Snooki

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By Alexis Medina

"She is busty and short-waisted with small legs; sort of like a turnip turned on its tip. There is the weird tan, but the pièce de résistance of Snookiness is the half-doughnut-shaped pouf on top of her head" (Snooki's Time).

A glimpse into the mind of Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi as interviewed by David Letterman: media type="youtube" key="XXC1Qkj2kdo" height="390" width="640" align="center"

Biography

Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi was thrown into the spotlight by MTV’s whirlwind reality television show //Jersey Shore//. Born in Santiago, Chile, Polizzi was adopted by two Italian Americans living in upstate New York and raised in Marlboro, New York (Snooki’s Time). Snooki was a cheerleader in high school, and says she “was a cool teenager. I had cool friends.” She has also admitted to having an eating disorder as a teenager, and still struggles with her weight (Snooki Weighed). She was made fun of in high school for her weight and alleged sexual encounters, which she denies. She attended community college to receive training to become a veterinary technician, but stopped going to school in order to start filming. She saw an ad on Facebook for the auditions, went, and the rest is history. During Snooki’s stay two stays at the Jersey Shore and on stay in Miami, she has gotten punched by a drunk teacher at a bar, been arrested for being drunk in the middle of the day, and become known for her love of pickles and “gorilla juicehead,” a muscular guido (Snooki Discusses). The show aired the final episode of the third season and it is rumored that for the fourth season, the club-loving guidos will be flown out to Italy to reconnect with the homeland.

Psychoanalytic Perspective

Snooki’s id has most of the control over her subconscious. She follows her impulses, whether or not they are congruent to societal norms. She binge drinks at all hours of the day and spends most of her time partying. She has been criticized for her use of the term “guido,” most commonly known as an insult for Italian Americans, but has repeatedly defended her use of the word, and her portrayal of the culture.

Snooki is in the phallic stage of psychosexual development. This is because she developed characteristics that are reckless, overly self-assured, and narcissistic. She is often portrayed on the show as being overtly sexual and focused on obtaining sexual partners. Reckless behaviors include not only her sexual escapades, but her drinking habits as well. Snooki was arrested on the boardwalk of the Jersey shore for public intoxication after she ran along the boardwalk, fell repeatedly into the sand, and was uncooperative with her roommates and law enforcement officials. Another characteristic of those stuck in the phallic stage is an inability to find love, and a common theme in Snooki’s life is to find a “juicehead guido” that she can love, but after three seasons of the show, she has yet to find a partner.

Some defense mechanisms that Snooki employs to balance the demands of the id, ego, and super-ego, are acting out, regression, and rationalization. She acts out by getting belligerently drunk, getting arrested, and shouting out when she does not get her way. She once tried to drink a beer while at work. She regresses often, screaming “wah” like a child when she is upset or distressed. She speaks like a child when dealing with conflict, and after her arrest she spoke to her father like a child would. She uses rationalization often throughout the show and in various interviews. She, along with the other cast members of //Jersey Shore// are often criticized for their way of life and their philosophy is “GTL” which stands for gym, tan, laundry. She has defended them, blaming it on guido culture and the society they all live in, rather than claiming responsibility for her own actions.

Interactionist Approach

Snooki has been placed in unconventional situations throughout her life. Being born in Chile, getting adopted by Italian Americans, being raised as an only child made fun of in high school, and dropping out of college to join the cast of an MTV reality show has affected her personality.

The person-situation interactionist approach applies to Snooki because she is in an unusual situation that has portrayed her personality in a certain light and pigeonholed her into a certain personality type. Snooki herself even admitted that "It messes with your head. That's why we go crazy. That's why we fight with each other. That's why we drink. We're living in a house for two months with that shit. We can't have cellphones, TV, radio or the Internet. If the president died, we'd have no idea. There's no normalcy. It's just like prison, with cameras” (Snooki Discusses). Snooki’s personality, or at least the way it is portrayed on TV, can largely be attributed to the situations she has found herself in. She lived for two months in a house on the Jersey shore, surrounded by seven of her closest friends, unlimited amounts of alcohol, access to every club in the area, and the attention of a film crew, and the media following her every move. Like she said, it was either do what she could, or do nothing at all. If she chose to do nothing at all, she would not have gotten airtime, and if she did not get airtime, she would not get paid.

Harry Stack Sullivan focused on threats that are inherently social and the importance of peers and social networks. Snooki was surrounded by people who enabled and oftentimes encouraged her bad behavior, but not of her own choosing. Yes, she loves them and considers the cast to be a family, but they are not friends by their own volition, they were thrown together. Just as Sullivan suggested that our friends are our mirror, Snooki’s roommates are a good reflection of her own personality.

According to Murray, Snooki’s personality would be a result of a combination of needs and presses. For instance her need to make money in order to uphold her lifestyle, and the press of the show to make it interesting.

Discussion

While Snooki is often portrayed as a one-sided individual, there is much more to her 4 foot 9 image than meets the eye. She is a person too, just one who has been easily influenced by her environment. It would be interesting to be able to further assess her through interviews and tests, but until then, the world will have to settle for another season of the //Jersey Shore.//

References

(2010, July 23). Snooki’s Time, //NYTimes.com.// Retrieved April 14, 2011, from []

= (2010, January 19). Snooki Weighed Just 80 Pounds While Battling Eating Disorder. Usmagazine.com. Retrieved April 18, 2011, from http://www.usmagazine.com/moviestvmusic/news/snooki-weighed-just-80-pounds-while-battling-eating-disorder-2010191 =

= (2011, March 2). Snooki Discusses Smushing and the Stress of 'Jersey Shore' in Rolling Stone Cover Story, RollingStone.com. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/snooki-discusses-smushing-and-the-stress-of-jersey-shore-in-rolling-stone-cover-story-20110302 =

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