Here’s the thing about MTV’s True Life series that may surprise you: it’s actually good. MTV isn’t really the place you automatically turn to for hard-hitting documentaries, but True Life has consistently faced some of the most hot-button issues and interesting stories, all without sensationalizing. Sure, there was True Life: I’m a Staten Island Girl, but episodes like True Life: I’m Going to Fat Camp and True Life: I’m Coming Out give these amazing, tender looks at people who so often get marginalized or blown up into caricatures.
MTV is coming back with four new True Life episodes this weekend, airing in a marathon this Saturday afternoon from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. The titles are as follows: True Life: I’m Looking for my Father, True Life: I’m Going To Rehab, True Life: I Live In the Projects and True Life: I’m In An Arranged Marriage. All of these subjects sound potentially controversial or, yes, crazy, but I feel like we can count on MTV to take a pretty reasonable approach to all of them.
There’s a video clip from I Live in the Projects available here. If you’ve never seen True Life before, it gives you a good idea of the kind of stories they usually tell: young people who seem pretty typical, but can be surprisingly insightful and fascinating when a little attention is paid to their stories. I Live in the Projects sounds like a particularly important episode, given the bad reputation given to the thousands of people who live in government subsidized housing. Yeah, going to fat camp might be tough, but growing up in a neighborhood full of crime? That’s a story worth telling.
You can catch True Life on MTV pretty much all the time, but for the first look at these episodes, tune in tomorrow afternoon. You know it’s cold outside and you don’t want to do anything else.
