MTV's Real World changed the landscape of television back in 1992 and is the longest-running reality series in history. A PBS documentary series, An American Family, inspired producers Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray to create a show that made for unforgettable television.
By using a cast of regular young people picked to live in a house together the creators didn't have to pay actors to make a scripted show. This experiment has tackled subjects such as religion, prejudice, sexuality, death and politics over the years.
For its 30th season, the Real World returns to Chicago, complete with a "skeleton in the closet" theme to surprise cast members. Windy City Times went on set as this season wrapped on Randolph Street to speak with Murray about the show.
Windy City Times: Start with the history of the Real World.
Jonathan Murray: First off, you have to understand that my late partner came out of the soap-opera world. She was great at making those continuing dramas. She knew how to build the drama and lay it out. I had come out of news and documentaries. So when you put that together you get a documentary that has a lot of aspects that a scripted show has, in the sense that you cast it with several people that normally wouldn't live together.
You actually go out and find seven people and you put them together in hopes that you will get an interesting story by them living together. You art direct the house rather than finding people that already live in a shitty house. When you lay out the show, you lay it out like a dramatic show, where you have hooks going into the commercial breaks or have characters evolving in the 13 episodes.
How it began was we were working with MTV to make scripted project. We hired a writer and it was called St. Mark's Place. It was about young people starting out their lives in New York. When it came to making the TV show, MTV said, "Wait a minute: We just show music videos that are free. This show is going to cost serious money!" It was an economic budget but they were just not ready to go into scripted since this was back in 1991.
We had been doing reality programming with Fox where we would follow a family around in a crisis. We went in and pitched them over breakfast the idea for the show. By lunchtime they had ordered a pilot. They tested it and it still took nine months because it was a really expensive thing for them to do. They decided to do it because it reinforced their brand with unique programming for young people. When it went on the air it turned out to be a hit. Now we have done it again and again.
WCT: You had spotlighted so many members of the LGBT community when no one was doing that on TV.
Jonathan Murray: I think from the beginning the story engine of this show was a diverse cast. We don't normally live with people who are different than us. We tend to not want to be challenged. By putting in the Black urban kid with the white suburban kid, the rich kid, the poor kid, the gay or lesbian with the straight people, that gave us story because those people were not used to interacting with each other. We had a basic faith in human behavior that ultimately they would grow, learn and appreciate their differences.
From the beginning—since our mantra was diversity—we had no choice but to have gay, lesbian or transgender people in the cast.
WCT: Sounds like there was a lot of experimenting.
Jonathan Murray: Yes, there was and it was very scary at the beginning. We weren't sure we were going to get any story. We didn't know what would happen. In the early years we had a TV in the house. We realized when things get difficult they will just watch TV and not deal with it.
WCT: How is it with the Internet now?
Jonathan Murray: The Internet has certain websites that we block when they talk about the Real World. Sometimes people will take pictures of the cast and put them on a website, so [we] try to protect them from that. We have pulled back from that because starting with last season we have pulled back the curtain a bit. You can see camera people in the shots. You will hear the producer's voice in some of the interviews. We wanted to emphasize just how real this show is by showing you some of how it is made.
WCT: Why did you pick Chicago as a location again?
Jonathan Murray: Chicago is a great city to make television. There are great neighborhoods. It is walkable so they don't have to pile in a car every time they leave the house. The Chicago mass transit welcomed us back from 13 years ago when we were here. They let us have free reign again, which is pretty cool because every city is not willing to do that. People in Chicago don't resent us coming in and doing this.
WCT: There was some resistance when the Real World filmed here last.
Jonathan Murray: We were caught up in that particular neighborhood of Wicker Park with the gentrification that was going on. We walked into it unaware of that. We didn't take a building away from somebody, it was sitting empty. We just renovated the inside of it. There was a loud minority that resented us. It didn't impact us shooting that much.
WCT: I haven't heard a lot about you filming here this time.
Jonathan Murray: When we came in we met with the film board. We did a neighborhood meeting and there were some people that were a little nervous. As you see this isn't a show that has big makeup trucks or big generators. We do it all within the space and when the cast goes outside there is a just a cameraman and maybe a producer following them. It doesn't leave a big footprint.
WCT: Does this cast have local jobs here in Chicago?
Jonathan Murray: The job thing began because in season four we went to London and the cast did not know what to do with themselves. It was culture shock. They stayed inside. We wanted to set up something like a job to integrate them into the community. Starting with season five, they were given $50,000 to start a business, then jobs after that. The last few seasons instead of giving them a job, we have found local businesses who would be open to hiring them. It is up to them to get the job. It feels much less forced than having them all work at Arista Records!
WCT: Sounds like you are keeping the show fresh.
Jonathan Murray: That is what we are doing. Last season exes moved in; this season [there are] skeletons with people from [the roommates'] pasts who they have unfinished business with. Bang knocking on the door week after week they come to haunt them.
What I am hearing from the cast is that it was good for them. It forced them to deal with issues. For me that is the core DNA of the show. It is all about growth on the Real World. This was taking it to warp drive. Starting with episode four it had everyone wondering who it would be the next week. When the first person arrived then they realized what the concept might be for this season. There was dread but then excitement because it is really fun when someone else's skeleton shows up!
WCT: What other shows are you making?
Jonathan Murray: We do Project Runway—another very gay-friendly show. Trying to find a straight man for that show is not easy. During the whole DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] thing, we had a castmate ask him to marry him on the set. Afterwards when he talked to him on the phone he found out that DOMA had been overturned and they could finally get married in California.
We do the Kardashians and all of the spinoffs, which is lots of fun. We do Total Divas, about the women of WWE, which we love doing. We do Bad Girls Club, another very gay-friendly show that was just here.
We have a bunch of things in development with ABC television so that's good. We do documentaries like Valentine Road on HBO, about homophobia. A kid in Oxnard asked another kid in his middle school to be his valentine and then he brought a gun shooting him dead in his computer lab. It was a really powerful film because the defense put the gay kid on film making it all his fault. It was fascinating because it went into how the school administrators were dealing with the situation in the school doing a dreadful job. We talked to the jurors and saw how they fell for the defense's ploy that it was somehow the gay boys fault. He was just trying to figure out his sexuality. What you learn in the doc is that both kids came from abusive homes and had a lot in common. The sad thing is that both kids had been abandoned by the adults in their lives. We shot it over three years.
WCT: You also do the Real World Challenge shows. Some of this cast could be on a new season.
Jonathan Murray: Yes, we just shot one in Panama. That airs in early 2015. Some of the cast from the exes season of the Real World will be on it.
WCT: Since the first season, having gay people on the Real World has meant a lot to people like me.
Jonathan Murray: We enjoy the diversity. I loved going back to the Philadelphia season, [when] we had two gay guys on it. Everyone assumed Willie was the gay guy and the straight guys were talking about him to Karamo, who asked, "How do you know I'm not gay?" It suddenly dawns on them that you can be gay but not stereotypical. In casting those two people we were hoping for that scene but we didn't know if it would happen. We were excited when it happened because it was a lightbulb moment for our audience.
The year we had the first transgender person, with Katelynn in Brooklyn. [That was] was important, also.
I never had to push MTV to do it because they got it right from the very beginning. It is a pleasure to work with a network that gets it. Their courage to let us make the Real World that we do has had a really powerful impact on young people today who now understand that gay people can get married. They are different than their parent's generation and I think media has had a big part in it.
Whether it is newspapers like yours or what we do, it has all had a positive impact.
The Real World keeps it real on MTV Tuesdays at 9 p.m. CT.
