The 25 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years
18. Puck- The Real World

On the day after every new episode of Jersey Shore, online outlets such as Vulture and Slate publish recaps that debate the behavior of the characters. Although Jersey Shore is a reality show, the critics have few compunctions about calling Sammi and Ronnie characters. The peer-over-sunglasses-directly-into-the-camera and the lift-shirt-to-expose-abs moves are only the beginning of The Situation’s posturing. Snooki’s spoonerism-spouting, slipper-wearing Galactus of a guidette persona may be rooted in who Nicole Polizzi is, but it became an irreversible, parasitic exaggeration long ago. Was it Nathaniel Hawthorne or Pauly D who said: “No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true”?

Kim Kardashian deserved a seat at the Emmys last week, despite the dirty looks of her scripted opponents, because reality TV has become big business. It’s cheap and easy to produce, and the premises can be specialized enough for every vestigial cable network to have its own lineup. And over the years the stars of these shows have become cultural touchstones in ways traditional characters rarely are.

There are many reasons for reality stars’ popularity. For one thing, they allow real people to cat-call and insult the “type” of person they hate without any of the repercussions that might come from gossiping about someone in real life. Reality stars also fulfill a get-rich-and-famous-quick model that is pretty exhilarating and enviable, even if it’s getting rich and famous for dubious reasons.

We also can learn about reality TV’s current success by analyzing its past failures. In the early iterations of MTV’s The Real World, it was just that: real—usually at the show’s peril. All apologies to Eric Nies, but the first few casts were ugly, self-aware, and boring. If Dom felt irritated during the Los Angeles season, he left the house and sought some time alone. If Jon had a cultural difference with the roommates, he had an open, civil conversation with them to understand them. They acted as most of us would have. If that’s what I wanted, I wouldn’t be watching TV.

For good or ill, the artifice of modern reality TV can be traced back to 1994, The Real World’s San Francisco season, when a bristly bike messenger named David Rainey took the mantle of Puck and changed the game forever. (Or, more accurately, made it a game forever.) Shooting off snot rockets and cursing unrepentantly, Puck openly challenged all of his roommates until his presence monopolized the house; even if he wasn’t there, everyone’s conversation revolved around him. He wasn’t the first cast member to be disagreeable, and he wasn’t even the first to get kicked off a show. But he was the first individual to become bigger than the show itself by sheer force of will.

If Puck hadn’t done it, someone else would have. In fact, on that same season Pedro tried to manipulate the show into a platform for AIDS awareness. His earnest, hopeful spirit represented an alternate route in the fork of reality TV’s road and, when pitted against the obnoxiousness of Puck, he lost. Anarchy won the battle, and so far it has won the war.

I believe that Puck is a legitimately odious and oppositional person—he happens to share the name of Shakespeare’s trickster character—but he was obviously playing it up to make himself the Other. In San Francisco for the third season of The Real World, however, the Other was the viewer. In a way that was much more entertaining than his predecessors, Puck served as a stand-in for the audience. We all thought Judd was a pussy, so Puck said it for us. We all wanted to make out with Rachel, so Puck did it for us. Pedro might have had gentle honesty, but Puck had brutal honesty. He moved the Greek chorus from the wings to the front of the stage.

Because he was so patently coarse, it’s easy to call Puck unpredictable. Analyzing his behavior as a whole, however, he was quite predictable. From the beginning—showing up late because he was in jail—to the end—saying “good riddance” at Pedro’s funeral—Puck did whatever created the most conflict. And his roommates fueled the fire by responding with as much deflection as possible, even dismissing him from the house by speakerphone. The Real World began as an innocent enterprise, so many people watched his antics and asked: “Is this guy for real? Is this all an act?” After Puck, we’ve taught ourselves to ask, “Does it matter?”

That being said, perhaps Puck’s greatest contribution to television history was painting a completely realistic portrait of tension. In the Los Angeles season before this one, David got bounced from the house for forcing Tami onto a bed and ripping off her towel to see her naked. Puck got kicked off for eating from someone else’s jar of peanut butter. That looks ridiculous on paper, but it reveals how one tiny action can set people off once they’re in a heightened state. Puck had created an atmosphere of discomfort and volatility in the house, a spirit of hatred and resentment that festered until no one could even put his finger on how it started. That feeling ends with something as innocent as a tub of Jif standing in for an emotion that can’t be articulated.

And you know what? That’s exactly how hateful feelings for someone close to you manifest themselves: their peccadillos add up until you can’t even describe how things first went sour, and eventually you reach an arbitrary point at which those feelings explode. Except in The Real World, over twenty episodes, I can add up all the times Puck rolled his eyes at Pam, and I can chart out the endpoint. By being larger-than-life, Puck showed exactly how small life can sometimes be.

If I “know” him as well as I think I do, I’ll bet that tattooed provocateur has the peanut butter jar hung up in his house as an absurd lifetime achievement award. God, or at least the cast of Big Brother, knows we owe him at least that.