Keller @ Large: South Boston Doesn't Want To Be The Next 'Jersey Shore'
BOSTON (CBS) - OK, movie and TV producers, we get it.
You love South Boston as a source for your products – its quirky customs, gritty streets, and funny accents.
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And sometimes, we like what you turn that material into.
"Good Will Hunting" was an inspirational story of the bond among working class guys from Southie and how one of them broke free to find his future.
And "The Departed" was a spot-on dramatization of the criminal insanity that gripped one notorious South Bostonian.
But the entertainment industry's fascination with South Boston has officially jumped the shark with the news that the same production company that gave us "Jersey Shore" - a depiction of a group of infantile young adults thrown together in a beach house with nothing to do but binge drink and torture the neighbors – have their hearts now set on creating a new show based on – you guessed it – a group of young South Bostonians.
According to a press release from the producers, "Southie Pride offers an insider's look at the faith, hard work and family that make this blue-collar enclave Beantown's beating heart."
Already, there's a major red flag – "Beantown"?
Are you kidding?
Anyway, the release continues:
"Get ready to experience the loudest, proudest, most in-your-face subculture on the eastern seaboard."
Or, maybe, not.
Native South Bostonian and local blogger Maureen Dahill tells me the casting for "Southie Pride" isn't going very well.
It seems South Bostonians have too much pride to get involved with the same folks who found such success with the debasement of "Jersey Shore," where kids with drinking and emotional problems are encouraged to act out their dysfunction on camera for the amusement of the masses.
Keep up the resistance, South Boston. Let these vampires go suck the pride out of some other community.
Don't worry, they'll understand.
It'll be a real-life "loud…proud [and] in-your-face" moment.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
