Real World Cast Is Cool With STDs
Or at least they recognize the very real possibility of encountering them. This is just one of the many surprising things we learned when The Village Voice obtained a copy of MTV’s standard contract for Real World participants.
Some parts of the 30-page monster are actually routine, if oddly detailed, like MTV shirking responsibility for any possible “death, serious physical injury” or “extreme emotional distress.” Even the most boring jobs make you agree to that, just in case you accidentally paper-cut yourself to death.
But how many employers make you agree to the risk of contracting “HIV/AIDS, gonorrhea, herpes, syphilis, pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), Chlamydia, scabies (crabs), hepatitis, genital warts,” and anything else they forgot? And while cast mates must promise that they are disease-free, they have to acknowledge that the others might be lying, and any sexual contact is “at [their] own risk.”
The risk doesn’t end when the cameras stop rolling and the Reunion Special is over. The cast mates have to sign over the rights to their entire life stories, and the producer can spice things up if reality is just too boring: participants give permission for the producers to lie about them! Cast mates can be portrayed “in a false light,” even if it exposes them to “public ridicule, humiliation, or condemnation.” If this is the way all reality TV operates, maybe Spencer Pratt is actually the nicest guy in the world.
