MTV cancels Buckwild, angering producer who can't believe one little cast member's death is such a big deal

By Sean O'Neal  |  April 10, 2013 | 3:34pm
Aux Features TV

The death of Shain Gandee has, perhaps not surprisingly, resulted in the cancellation of Buckwild, after MTV has decided there might be something crass about producing a show that encourages self-destructive behavior in young people—y’know, now that one of those young people actually destroyed himself, and everyone heard about it. However, not everyone believes that the show should have ended, just because one little cast member died doing the very things the series celebrated. Buckwild executive producer J.P. Williams (who also manages most of the show's subjects) tells The Hollywood Reporter he intends to continue filming the series and maybe even a Buckwild movie, averring that MTV will rue the day it suddenly developed a sense of shame.

“This is the network that has shows about teen pregnancy. They'll stick by a show that allows you to abandon a child, but a kid dies by accident doing what he does for a living and they cancel the show?” Williams rants, unwittingly presenting a very good reason for why one would cancel a show, and should maybe cancel those other shows as well. Still, acknowledging that Gandee died doing what he “does for a living”—i.e., engaging in reckless, drunken “mudding” in the middle of the night, flush with the hubris of minor fame—hasn’t convinced Williams that maybe that it shouldn’t be his job to profit from that.

“There’s something that smells of shit here on every level,” Williams says, referring to MTV’s decision and not Buckwild, nor his rationale for continuing it on what he believes is some sort of moral high ground. Adding to the irony, Williams declares, “My job is to protect these kids” (ignoring the fact that he’s apparently pretty shitty at it) and “This will get ugly.” Because somehow, we’re not there already.

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