Pop Goes the Real World 
By Trevor Paglen
When the cast of MTV's The Real World moved into a building at 1934 West North Avenue (at the Damen stop on the Blue Line), a loose association of artists and activists decided to throw a block party for them. Someone made and distributed a flyer that purported to be an invitation to the public to act as extras on the show, inviting the public to show up at the house on a Saturday night with the promise of free beer. At 11 p.m. on Saturday, July 14, the party started. An estimated 300 people showed up for the festivities, which included demands to be made famous, demands that the show buy everyone in Chicago lunch, and chants including, "You are not real."
The following week, on July 22, another party/protest was staged outside of the Real World house, the theme of which was "A Dinner Party at the Real World." According to one of the protestors, an officer named Crawford arrived in an unmarked police car to question Nato Thompson, who was writing with chalk on the sidewalk. Thompson said that after declining to "take a walk" with Officer Crawford, he was immediately arrested. Chicago's Indymedia web site (www.chicago.indymedia.org) reported that when a group of people began to protest Thompson's arrest, the police took another 16 people into custody. According to Indymedia, one of the protestors was injured when an officer threw him against a wall. One protestor called the incident "one of the most disgusting displays of force I have ever seen."
 While some media reports about the protests describe them as being variously directed at how Wicker Park was being represented, and against gentrification in the area, the reasons for the protests are diverse and nuanced, with participants protesting for their own reasons.
Thompson's own explanation is that "MTV, with The Real World being just one example, is an integral part of counter cultural commodification. With culture being the largest commodity in the move toward service industries, the result is a generation completely alienated from the world around them. The terrain of protest must shift towards the material factors, like Viacom and Time/Warner, that churn out this nonsense."
In an interview with local Dykediva.com website, Che, from the Department of Space and Land Reclamation (one of the protesting groups), elaborated on the distinction between people's culture and corporate culture: "Corporate culture consists of nothing more than the means to an end. . . whatever reinforces their corporate power. The culture that human beings make have a million different concerns. The only reason that corporate culture is popular is because the corporations own the systems of distribution, the media. We human beings are only just waking up to the fact that we do have the resources to disseminate our culture to each other."
 Viacom, MTV's parent company, is a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate whose holdings include Paramount, CBS, UPN, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Noggin, VH1, Comedy Central, Showtime, CMT, Blockbuster, Simon and Schuster, and many more.
Viacom/MTV's troubles with the Chicago community began even before the Real World actors had arrived in town. Days before the cast's arrival, two people were shot outside a Burger King restaurant near the Real World house. One of the victims approached an off-duty cop, who was working security at the Real World house for assistance, while the other man died in the car. When MTV was contacted by the Chicago Sun-Times for a comment, MTV threatened to cut off the newspaper's access to the show if the paper ran the story and revealed the location of the house. The story made the July 11 issue front page, with the Sun-Times publishing a picture of the house in addition to information about its location.
 Discussions about the protests have raged on the Internet, at bulletin boards on Chicago's Indymedia (chicago.indymedia.org) and DykeDiva (dykediva.com) sites. Most of the criticism comes from the fact that many people simply cannot fathom the idea of people protesting a corporation, particularly a television show. On local web-based message boards, some of the protests' critics have adopted the Nuremberg defense of MTV, saying that the Real World actors shouldn't be harassed because they're "just doing their job." Others, unaware of the larger constellation of issues around Viacom's cyber-panopticon on North Avenue, focus on the issue of gentrification, saying simply that Wicker Park is already gentrified, and there's nothing to do about it.
A central failure of the media's representation of the protests comes from the fact that a number of groups and individuals are protesting, each for their own reasons, and each with their own concerns. Thus, unlike more "traditional" protests, no clear message is produced. This fact is one of the strongest features of the Real World protests, but also makes the representation of the protests through traditional media very difficult.
In an ironic twist, a recent article in Entertainment Weekly, covering the Real World protests, asked whether the protests are, in fact, an MTV plot to generate interest in the show. Sixteen people with impending court dates for "disorderly conduct," seem to point to the contrary.
 The first court date in the aftermath of the initial protests took place on August 16. Ten protestors were charged with disorderly conduct and two were charged with "obstructing a police officer." Protestors were offered a choice: plead guilty and get off with six months' probation (enough time to keep them out of Viacom's hair), or go to trial. Most protestors opted to plead not guilty, and are planning several fundraisers to raise the legal fees for a court trial. Thompson, who was processed separately, goes to court on August 22.
Despite the commotion, The Real World will continue filming for several months.
Photography by Associated Protestors
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