Reality TV Goes Country With MTV's 'Buckwild'
A Dixie twist is headed to MTV with the network's new reality-TV spectacle.
Dec. 5, 2012 — -- A Dixie twist is headed to MTV next year, which will soon premiere its latest reality-TV spectacle, a mix of the network's runaway hit "Jersey Shore" and a bit of TLC's "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo."
"Buckwild," set to premiere early next year, will follow a group of West Virginia friends as they let loose, Southern-style. But instead of the fist-pumping and "gym, tan, laundry" of "Jersey Shore," it will be more muddin' and ATVs.
After the "Jersey Shore" house crew leaves the air in two weeks, they'll be replaced by the Sissonville, W.V., gang on "Buckwild," which will follow nine young adults who enjoy the country life.
"They're really not connected with their cellphones and their computers at all times, so they really live this outdoor lifestyle, and it's really free and it's endearing and it's invigorating," "Buckwild" Executive Producer Colin Nash said.
Fear not, though, "Buckwild" will still have plenty of drunken partying and relationship drama.
"This is the age of the Southern crazy character," media critic Michael Levine told ABC News. "There's no question about it."
From Honey Boo Boo's star turn on "Toddlers and Tiaras" to the History channel's "Swamp People" and Animal Planet's "Hillbilly Handfishin,'" "Buckwild" is the latest in a parade of country-fried shows featuring the wild side of life below the Mason-Dixon line. But do these "redneck reality" shows broaden our horizons, or cast an unfair light on Southern life?
"They represent an exaggerated image of the lives of rural people that deal with their hands," Ted Ownby, professor of Southern studies at the University of Mississippi, said.
The cast of "Buckwild" promises to offer up mayhem and heart. Either way, MTV is counting on viewers' being ready to "go country."
The show is set to premiere Jan. 3.
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