Brotherly Love? Oh, Brother!
Philadelphia was in an uproar Wednesday over the decision of The Real World to pack up and leave the city rather than negotiate union contracts. A group called Young Involved Philadelphia held a rally at the proposed location of the The Real World shoot, where one participant told the Philadelphia Daily News,"For people my age, having Real World film here was even bigger than the X Games. ... bigger even than the Sixers. It's bigger than the Eagles. I just can't explain how depressed and angry everyone is about it." Two Daily News columnists, Ellen Gray and Jill Porter, duked it out in print. Gray applauded the fact that Philadelphia had become "the first city ever to have sent The Real World packing" because it didn't "want to pay union wages to produce a show that celebrates conspicuous consumption." Taking a 180-degree different view, Porter wrote: "The goon squad has done it again. The short-sighted union oafs who wreak havoc in pursuit of their own self-interest have run MTV's The Real World out of town." Although Philadelphia Mayor John Street had offered to mediate the dispute, today's Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Bunim/Murray Productions, the company that produces The Real World, had said that its decision to abandon Philadelphia was final. Sharon Pinkenson, head of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office said that the producers had told her "they were a nonunion company, and they were nonunion everywhere, and they did not want any deals with the unions." And in an editorial today, the Philadelphia Inquirer observed that other union union cities had managed to welcome the nonunion production company, and concluded: "Philadelphia can't afford to pooh-pooh the loss of any publicity, let alone the chance for a slick months-long commercial tailor-made to appeal to young people. ... If City Hall, labor leaders and the producers can't make this deal happen, they all might just find a place on another popular MTV show: Jackass."