SOME PEOPLE WANTS THE JERSEY SHORE OUT OF HERE!

MTV officials are taking a ton of heat for the reality show "The Jersey Shore" - the latest salvo coming from the state's Italian American Legislative Caucus.
The network should not back down.

If MTV gives into the latest complaint about the show, it will have, to quote cast member Mike Sorrentino, "a situation."

The New Jersey lawmakers have asked MTV to pull the show because, they say, it promotes ethnic stereotypes that are "wildly offensive." The group also wants advertisers to boycott the show.

The complaint is just the latest in a string of attacks against the show, which follows a group of free-spirited twentysomething folks that spent the summer in Seaside Heights, N.J.

The challenges to the show have more air to them than cast member Nicole (Snooki) Polizzi's poof hairdo.

Anyone who has watched the show for even a heartbeat knows it is not at all offensive from an ethnic stereotype standpoint.

It's a lighthearted look at what really goes on in the summer in this one particular beach town.

Yeah, the guys refer to themselves as "guidos," but the term, as Sorrentino told Entertainment Weekly, is used in "a loving way."

If anything is offensive - and shocking - it's how easy Mike and his pal Pauly D are able to get multiple women to agree to a quickie, even as MTV's
camera crews tag along.

No one seems to be complaining about the summer of free love at the Shore, though, perhaps because it's too hard a target to pick at.

Politicians and watchdog groups like to swing at easy media targets, and they've got one here by playing the ethnic stereotype card.

Likewise, what the lawmakers don't realize is that a giant part of the audience is laughing at the cast, not applauding it. This is the same phenomenon that has helped make Bravo's "The Real Housewives" series a hit.

Already, the whiff of ethnic stereotyping outrage - real or manufactured - led to some advertisers getting weak-kneed and pulling out of "The Jersey Shore."

That's okay; the show's not for everyone.

Surely, every group has a right to complain when it feels wronged. That's what makes America great. What also makes America great is that how different everyone is -- even within certain cultures or ethnicities.

Italian-American groups are upset because they say these kids don't represent all Italian-Americans?

No one ever said they did, and it's a safe bet few assume that, too.

What people fail to remember is that in most cases the complaints tends to drive viewers to a show, rather than away.

Bigger ratings, which MTV is already seeing, will no doubt lead to other advertisers coming in.

MTV officials shouldn't back down but rather should sit back and watch the viewers roll in and make sure to include the watchdog groups in their holiday card lists.