After shamelessly promoting the hell out of Jersey Shore by repeatedly playing the clip of Nicole “Snooki” Poilizzi getting blasted in the face, MTV has decided not to air the now infamous clip during this week’s episode. A couple of weeks ago, MTV was feeling the heat from UNICO, an Italian-American service organization upset with the networks’ portrayal of Italian-Americans as “guidos.”  Now, MTV executives have decided to omit the clip based on the fact that it’s become viral in nature.

We bash MTV quite a bit here on Unreality – and rightfully so – but this is by far the most hypocritical, spineless move the network has pulled in a long, long time.

I can’t take another episode of Bully Beatdown!  I just can’t!

To be honest, I’m not sure what aggravates me more – the fact that MTV, after showing the clip of Snooki getting punched as often as they possibly could to promote their show, now decides to cave in to the pressure and have it removed from this week’s upcoming episode, or the fact that there are people out there who are so out of touch and have such zeal for their agendas that they’d get worked up over a clip of a girl getting punched on a show that airs on 10:00 pm on a cable network.  You really can’t show anything on television anymore without offending someone, but it blows my mind that this scene is too graphic for cable television.  Never mind that we have television shows about the Mafia and serial killers, and that for years MTV has exploited sex for profit, it’s a sad state of affairs when a clip of a girl getting punched calls for censorship.

Hi.  I was a gym teacher until I lost my job for hitting a girl.  I’m pretty much the biggest loser of all time.

Focusing first on MTV, this is a bitch move.  There’s really no better way to say it.  For one, the damage has already been done.  Everyone and their mother has seen this clip (and if you haven’t – how?), either on the Internet or during one of the literally dozens of promotions for Jersey Shore that MTV has aired.  Removing the clip from this week’s episode does nothing except lower ratings and appease the maniacs that called for its removal in the first place.  It doesn’t matter that the overwhelming majority of people want to see this clip – hell, I know people who watch this show solely because of this once-upcoming clip – a few noisy crackpots is all it takes to ruin the fun for everyone.  It’s always been like this, but it somewhat saddens me to think that the one network that I felt represented my generation, the one network that wanted to party all night and stick it to the man, has become, without a doubt, as safe and vanilla and vapid as the people it once rebelled against.  MTV hasn’t played music videos for a long, long time, and its programming has completely gone to shit (I mean, it is the absolute lowest form of entertainment – Next?  Room Raiders?  Dear God.), but this current move shows just how deep into the public relations-heavy, quality content-light realm MTV has actually sunk.

Absolutely disgusting that she got hit in the face.  But undeniably funny, too.

But money’s money, and the people at MTV – while spineless – are also interested in keeping certain groups and advertisers happy, despite the hypocrisy involved in doing so. An MTV executive stated that the video footage “was taken out of context” as part of the reason for his decision to remove the clip.  Well, in what context is a video clip of a girl getting punched in the face by a roided-out guido supposed to fall into?  Seems to me like the context would be, oh, I don’t know, at a club on the Jersey Shore filled with self-described guidos and guidettes.  Worst of all, though, is how often MTV showed the clip to promote their show, and how prevalent and accessible the clip became as a result.  If anyone had taken the clip out of context, it was MTV itself, and to claim otherwise is disingenuous.

Sure, there’s an argument that impressionable people watching the show may think it’s funny or OK to punch a girl in the face – but that’s weak.  It’s akin to arguing that playing Grand Theft Auto will make people go out and steal cars and kill.  It doesn’t hold water, there’s no evidence whatsoever to support such a claim, and it wrongfully places the responsibility for bad acts on someone or something besides the actual perpetrator himself.  It’s a joke, and the only type of people who make such arguments are crackpots with agendas.  That’s exactly what’s going on here – maniacal groups have pressured MTV to censor this week’s Jersey Shore episode, and MTV, once a bad ass, stick-it-to-the-man network, has submitted to their outrageous demands.

The guidette’s cut!  She’s cut, and it’s a bad cut!

And don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here.  I’m disappointed not because I really want to see a clip of a girl getting punched in the face (which, admittedly, I totally do), but because censorship of any medium is a scary thing.  Who’s to decide what’s appropriate for cable television?  Surely, I can handle watching the clip at issue, as can millions of other viewers, but because a few overly-sensitive people have a problem with it, nobody’s allowed to see it.  What happened to just changing the channel?

As for the clip itself, well….of course it’s horrible.  It’s absolutely disgusting that a man – let alone a jacked dude – would punch a girl in the face.  I don’t think anyone is advocating this, and anyone who is is either joking or not to be taken seriously.  By showing the clip, MTV wouldn’t be celebrating domestic violence or anything like that.  No, they’d simply be cashing in on the fact that people – like you, me, and everyone else – like watching shocking videos.  We like seeing things that we don’t see every day.  But, and maybe some people disagree – the clip itself is funny.  It’s incredible, simply because it’s so outrageous and unexpected.  Can something be both horrible and funny?  Of course it can – otherwise we wouldn’t have R-rated and black comedies.  I mean, would killing a horse in the dean’s office be a really sick and terrible thing to do?  You bet – but it’d also be funny as all hell.  The fact that Jersey Shore is real life really doesn’t change much, especially when considering the fact that lil’ Snooki was just fine.  The girl can take a punch; I’ll give her that.

All in all, I suppose the combination of increased censorship in our country (because make no mistake, that is precisely what this is) with yet another major company bowing to the demands of interest groups who are not representative of the general population stings me particularly hard.

What do you guys think?  Should MTV have aired the clip?  Why or why not?