I’m not saying that Ronnie was right to shove Sammi, but he was trying to get her to stop feeding the guy’s fire, and it wasn’t really domestic abuse, not in a world where domestic abuse is a REAL thing that requires HOSPITALS and POLICE OFFICERS and LAWYERS and YEARS OF PTSD THERAPY. But I guess Ronnie sure did defend his honor. By whalloping a guy half his size. And then evading the police.

Again, I am not really complaining. The world created Jersey Shore, not the other way around. You can’t make a color that doesn’t exist, you know what I mean? But I do think that it is finally time (2010!) to at least wonder what the producers of reality TV tell themselves in moments like this. Because let us get so real right now: this is not a fucking documentary about the situation in Afghanistan. The already shaky and morally questionable rule about a documentarian not getting involved with his subject in order to capture the truth about what is happening DOES NOT APPLY HERE. We’re dealing with a group of professionals who have genuine power and control over the people they are filming who nevertheless allow and most likely encourage them to engage in horrific and despicable acts of violence and cruelty and then exploit those horrific and despicable acts for monetary gain. Good job, adults.