'Jackass' indeed.

So yesterday I’m waiting in line at Burger King to try the new VeggieBurger™, trying hard not to fly into a blind and righteous rage at the Vulgar Teenage Conversation™ I hear behind me.

A sample, submitted for your perusal:

Vulgar Teen #1: “Dude, I can’t wait to see the ‘Jackass’ movie this weekend. It is gonna be so awesome!”

Vulgar Teen #2: “Yeah man, it’s gonna fucking rock! Those guys are awesome! 'Member that one episode where they, like, did a bunch of stupid shit and somebody got, like, really hurt?”

Vulgar Teen #1: “Yeah, that kicked ass! Uh, wait, dude- which episode?”

(First a disclaimer for those of you in the under-20 crowd waiting to jump down my throat: I know not all teenagers are like this. I know not all teenagers talk like this, nor do they all talk in an ear-splittingly loud teen patois of grunts interspersed with misplaced obscenities. I know many of you are responsible, intelligent, and just as disgusted by the behavior of some of your peers as I am. This rant is meant in no way to cast aspersion on all teenagers- indeed, I take issue with these folks regardless of age. I just selected my vulgar teen example because, well, that’s what set me off.)

So now I picture these two and some thousands of their near-identical compatriots converging on theatres all weekend in a foul, ‘Tommy’-scented human wave, causing untold horror in the population at large.

And I can just imagine this movie:

Man on screen launches himself head-first at a brick wall.

“Ha, ha, ha! That guy is cool!” exclaim the morons in the audience, for whom the film was made. “He did something stupid and hurt himself. Let’s give him money!”

This movie is based on a tv show that, from what I can gather, consists of nothing but filmed incidents which lead to one or more of the show’s “stars” being injured. And all these injuries are a direct result of stupid and reckless behavior.

Now, if you want to dive head-first into the shallow end of a swimming pool, more power to you, my brain-damaged friend. I respect your right to behave as you wish provided you cause no injury or loss of property to another. If you are an adult of sound mind, I will not stand in your way.

Nor will I bitch if you are getting paid, for some unfathomable reason, to do this. Hey, if you have no other marketable skills…well, we all gotta eat, right?

But I will bitch and I will moan, yea, I will lament even unto the firmament of heaven, the mass of my fellow humans who somehow feel this is high entertainment. The people lining up at theatres across this great nation ready to fork over $7+ for the privilege of watching a bunch of grown men injure themselves through their own stupidity and deliberate recklessness.

And out of the depths, I cry to You, O Lord: “What the fuck?!?”

It’s not the laughter- while I personally disapprove of taking delight in the grievous bodily harm of a fellow creature, I understand some of us feel differently.

And it’s not the money- as I said, we all have to eat, and anyway, if you earned it, you can spend it on whatever you damn well please.

It is the strange, perverse admiration so many seem to feel for these ‘Jackass’ people. As though deliberate stupidity and a willingness to override one’s inherent genetic tendency to avoid injury is somehow a good and honorable thing, worthy of praise and respect, and a tv show.

What? Where are our priorities? Since when is it cool to do amazingly retarded things? To sustain injury through deliberate recklessness for its own sake? To set out to injure oneself for the sheer brainless rush it must assumedly cause, and to the delight and approval of millions of equally brain-dead audience members? What the hell is wrong here?

I am now going to make a bold and controversial statement. Prepare yourselves.

Ahem. If you think acting like a fool and getting hurt is somehow cool and admirable, you are a fucking moron.

I have spoken. And I will stand by my assertion that anyone who finds this sort of swill the height of creativity clearly bears upon their forehead the clumsy bootprint of a lesser god.

Having said my piece, I’m off to ride a shopping cart down a 45 degree incline to the joy and admiration of my neighbors. If things work out, maybe I’ll get a movie, too. If I can still move my legs.

Feh! I’ve seen more controversial statements made on Sesame Street.

Just joshin’ ya.

When Jackass first came on it was funny. Not admirable, not cool but just funny in a get-a-load-of-these-assholes kind of way. Then they started in with the scatological ‘humor’ and it ceased being funny.

I think Jackass is funny.

I admire them for having the balls to do some of those things. Even if they are stupid, that’s the whole point.

Am I a fucking moron?

Basically, get over yourself. You don’t like the show or the movie, fine, don’t go see it.

Don’t assume to know that those of us who do find it entertaining are brain-dead.

I don’t like any of the shows on CBS. Big fucking hairy deal.

Call me juvenile, but Jackass makes me laugh my ass off. My wife doesn’t get it at all but I can’t take my eyes off it. Having said that, though, I must say I don’t ADMIRE the guys on the show. It’s a geek show. I’m laughing AT them not WITH them. It’s like watching a live-action Beavis and Butt-head.

Jackass is one of the funniest television shows EVER, based on the universal truth: People Falling Down Is Funny, and I’m salivating with anticipation to see it in the movie theatre.

And for what it’s worth your smug perception of the show is wrong. It’s not all people ‘trying to hurt themselves’. It’s people doing bizarre stunts to basically get the reaction of others…including the ever entertaining Party Boy, who brings his boom box on a train and starts stripping down to a g-string…or “Daddy and Baby Go Shopping” where Knoxville puts an empty car seat on the roof of his car to see how many people run frantically after him to tell him he forgot his baby.

But I’ll be honest, the funniest part IS people doing stupid stunts. When they get in grocery carts and just push each other into shrubbery, I don’t know…I laugh until I pee. It’s funny.

Do I admire them as you so assume? Not at all…but I think they’re funny as hell.

Dunno, maybe it’s the mom in me but I had to turn the channel during the empty-car-seat-on-the-roof ‘gag’. I found that so not funny.

Isn’t there a truth (anti-tobacco company organization) ad that features a woman leaving a stroller emitting sounds of a crying baby on a street corner? Ugh. I hate that ad.

Jackass is the funniest shit to come out in a decade. The show just slays me. Even my ultra-conservative wife just cackles uncontrollably at those idiots.

I find Jackass to be entertaining, as well. And Chris Pontius is going to be NEKKID! (Good lord, that man is fine)

shrug Juanita…different strokes I guess…just like in my rape thread… some people think rape is funny, some people think Jackass is funny.

I’m not quite sure it makes me the sort of lower class moron that ratty is proposing in the OP, and by the way ratty, I’m a 30 year old married, college educated woman, not a vulgar teen.

J

This quote really just about sums it up. I don’t watch it frequently, but when I’ve watched it, it was good for a laugh.

Jackass is for all the stupid stunts that you wanted to do as a kid but common sense prevailed.

I like Jackass. I don’t admire Johnny Knoxville et al. but I do think they are funny.

I caught part of an episode and I just found it insulting. They can do their back-yard WWF stuff and hurt themselves, and it does seem appealing in the same way as watching Nascar just for the crashes, but they do too much to other people, much like that fool Tom Green.

Tom Green, also hilarious. :smiley:

For God’s sake, won’t someone think of the children!!!

Sorry, but the bit where they rented a hearse, parked on a steep incline, and had the coffin fall out to the horror of nearby spectators will be forever burned into my psyche as one of the funniest things I’ve seen on the teevee.

Plus, Wee Man dressed as an Oompa Loompa and skateboarding around town is hilarious.

For God’s sake, won’t someone think of the children!!!

Just chiming in to say that I am 34, elite-university-educated, and was never any trouble as a teenager, and I love Jackass. (Reminds me of the Frosted Flakes “confessions”.) Just the voice-over at the end of the trailer gets me:

“Oh, that’ll never work”
hee hee
<beat><beat>
“Well…it might…”

OK, that doesn’t sound too funny but the track of those guys laughing at themselves is as funny to me as the actual gags. And I wish Johnny Knoxville would do a movie part that doesn’t involve him being super stupid, super grimy, or alien; I think he could do it and he is pretty cute.

I’m sorry, jarbabyj, but the correct answer is, “Tom Green is not funny”.

Although, maybe we can hope he gets cancer of the other testicle before he reproduces.

Maybe I was not clear in my above rant? If you think ‘Jackass’ is funny, then fine, you think it’s funny. I disagree, but I have no problem with that, as we all have a different sense of humor.

What really makes me angry is the people, like Simetra, apparently, who seem to feel these ‘Jackass’ folks are somehow worthy of respect and admiration. Because they “have the balls” to injure themselves. Simetra, do you think these people are brave, courageous human beings for being able to purposefully injure themselves? For no real reason?

What an odd concept of ‘bravery’. I wonder how you feel about suicide bombers. :rolleyes:

To jarbabyj and everyone else defending the show: it seems like you enjoy it more for the reason Juanita Tech gave, sort of an “I can’t believe what these assholes are actually doing!” kind of enjoyment. Please correct me if this is wrong. If that’s why you like the show, well, hey, I can’t fault you for that. But do any of you actually feel that the people on ‘Jackass’ are to be praised and respected because they will do things sane, ordinary people will not?

Because it seems to me that a lot of people like this show for just that reason, namely, that the ‘Jackass’ people are ‘brave’ enough to do really stupid things, and it’s always funny when someone gets hurt.

I guess what I really take issue with is the way people seem to value stupidity, despite paying so much lip service to intelligence. Johnny Knoxville is apparently a bitchin’ guy because he’s dumb enough to jump off a building. So what is going on here? I don’t understand. Shouldn’t people who do stupid things be universally scorned? Avoided? Held up as an example of what not to do, instead of lauded as creative geniuses?

But instead I hear a lot of “Man, that guy is awesome! He’s so brave! I applaud him for his reckless disregard for personal safety!”

And just to clarify two things:

  1. I’m not bitching about the children. I try hard not to think about chidlren, period. This has nothing to do with “the good of the public”. The people on ‘Jackass’ are stupid, and if you want to be stupid like them, you deserve to be badly injured.

  2. This has nothing to do with any age group- I merely used teenagers as an example because it was the conversation of two people who happened to be teenagers who starting me thinking about this. As you may know, stupidity is universal. And I happen to feel that anyone who takes great delight in other people’s misfortune are just not very good people. That is the way I feel, and I won’t apologize for it.

  1. No argument there. Do Stupid Stuff + Get Injured=Your Own Fucking Fault. Don’t even get me started on Do Stupid Stuff + Get Injured=Sue the Ever-Loving Shit Out of MTV for Planting the Seed of Moronity. People that turn to litigation over doing things that are clearly warned AGAINST need to be assassinated.

  2. You won’t apologize for feeling that people who laugh at the misfortunes of others are bad people, nor should you. That’s how you FEEL. I, however, feel you are a small-minded individual who has little concept of the subjective nature of comedy. Nor will I apologize for feeling that way about YOU. So I guess we’re at a deadlock.

As a previous poster said best, if you don’t like it, and you don’t think it’s funny, then at least come to the decision that some people like chocolate, and some people like vanilla.

Just don’t foist off your asinine opinion that all people who don’t like the same things as you are idiots.

The fucking nerve of some people. Lenny Bruce called, he’s waiting for you in hell with a bat and an endless loop of “Charles in Charge reruns.” :wally