in the poor guy’s face as he sips a Hawaiian Punch and tries to find something wholesome on the TV. Aaron is finishing up his senior year at UCLA as the show is being taped, Dominic is starting what will be a long career at Hits Magazine, and the two of them immediately become an aloof and impenetrable unit. It’s hard not to feel the rest of the housemates’ frustration at their cliquishness, even if you do agree that this would be a miserable house to live in. Also, Aaron carries himself like one of those alt-right “change my mind” guys, and I don’t want him to be a Trump voter, but I’d bet my last dollar he is. Aaron and Dominic are a big reason later Real World casts had to work jobs together so that they wouldn’t be running off in all directions. (To no one’s surprise, Aaron and Dominic will not be back for Homecoming.)
Tami will be, and I’m glad she will, because she’s one of The Real World’s true pioneers: she’s the first cast member to go on to make a real long-term career out of reality television. She was a regular on Basketball Wives, then she and her non-baller second husband were in the cast of Marriage Boot Camp. She’s kept the shit up. (I am aware that Eric Nies from Season 1 went on to host The Grind. THAT ISN’T! NOT! THE SAME!) Tami also had The Real World’s first abortion, she is to my knowledge the only cast member ever to spend part of the season with her jaw wired shut in order to lose weight, and lest we forget, she’s a slave she’s a slave she’s a slave to your lovin’, she can’t control the fever of your kissin’ and your huggin’.
Irene’s replacement Beth A. will be back for this reunion, which is great news because she is one of reality television’s first lesbians, and also the best-adjusted person in the house by a wide margin.
That Beth S. brings a cat into the house with her, and Dominic brings a dog, is almost too perfect an analogy. As a whole, The Real World: Los Angeles swings too far in the direction of conflict. There is a lot of yelling, but not much of it feels particularly important. It’s just argument for argument’s sake. Even when they go on an Outward Bound trip and their guides get them lost, even when they’re on a group vacation to Cozumel, even when they’re putting on a talent show, it’s near-constant bickering.
Throughout the season, though, the needle drops are perfect: “Pretend We’re Dead” for a scene in which Beth S. milks a headache for pity. “Carly’s Song” by Enigma (from the Sliver soundtrack!) to sex up a moment when Aaron and his girlfriend Erin sit in the hot tub. “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful” when Jon almost gets that movie role, then “Mama I’m Coming Home” when he goes home to his mama. Sure, it’s all a little on the nose, but it’s a good reminder of the delicious gumbo that was MTV’s playlist in 1993.
Season 2 of The Real World has some truly epic 1993 fashion, too: Malcolm X baseball caps, formal spandex, t-shirts two sizes too big and tucked into knee-length shorts. It’s got historical value, as we watch our friends get lost on the streets of Los Angeles without a nav system or a smartphone to right them. It’s got genuine emotion, as Dominic and Beth S. both deal with distant but loving parents. It’s got a dollar-drinks place called Moose McGillicuddy’s, which I would really like to find and/or revive.
But mostly, it leaves me with questions: did Kenya, the guy Tami met on the classic Fox late-night dating show Studs, grow up to be Kenya Barris? What happened to the rest of her singing group Reality? Did Perch finally decide to call it quits, and if so, was it because they heard their own music? Has Jon settled down and started a family, or is his relentless root-beer dad energy going to waste? Is it weird that one of my notes for Aaron is “very 1993 calves,” and am I correct that you can picture that right now? Is Dominic still in the United States? Does David still do stand-up? Did Beth S. ever get a good headshot? I expect all of these issues and more to be addressed in The Real World: Los Angeles: Homecoming, and I expect “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” to benefit from the attention and ascend the charts anew.
Dave Holmes is an editor-at-large for Esquire.com, host of the Earwolf podcast Homophilia, and his memoir Party of One is in stores now. He also hosts the Real World podcast Truu Stowray, available wherever you get your podcasts.
