When future historians scan through the winter of 2009-2010 at the big pop cultural touchstones, two completely independent projects will stick out to them: James Cameron’s love song to nature Avatar, and MTV’s slam dunk of a reality show Jersey Shore. While the two projects couldn’t look any differently – one cost $250 million dollars to produce over a period of almost 20 years, while the other cost MTV maybe a few barrels of Axe Body Spray, at the most – when one looks a little closer you can see that, not surprising especially considered the title of this article, the two projects are exactly the same thing! 

Let’s break it down:

Both introduce an entirely new language

James Cameron famously sat down with a linguist and developed an entire new language for his alien Na’vi race, coming up with about 1000 completely new vocabulary words. In an even more amazing way, Jersey Shore introduced us to a hidden sub-category of our own English language, a much more difficult feat. For example, instead of a girl asking a guy if he kissed some other girl, in GuidoSpeak the correct phrasing is “Did you put your lips to her?” That kind of poetry can’t be created no matter how many linguists you employ.

Both contain allegories about racial segregation

Avatar is a not-so-subtle allegory about race – hint: the blue people are really supposed to be a bit more red, as in, Washington Redskins red – but Jersey Shore also features its own GoldenGlobesBait message about the horrors of racial segregation. Specifically, orange people. Just look at every scene that takes place in one of the shore’s nearly empty dance clubs. For no good reason, all of Jersey completely vacates the premises whenever our Guido Eight dance the night away at Karma. And while some may point to the fact that Karma looks like one of the lamest clubs in the world, one that wouldn’t be able to even draw PETA protestors if they held nightly cock-fights, those people are just being glib. Clearly, others on the shore are racist against orange-colored people. Soon, they’ll be asking for the institution of separate drinking fountains which, all joking aside, might be a smart idea since fake tan spray can wash off and is probably toxic.

Both necessitate the use of support groups

It takes a potent movie to cause the emergence of support groups that console each other over the fact that the world in the movie isn’t real. But that’s what has happened with Avatar. Groups are popping up all over the Internet helping people cope with A.D.S. (Avatar Depression Syndrome).

Some people are actually considering suicide because they can’t visit Pandora in real life. Less reported is the fact that support groups populated with thousands of men in their 20s and 30s have formed organically, all helping each other come to terms with the fact that they’ll never have abs like “The Situation”.

Both are in three dimensions

James Cameron’s labor of love has been designated a “game changer” in the annals of cinema mostly because of its innovative use of 3-D technology, blasting the world of Pandora into the depths of your eyeballs whether you like it or not, bitches. In Jersey Shore though, the story goes much deeper than simply the screen. Even if you didn’t want to watch Snooki, JWOWW, DJ Paulie D or any of their friends, your own TV wouldn’t let you. Turn on a hockey game, flip over to a late night comedy show, or cycle through your favorite comedy video website, you just couldn’t get away from references to the cast members. They are ubiquitous. And that’s the kind of all-invasive proctological-and-penile-exam-at-the-same-exact-time-with-electric-probes James Cameron was hoping to achieve with his fancy cameras. Instead, Jersey Shore did it in good old fashioned regular 2-D and a cast of douchebags.