The guidos have landed!
The stars of “Jersey Shore” landed in Florence, Italy, today to begin filming the fourth season of MTV’s hit reality show.
The cast traded in their comfy digs in Seaside Heights, NJ, for a luxury home just outside Florence’s famed Piazza del Duomo.
In addition to ditching the beach house, the tanned twenty-somethings will spend their time working in the “O’Vesuvio” pizzeria, rather than peddling t-shirts on the boardwalk in the Jersey summer hotspot.
Despite Snooki and Co. being a mega-hit in America, the guidos and guidettes presence in Italy has sparked some outrage and backlash among Italian officials.
“We needed to have some general rules on behavior in place. US universities with study centers here are not very happy. They’re afraid people will start drinking too much,” said a spokeswoman for Florence’s city council.
Earlier this year, Mayor of Florence Matteo Renzi issued an edict in which he detailed rules for the fist-pumping celebrities and MTV to abide by when filming.
The rules include:
— The cast will not be filmed in bars and clubs that serve alcohol.
— The cast will not be filmed drinking in public.
— The show will not be filmed to promote Florence as a drinking town.
— The show should be filmed in a manner to promote Italy (not Americans visiting Italy) and feature it’s culture and good food.
Cristina Scaletti, a culture and tourism official for Italy’s Tuscany region, said before the cast arrived that their presence was “inopportune” and the show was “a eulogy to pulp and trash.”
At least one local newspaper mocked the cast, running the headline “Jersey Shore: The Superbuffoons have arrived.”
Beppe Severgnini, a columnist for Corriere della Sera, has voiced his displeasure with the show’s filming in the historic city, and stopped just short of threatening the cast.
“If the ‘Jersey Shore’ guys do what has made them famous there will be trouble,” Severgnini said.
With AFP