Jackass: Number Two - 2006 - Film

Saturday, September 30, 2006

My boyfriend always says that in order to understand males you must know that their best form of affection is mockery. Apparently, cut-downs and one-up-manship is the bond that keeps guys together, that let's them know their companionship is appreciated and valued. With this train of logic, I watched Jackass: Number Two wondering if it was true. The Jackass guys take insults to a new level, a physical one. Making your friend wrap his penis in a bunny costume, and forcing it through a hole of a snake's cage, then, is at once a measure of pain (once the snake bites--and it does) and camaraderie.

The premise seems absurd: An overgrown group of boys purposely inflicting massive physical pain and torture upon one another only to rub it in with laughs and screams. Why would they do it? And more importantly, why did I enjoy watching it? Women would never do this to each other, at least not in my experiences. Is there a female "Jackass" troupe out there now? My guess is no. For whatever reason I imagine women have a finer ruling not to place their genitals into the venomous grip of sharp-toothed animals. Then again, most males wouldn't volunteer for such physical distress either, just the Jackass team. Nonetheless, there is no female member of the Jackasses, which is not to conclude that these men are stupid for their engagement in such extreme stunts, just that women clearly are not a part of them.

I agree with our friend Matt, that the Jackasses are not dumb, but rather "perfectionists." They are not stand-up comics, their spoken stories are not enough to keep us entertained, but they are physical comedians, and probably the closest human thing to a cartoon, albeit an adult cartoon. They engage in stunts that at the very least bruise them or make them vomit, but others that are without a doubt life threatening. Johnny Knoxville, who reaches the most dire heights of Jackass tricks, in one scene straps himself to a rocket aimed to propel him 50 feet (or more?) into the air, from which point he freefalls into a lake below. Knoxville, who was in that instance mere inches from death, compares his tricks to cartoons himself, telling Blender.com, "I personally almost died twice: once from a rocket that exploded while I was riding it Wile E. Coyote/Dr. Strangelove–style, and once from a 25-foot steel wall that fell on me."

It is not as if Knoxville and the Jackasses are not aware of the risks they are taking; they know they will get hurt, and that is the point. They fashion their tricks to avoid the worst-case scenario (i.e. severe bodily trauma, death), they are showmen of the most grotesque kind, and it seems that the longer these guys inflict pain on each other, the better friends they are. After all, the group has been together since the start of their eponymous MTV series in the late nineties. I am still not sure I completely understand this proposed male companionship based on sly insults and practical jokes, it seems like an awfully cruel way to express the pleasure of a friendship. Though, if forcing another pal to drink horse semen doesn’t tear these friends apart, maybe there’s something to it.