The Real World: San Diego
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Image:RWSanDiegoCast.jpg The Real World: San Diego was the fourteenth season of MTV's popular reality television series The Real World, which focuses on seven diverse strangers living together for several months in a different city each season, as cameras follow their lives and interpersonal relationships. The San Diego edition premiered in 2004, with the cast living in a blue, three-story converted commercial building in San Diego's Point Loma neighborhood.
Assignment
Every season of The Real World, beginning with its fifth season, has included the assignment of a season-long group job or task to the housemates. The San Diego cast on a boat in San Diego Bay named "Stars and Stripes" which carried visitors daily. The cast members worked as tour guides and helped to maintain the boat in their spare time. This created a problem for Frankie, who has a phobia of boats and is initially frightened by the sight of the harbor. None of them particularly like the job, and at one point Cameran and Robin fake falling in the harbor to get out of work. The castmates were trained in public speaking by American University's Department of Communications.
Rape allegation
A 22-year-old woman claimed she was raped in the Real World house sometime the night of November 14, 2003, by an acquaintance of Real World cast member Randy Barry, identified in local reports as "Justin", who was staying at the house as a guest. The woman claimed the man bought her a drink at a downtown San Diego nightspot, which she blacked out after drinking. According to cast member Jamie Chung, a member of production staff said that the young woman was found lying naked on the bathroom floor of the Real World house as Justin emerged, saying "I just hit that." That person had then dressed the woman and moved her to the living room couch, where Chung, upon arriving home on the morning of November 15, found her. Chung then helped that other person move the woman to the downstairs guest bedroom. Chung and the camera crew woke the woman at 10:30am, while cameras were rolling. Chung told the woman that she may have been sexually assaulted in the bathroom during the night, but the woman, according to Chung, appeared disoriented and had difficulty speaking. With the woman's help, Chung contacted a male friend of hers and arranged for her transportation home. Feeling pain in her genital region, the woman reported the incident to police on November 16, and a subsequent medical examination revealed abrasions to both her vagina and anus. According to police, the woman believes her assailant drugged her, brought her back to the Real World house and then while she was unconscious, raped her in the bathroom, since that is the only place in the house where the show's cameras are off-limits.
Another cast member told police that he had seen the woman barely able to stand up in the bathroom, mumbling incoherently and looking confused, according to the search warrant.
The police sexual assault unit began investigating the next day, November 17, but the Real World cast and crew had left on the cast’s group trip to Mexico, and all film from November 14th and 15th had been shipped from the house to the production headquarters in Los Angeles. Kevin Lee, the on-site producer of show, told police he had not viewed the footage but that, after talking to the cast, believed the woman might have been raped, and confirmed that Justin was resident in the house at the time of the alleged assault. Why this did not motivate him to look at the film or to use the on-site film-editing computer to review the incident is unknown. Lee agreed to supply the police with the consent forms and photo ID cards that listed who was in the house at the time of the incident, and gave them a tour of the house, allowing them to search the bathroom for evidence.
At the end of the tour, however, Lee received a phone call from Pam Naughton, an attorney representing Bunim-Murray Productions, which produces the show. Naughton refused to permit the police to search the bedrooms and stated that the producers would not turn over any documents or film until she personally reviewed them. The police then obtained a search warrant, and raided the house, confiscating the film-editing computer, the cast's e-mail computer, bedding, towels, videotapes and other possible items of evidence. After examining hours of footage taped for the show, and seizing evidence at the scene, police made no arrests, and the San Diego County District Attorney's office concluded there was not enough evidence to warrant any charges.
Nearly a month of footage from the season ended up on the cutting room floor do to the allegation. While Charlie Dordevich only appears in 3 episodes, he lived in the house almost as long as Frankie, who appeared in the first 23 episodes.[1][2][3]
Cast
- Brad Fiorenza
- Cameran Eubanks
- Jamie Chung
- Frankie Abernathy (episodes 1-22)
- Jacquese Smith
- Randy Barry
- Robin Hibbard
- Charlie Dordevich (episodes 23-25)
Brad Fiorenza, a frat boy from Chicago, rides his motorcycle everywhere. He is currently an accountant, but hates his job and doesn't want to follow the career, even though his father wants him too. Brad has a girlfriend of four years, Andrea, at home but eventually breaks up with her during the course of the filming. Brad is portrayed as a bad boy but with a good heart. Although he was in and out of jail, and had a one-night stand with a local blonde named Jackie while he was dating his girlfriend, and had a drunken tryst with Cameran, he still had a large fan base of female viewers. Template:Citeneeded
Cameran Eubanks is from South Carolina who is generally disapproving of "yankees", or those from the northern United States. She doesn't want to think about ever making out with a Northern boy, but she eventually does after a drunken tryst with Brad. Cameran is portrayed as having an archaic view on sex and sexuality, although she does promote masturbation. She is hesitant about relationships and naturally untrusting of men because of her father's infidelity. She has a flirtatious relationship with Brad which climaxes to a few drunken kisses, but she later loses interest when he has a one-night stand with a local girl from a bar.
Jamie Chung is a University of California, Riverside student. She wants to find a way to incorporate her Korean heritage into her life, but has trouble communicating with her parents, who know very little English. She feels people don't treat her parents well because of this, especially customers at her parents' restaurant. Jamie is portrayed as the most level-headed of the cast and doesn't do anything extreme or noteworthy during the course of the show.
Frankie Abernathy hails from Kansas City, and worked at a porn shop before coming to San Diego. She is known for her affinity for Hello kitty and her colorful wigs. She suffers from Cystic Fibrosis and is worried that her job on a boat during the colder seasons would put her health in jeopardy. Her relationship with her boyfriend Dave is often highlighted, including their teary-eyed fights. She drunkenly cheats on Dave with a man named Adam, but ends the relationship with him when she comes to feel that he is too overwhelming. Frankie later leaves the cast, due to missing her boyfriend, Dave, and feeling like an outcast in the house. She is replaced by Charlie.
Jacquese Smith is a college student from New Jersey who takes pride in being one of the few members of his family - and community - to attend college. Jacquese gets little camera time, but does claim throughout the show that he is a "bootyologist". He wishes he had a better relationship with his father, who has been absent most of his life. He has very close ties to his mother, and took the role as man of the house when his father left.
Randy Barry, who is the oldest of the housemates, is a bouncer from Boston, Massachusetts. He is artistic and easygoing and open-minded, and loves to party and meet women. Randy has a semi-romantic relationship with Robin which ends abruptly when Robin, drunk, becomes jealous and angered when he speaks to a girl at the bar. He's close friends with roommate Brad, and the two of them dress up for Halloween as video game characters Mario and Luigi.
Robin Hibbard is a buxom, energetic bartender from Tampa, Florida and works at a Coyote Ugly bar. She is romantically involved with Randy for a period of time, but at the end of the series, is linked with Mike, a member of the United States Marines.
Charlie Dordevich was only shown on the show for three episodes. He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and loves playing the guitar and making music. He was sent to a boarding school when he was 12, and displays a fun-loving, free-spirited nature.