Insomniacs like me watch a lot of television in the wee hours of the morning. As a result, I’ve learned many things about our culture that would have otherwise eluded me. I’ve discovered that Ron Popeil is the source of every significant culinary advancement since refrigeration; that Chuck Norris has the Total Gym 3000 to thank for his chiseled, roundhouse-kick-issuing body; and that anything worthwhile in this world can be paid for in three easy installments of $19.95. But my attention has also been drawn to a far more serious issue whenever I find myself mired in the abyss of paid programming. My friends, girls are going wild, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop them.
Thriving in places where the tequila is bountiful and intelligence runs dry, Girls Gone Wild has become as much of a late-night institution as Tae Bo or the Showtime Rotisserie. According to several overzealous infomercials, the videos pride themselves on containing “No rules, no parents and, of course, no clothes.” The second selling point prompts me to wonder if there had already been a series of videos entitled Chaperoned Girls Gone Wild, in which college-age girls’ best efforts to achieve full frontal nudity are thwarted by their killjoy parents, who still think their daughters will one day run for public office. If this is the case, it also means that guys used to sit around and watch it, exclaiming, “Man, this would be hot if it weren’t for all the parents!”
Joe Francis, creator of the fabled video series, is quite possibly the greatest American entrepreneur since Edison, reportedly cultivating his methods of guerilla-porn filmmaking into a $100 million empire. Anyone who has been near a TV set after 3:00 a.m. has seen a GGW commercial and is familiar with his simple concept: get drunken girls to flash a cameraman in exchange for a T-shirt and a first-ballot induction into the “This will one day haunt my children” Hall of Fame. There is, of course, no actual nudity to be found in the advertisement. It is all comically covered up with words like “All Real” and, ironically, “Uncensored,” in a style reminiscent of Adam West’s Batman fistfights in the ’60s. I could have sworn one girl’s chest was obscured by the word “zocko.”
I suppose the success of the franchise is no real shock, as it trades on the universal weakness of heterosexual men: the fact that, regardless of time or place, or however clear the image, we never pass up the chance to see a set of boobs. Women, no matter how much they say to the contrary, do not share a similar affinity for irrational male nudity. Somewhere between Michelangelo’s David and the American Pie trilogy, society began to accept the naked male body as a principally comic entity. It is for this reason that Playboy will always outsell Playgirl, and Girls Gone Wild will always outsell Guys Gone Wild, which I can’t imagine being screened at even the trashiest of phallus-oriented bachelorette parties.
While the unprovoked exhibition of male genitalia often results in a restraining order, there is a definite sense of satisfaction that comes with every exposure of a woman’s breasts. Thanks to the glorious internet, we’ve seen hundreds of pairs, and yet they are still a delightful surprise. It’s like when Fred solves the mystery at the end of an episode of Scooby Doo by unmasking the monster and revealing the sinister profiteer inevitably hidden underneath.
But it has gotten to the point where the classic version of Girls Gone Wild is not enough to sate the boob-centric hunger of the male libido. The company has spawned more spin-offs than All in the Family. Other titles include Girls Gone Wild: Ultimate Spring Break, Girls Gone Wild: America Uncovered and the cripplingly dumb Girls Gone Wild Games, which can be likened to American Gladiators, sans the tact.
In this installment of the GGW saga, girls from across the country are taken away to a private island where they compete for our amusement. Events include mechanical bull riding, crawling over a greased-up pole and, if memory serves, something involving a cargo net. All of these tasks are performed without the luxury of bikini tops, creating a bizarre hybrid of a Mexican bar competition and sixth-grade gym class. Perhaps the strangest part of the whole experience is the video’s conception of law and order: two midgets in traditional referee garb, who complete the show’s soft-porn-circus motif.
When Sony introduced the camcorder in 1983, many fathers rushed to electronics retailers to get their daughters’ formative years on tape. Oddly enough, these same technological advancements would one day capture their little girls in fits of drunken stupidity, effectively transforming them into fodder for an office stag party. As long as Spring Break continues to lure thousands of coeds to tropical, alcohol-soaked locations, girls will continue to go wild. And as long as there is Girls Gone Wild, you’ll find me in front of the TV eating Scooby Snacks and trying to solve the mystery all over again.
Sean Bartlett, a junior in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].