“They’re All the Same”: JWoww on Juice Heads, Final Girls, and Sunday Dinners

If you were even barely alive in 2009, then you remember the beginning of the Jersey Shore. At the time, reality TV had the world in a chokehold. Shows like the Real Housewives were kicking off new franchises in different cities around the world, women were competing to date one mediocre man on The Bachelor, and people were hooked on the drama on all kinds of Lord of the Flies-esque competition shows like Survivor and America’s Next Top Model. 

Jersey Shore was the apex of the genre—everything wrong with and perfect about it—with a vaguely (depending who you ask) offensive premise where MTV cast a group of unknown, 20-something self-described guidos and guidettes and dropped them in the middle of the New Jersey Boardwalk at the beginning of summer. It was a true phenomenon; even Obama made a reference to the show (when talking about a tanning tax). The show brought what some viewed as an offensively stereotypical vision of Italian-American culture to the mainstream and spray tans, “poofs,” and rhinestone everything into the cultural conversation. At the center of the discourse was a 23-year-old from New York with skunk stripe extensions who called herself JWoww. The rule may have been to never fall in love at the Jersey Shore. But when she charged into the house to tell her roommate, “There’s juice heads everywhere!” we just couldn’t help it. 

Over a decade later, JWoww—whose real name is Jenni Farley—is still on our screens as part of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation. And last week, she also made her directorial debut with the found footage horror film Devon. It may seem like an obvious departure for Farley, but the process sounds not so unlike MTV’s when they dropped her and a group of strangers in Seaside. “I locked those five little shitheads in Pennhurst,” she said, “and gave them a run for their money. I was like, ‘I am doing a psychological, mind-altering situation.” Her experience on Jersey Shore, during which the cast was kept so secluded that they had no idea the impact it had when it began airing, was the foundation for her new role as director. “I brought what I knew,” she said. “And I knew what it was like to be uncomfortable in front of the camera.” To mark the occasion, we asked the first-time director to take the hot seat for this week’s Rorschach Test, in which she sounds off on side bangs, final girls, and Sunday dinners.

———

KARMA

“She’s a bitch. Sorry.”

———

SIDE BANGS

“Hate them.”

———

CAT EYE

“I’m finally learning how to do one properly. I’m so horrendous at doing it, I always need help. This one always goes low, this one always goes high. I end up cockeyed and not giving cat eye.”

———

DAYS OFF

“Unacceptable.”

———

MILFS

“Me currently, obviously.”

———

DIRECTING

“It makes me so nervous. But like, I could fail miserably. Just because I’m a fan of something doesn’t make me good at making it. So I’m just so nervous for people to see my art because I’m such a fan of the industry and a super fan of the genre, I want to do right by it.”

———

BEING PALE

“Terrible! Talk about a horror.”

———

STATEN ISLAND

“Still the dump of the nation, even though I love it. I always think of Angelina.”

———

FUR BOOTS

“They’re so back. It’s a lifestyle.”

———

TAXES

“Hate. God, hate.”

———

SUNDAY DINNERS

“A must.”

———

FINAL GIRLS

“It’s always the weird one that survives.”

———

JUICE HEADS

“They’re all the same.”

———

MEATBALLS

“My babies.”

———