Jackass Of All Trades

It’s all about pain. Pain and its relentless attraction for bored young men.

MTV’s latest and biggest hit show, Jackass, has been showing in the Philippines (Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.) for a month now, and all I can say to unwary viewers easily shocked by images of self-inflicted violence is: Kids, don’t try this at home.

Shot mostly in Florida by a video team that includes pain-meister and host Johnny Knoxville and Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze, Jackass is a show about people who never outgrew their love of childish pranks; who are still curious about what live worms taste like; who think midgets chased down city streets by giants in their underwear are hilarious.

Yes, it’s American as hell.

One episode focuses on Urban Kayaking (a group of slacker types sit in dry-docked kayaks and are dragged recklessly through city streets); the Human Slingshot (regulars agree to be hurled off a dock into a lake via stretched rubber band); Blind Skateboarding (one game volunteer agrees to skateboard while blindfolded. The camera shows him hitting a sewer grate and spilling onto the ground again and again, groaning in pain. He holds a twitching wrist before the camera, telling the assembled skateboard kids: "See? This is dangerous… Don’t do this."); and every week there’s at least one puke-fest, as Jackass regulars willingly ingest things that just won’t stay down (live goldfish, worms, raw eggs, gallon jugs of milk).

MTV makes it perfectly clear that they don‘t condone the kind of behavior shown on Jackass – they just package and distribute it, and make money from it. So they flash this stern warning before each segment, in case some kids are sitting there with the remote control thinking: "Hey… I could do that!"

"THE FOLLOWING SHOW CONTAINS STUNTS PERFORMED BY PROFESSIONALS AND/OR TOTAL IDIOTS UNDER VERY STRICT CONTROL AND SUPERVISION. MTV AND THE PRODUCERS INSIST THAT NEITHER YOU OR ANYBODY ELSE ATTEMPT TO RECREATE OR PERFORM ANYTHING YOU HAVE SEEN ON THIS SHOW."

Beneath the warning is a skull-and-crossbones symbol, the one used to indicate DANGER. The crossbones are crutches, though (MTV-Asia says some episodes may not be shown in the region.)

Host Johnny Knoxville is an affable guy, a kind of less-haggard Vince Vaughn who got his start shopping around tapes of himself testing various self-defense sprays on his own eyes: mace, pepper spray, etc. Since then, viewers of Jackass have seen Knoxville set on fire, stunned with a Taser, and strapped into an athletic cup, the effectiveness of which is tested by various means: sledgehammer swings, rolled bowling balls, and groups of giggling children who run up and kick the sorry bastard in the crotch. "It’s just a lot of fun," the host explains modestly.

Hope he’s not planning on having kids in the future.

Why, you may ask, do Americans revel in such TV programming? There are hit shows about outback survivors living on rats and bugs; videos of motorcycles and speedboats crashing in horrific slow motion; Jerry Springer and his chair-bashing guests. And this is just the evening news. Is American culture inherently violent?

Maybe so. We Americans do enjoy being reminded that there are yahoos out there even stupider than we think of ourselves. Thus, the idiots who submit to painful, life-endangering stunts on Jackass are performing a kind of public service: since they are willing to go to such great lengths to feel our pain, and to provide us with viewing pleasure, who are we not to applaud? It’s all very Roman and decadent, but as Russell Crowe’s gladiator put it: "Are you not entertained?"

Parents, apparently, are not entertained by Jackass, and have urged their congressmen to have the show pulled off the air. Several kiddies, apparently, have attempted to replicate the stunts on Jackass at home, with unfunny results. US Senator Joe Lieberman (Al Gore’s former running mate) is now seeking legislation to yank the show from MTV. As it is, Jackass is being shown after 10 p.m., a compromise which confronted the earlier MTV show Beavis and Butthead when it first ruffled parents’ feathers.

Will Jackass catch on in the Philippines? Are Filipinos willing to engage in life-threatening stunts, defy logic and common sense, ramming themselves into insurmountable obstacles just for money? (What am I talking about? You just did that. It was called EDSA Three.)

I admit to enjoying Jackass the way I enjoyed Beavis and Butthead (and, to a lesser extent, South Park). These guys – all white, by the way, and seemingly unemployed – are doing the same crazy stuff that parents told us never to do while growing up: wrapping themselves up in carpets and rolling down staircases, being shot point-blank with paintballs in the groin, diving head-first into piles of elephant poo. (I’m just waiting for the writers to devote a half-hour to wedgies.) One regular dresses up in a bunny outfit and taunts a police dog until it viciously attacks him. He does this stunt again and again. There’s no learning curve on Jackass, apparently.

To its credit, Jackass has a raw, unproduced feel to it which makes it a bit more edgy than other candy-assed "reality-based" shows such as Boot Camp and Survivor. Spike Jonze, who directed the pranksterish Praise You music video for Fatboy Slim (in which he led an L.A.-based guerrilla dance troupe in some public b-boy routines), has a knack for putting people on. The prankster tradition in American culture is all about getting people’s attention, making them think about something instead of just accepting it. But it’s also about getting an easy laugh from an unsuspecting public, the way Candid Camera did for decades.

One recurring segment called "Daddy and Baby" involves Knoxville toting a plastic baby doll around in public, and submitting it to horrible misadventures. He places the "child" on the roof of his minivan, gets inside and drives off, laughing maniacally as onlookers freak out. Or he pushes "baby" in a stroller down the sidewalk, intentionally tripping and sending the doll flying. People are horrified. Knoxville is laughing all the way to the bank.

And what about the cast of Jackass – these young men with seemingly nothing better to do with their lives? Show regulars Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Raab Himself, Steve-O (the puking king) and midget Jason "Wee Man" Acuna definitely know which side their bread is buttered on: MTV has made them instant stars, or at least instant jackasses. Not bad for a bunch of guys who probably majored in Bong Hits at Florida State. Knoxville is also talking movie deals now, so we will probably see the decline of western civilization – or at least American television – continue right on schedule.

Hey, these guys may be jackasses, but they’re not stupid.