The locals of Martha's Vineyard, including myself, were apprehensive
about the new show "The Vineyard" from the moment they announced its
existence. The feelings swirling around the Vineyard were very mixed and
very timid to the idea of a show being filmed on the island. The people who
lived year round were kept in the dark about what exactly the show was going to
be about. All we knew was it was going to be a group of 20 year olds, women and
men, living together in a beautiful beach house on East Chop. How are they
going to represent my home? Is it going to be like Snookie and JWOW on Jersey
shore? The feeling of the Jersey shore is now, and will always be,
associated with tans, drinking, and crazy little short girls. We were all
terrified the feeling of Martha's Vineyard was going to be changed from calm
cozy beaches to crazy partying 20 year olds.
The night of the big
premier, skeptical islanders took cover in their homes to watch the show
unfold. What we saw was interesting, we watched as pretty girls and strangely
perfect men met each other for the first time. Thinking Snookie would be running
around, everyone was definitely relieved when she never showed up. To our
surprise there were two kids who actually grew up on the island and were well
known, but as the show went on you start to realize how little the actual home
grown islanders feature.
It
was confusing in the way they showed the island and the islanders, instead of
portraying the island in the Jersey shore manor everything was mixed up. There were
just so many incorrect details. They even made it seem like it was in the
middle of summer when it reality, it was the middle of march and it was still
freezing. They were splashing around in the ice cold ocean probably almost
freezing to death, but I will give them credit for playing it off pretty well.
I recall this one scene when two characters, one with bouncy blonde hair and
big blue eyes sat on a life guard stand with her muscular guy. They were having
a cliché romantic moment and talking about how they were at the most beautiful place
on the island. I remember being so confused because it did look like a gorgeous
place, but I couldn't recall ever seeing it before. I did some research by
driving around and realized what they didn't show in this shot; the fact that
there’s a huge main road right in front of it, and that is probably the least
likely place you'll be if you want to watch the sunset. There are so many
places on Martha’s Vineyard where you can go catch an amazing view of the
sunset, I was very confused on why they chose there. It’s interesting how they
can manipulate a scene, and make it look like something completely different.
After their little misstep
on the first episode we gave it another try and watched the second episode.
Maybe that was the only place they could find in Oak Bluffs? Maybe something
happened with the filming restrictions, but the second episode there was even
more confusion. Towards the middle of the show after lots of giggling and
strange sexual tension, all the characters got into a car and started driving
out of Oak bluffs. Since everyone who lived on the island was critiquing every
little part of the show and paying attention to every detail you could see
where they were driving past, you could see state beach in the back round and
then all of a sudden, they were on the other side of the island. They were 25
minutes away in the blink of an eye having the same conversation. The first
thing we did was laugh hysterically, but then we started getting a little
irritated because it was just wrong. You don’t drive down the road in Oak
Bluffs, and end up two minutes later in Aquinnah (which is 25 minutes away at
the least). The portrayal of the
island thankfully didn’t turn into the jersey shore, but it was portrayed in a
very confusing and annoying manor. They mixed up towns and barely let the
actual Islanders be in the show. Although we were very happy there wasn’t much
partying and they didn’t show the island in that light, we were definitely not
sad when the show never aired a second season.
I like the fact that you did do research after the show came out to further look into what was incorrect on the show. Its good that you talk about where exactly in the show the characters because people tend to not think much about inaccurate the towns or cities when it comes to reality television.
ReplyDeleteI think this blog is very interesting because it accurately proves that the filming industry really twists reality. I thought it was pretty funny how you said they were all splashing and swimming in what was supposed to be the summer time, but in reality, was in March. In addition, you noticed that a "25 minute drive" went by in the blink of an eye. You know this because you live there, and this is something no one else would ever notice. But it just proves how TV changes certain things to make them look the way they want them to.
ReplyDeleteI found your blog very interesting, especially because I was a viewer of the show when it was on television. I enjoyed the show because it reminded me of the television show, The Hills, which I had watched before but The Vineyard took place on the East coast close to my home. It was interesting to hear about the inaccuracies of the show that I had once believed to be true. This shows that even though shows may be in the category of "reality" they are not necessarily real. Television focuses on showing whatever will get the most viewers and do not care if it is not an accurate representation, like you explained happened during the show, The Vineyard.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog! I remember watching the premier of the show with my friends and our first thought was "I wonder how realistic this show is". My friends and I have been to Martha's Vineyard a few times throughout our life but obviously none of us were actually able to tell how accurate the show was, so it's good to hear your opinion on it! It makes me wonder how many other reality TV shows aren't actually realistic.
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