While today there are countless reality shows, from the Real Housewives to The Circle and Big Brother, back in the '90s The Real World was a super new idea. Watching strangers living in the same house together seemed very intriguing and people watched for the novelty of it.
The first season of the NYC version of The Real World involved important discussions like an argument about racism and white privilege.
Fans of the genre can check out Andy Cohen's For Real: The Story Of Reality TV and they will also be interested in the reboot of The Real World. Let's take a look at this upcoming show.
The Reboot Streaming On Paramount+
Sometimes reboots of popular TV shows don't work out, like the Clarissa Explains It All reboot that is on hold. Other times, it all comes together and fans get to see where the original characters (if it's fictional) or people (if reality) have been up to.
The reboot is called The Real World Homecoming: New York and according to The List, it began streaming on Paramount+ on March 4th, 2021.
The cast from the first season of the OG show is coming back, which will be fascinating.
According to The List, the President of MTV Entertainment Group, Chris McCarthy, said that it made sense to stream the show on Paramount's service: "MTV's The Real World has been credited with creating the reality TV genre and was one of the first series that tackled important and yet unrepresented topics of the time, from HIV/AIDS, race, gender, orientation and religion. With Paramount+ being the home to so many global reality hit franchises, it seems only fitting to bring back the franchise and cast that started it all."
The cast will live in the loft in Soho, New York City that they lived in the last time.
According to NY Post, the cast includes Heather B. Gardner, Kevin Powell, Eric Nies, Norman Korpi, Andrew Comeau, Julie Gentry, and Becky Blasband.
The Trailer
The trailer shows the cast back together, hugging and expressing their disbelief at being back in this loft.
Gardner said, "It still smells the same. It still looks the same."
It looks like the previously mentioned discussion between Powell and Gentry about racism is coming back again: based on the trailer which was released, Gentry said, "It’s 29 years later and we’re still having the same conversations."
The trailer calls it, "The original social experiment that created the reality phenomenon."
The reboot of The Real World is likely to have as many dramatic scenes as the original, and it will also include the cast thinking back to how things have changed since the 90's both in their lives and in society in general.
The Original Series
The Real World began airing back in 1992 and it was a totally new type of show. Norman Korpi talked about his sexuality on the show and according to Entertainment Weekly, the new show includes some scenes from the original series. Korpi said on the OG show, "I often use the term gay — and I often use the term bisexual."
Korpi shared that he heard from people about the positive impact that the show had, as fans of the show would send him letters. He explained, "When they saw a group of seven people living together and that six of them loved and supported a gay person, forget me coming out. It was really that relationship of those people — the Beckys and Erics and the Julies — that the people could see themselves and say, 'Look, he's part of the cool kids, he's on the cool network. That's the coolest thing that you could be on, and that's me.'"
An article on Buzz Feed News made the important point that as more and more reality shows let viewers watch people's everyday lives, The Real World didn't stand out as much, and the show ended in 2017.
Jonathan Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim created The Real World and Murray told The L.A. Times that casting Julie Gentry made sense because she was living in NYC for the first time. He explained, “Julie was representative of a lot of young people who had not been to New York, who had not had that experience to live with lots of different kinds of people.”
It looks like the reboot of The Real World is giving people the opportunity to look back on their mistakes and think about important issues. Julie Gentry told The L.A. Times that she had no idea that the show would make her famous.
Gentry said that when thinking back to her fight with Powell, she "didn’t know enough to understand there’s a lot more at work here." Gentry continued, "I was glad that I got to come back as a 48-year-old and say, ‘You know, I was pretty naive.’”