While stereotypes packed the dance floor, producers downstairs fought for a unique identity
Anastasia Kurinnaya, shod in a pair of black Aldo booties with five-inch heels, stepped carefully down the 10 rickety plywood stairs that led from the coat check into the grimy basement of Passion, a popular Russian dance club on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn.
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Ms. Kurinnaya, 25, said she had been anxiously waiting all week for this moment. She wanted to get on the show to make her ex-boyfriend jealous.
“If I hook up with somebody I can throw it in his face,” she said.
At 11 p.m. on Saturday, Ms. Kurinnaya was the first person plucked out of Passion’s swelling crowd and led downstairs.
By 4:00 a.m., nearly four dozen other young Russian-Americans charmed, pleaded or simply shoved their way into the audition, determined to prove that the Russian version of Snooki or The Situation can outdo his or her Guido counterpart.
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The creators of “Brighton Beach” said their show is not exactly a rip-off of “Jersey Shore,” or any other reality show.
“We’re trying to portray what goes on inside the Russian community and to expose people, introduce people, to what Russians are really like,” said Elina Miller, 25, who, along with Alina Dizik and Christine Mahin, is one of the show’s producers.
“Russians have a place in pop culture,” Ms. Miller said. “But it’s not necessarily a realistic or true portrayal. I realized that the best way to break down these stereotypes was through a show.”
- “How Do You Say ‘Jersey Shore’ in Russian?“, New York Times; March 11, 2010
Let me start by saying that you should read the above Times piece in full. It’s well-written, got a lot of great quotes, and they included some audio interviews that are pretty amusing. But when you’re done, come back here.
Now, that you’ve read it, let me tell you this: it’s a fun read, but it misses the point. Every media outlet in the world (including us when we broke the story) portrayed this as the “Russian Jersey Shore” with outlandish characters, over-the-top stereotypes, and regurgitated mouthfuls of Snookie and The Situation with a borscht aftertaste.
And that’s what’s wrong with the Times piece. Despite the producers’ insistence that it ain’t no Jersey Shore-remake, media-types everywhere are contradicting them with cherry-picked examples of the shlubs who reinforce the Jersey Shore narrative. Because, hell, that’s a lot funnier to write about. But is it better to watch?
At Saturday’s casting call, I got a different sense of what Brighton Beach can be. Producers Elina Miller and Alina Dizik are fighting an uphill battle to distance themselves from Jersey Shore’s putrid stigma while still feeding off its popularity.
