NJ governor plunges into “Jersey Shore”

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But all eight are doing well, after a nine-episode first season, where they lived in a summer rental and roamed around Seaside Heights, visiting bars, tanning parlors and weight rooms, primping in mirrors, throwing fists and getting romantic.

In January, the cast members signed on for a second season - to begin this Thursday - at reportedly $10,000 each per episode for 12-episodes, plus bonuses. The first episode, at least, will take place in Miami Beach, Florida.

Their first season finale garnered a 4.8 rating, which is considered high for any cable program except football.

Christie is not the first critic of the program. Last year, NJ State Senator Joseph Vitale called upon Viacom, MTV's parent company, to cancel the show for its disparaging portrayal of Italian Americans, saying the program promotes ethnic stereotypes.

Vitale added that the characters' frequent use of the terms "guido" and "guidette" violated Viacom's own terms requiring a harassment-free workplace.

Joining Vitale in protest was UNICO, an Italian American anti-defamation group. UNICO also objected to "The Sopranos," HBO's successful series about Italian-American mobsters in northern New Jersey.

Angus Gillespie, a professor of American Studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, called the governor and the other objectors "thin-skinned."

"Maybe Governor Christie should just laugh it off," Gillespie said. "Yes, these performers are young and self-conscious and trying to attract the opposite sex, but is that so uncommon?"

Gillespie said that New Jersey has been the butt of New Yorker jokes for decades.

"New Yorkers used to make fun of people from Brooklyn, but after the Holland and Lincoln tunnels were built, they started making fun of New Jerseyans," he said.

Gov. Christie said that the real Jersey shore is not like the place portrayed on the cable show. But Gillespie pointed out that there is a long-time tension between people from South Jersey and those from North Jersey.

"The South Jersey people who operate the bars and the boardwalks on the Jersey shore have long had resentment toward the North Jersey tourists who come to the shore to party during summer months," Gillespie said.

Shore area residents are the ones who call Italian-Americans from the north "guidos," he said.

"As for "The Sopranos," some people got upset because Tony Soprano was an Italian gangster," Gillespie said. "But he was not only a gangster. He was a family man who had modern anxieties and psychological problems. If he had been a one-dimensional thug, the show would not have been popular. We liked Tony Soprano because we could relate to him as a modern human being."