Reaction Shots: Jackass's America
Plus is Don't Look Up the reverse Green Book and the Movie of the Week
Review: Jackass Forever
It would be hard to say that Jackass Forever, the fourth film instalment of the amateur stunt franchise, is more or less the same as its predecessors. As of writing this, the film has smashed box office records, more symbolic of defiance against Omicron variant fears. This is a significant film about America, but even more so, the crew’s place during the pandemic era, now prone to further pain at their middle age. As low-brow as the franchise is, it allows an ingenious exploration into how we choose to use our bodies. But it also reveals how evolved the cultural commentariat has become to take their endeavours more seriously. The New Yorker has glowingly covered it, which would have been preposterous for either its readers or fans of the show. Yet beyond that, it speaks about the heated cultural debates about our human flesh, that the Jackass movies are the only thing that could possibly unite all political and cultural segments across the West.
The most distinguishing aspect of these Jackasses is that they’re consistent in tone, structure and quality. It is a series of sketches and vignettes stitched together featuring skate punks - Johnny Knoxville being the ringleader, along with Steve-O, Preston Lacy and Wee-Man - hurting themselves in the most unusual, grossest and surreal ways possible. The impression would boil down to “take it or leave it”, but even if you come away not liking it, it’s almost impossible not to have respect for these guys for having the balls to harm their own balls. It’s a statement of one taking control of your autonomy, shared in kinship with many of his friends, as they watch at your expense, along with a huge crowd that gleefully gawks.
The idea of a body is deconstructed endlessly in cultural outlets, but that tends to be in the centre of a conflict. Ta Nehisi-Coates have gone to excruciating lengths to describe the black body as something to be reclaimed from its own oppressors in Between The World and Me. The debate surrounding abortion and vaccines is mainly about choosing your own destiny. COVID sceptics make the same argument as the pro-choicers, in which they want to face the issue through their own hands, given the certain (or more) information that is informing and pushing them to make that decision. For vaccine sceptics, it’s the government and Big Pharma, while abortionists have are religious conservatives. The end goal is an alternative to the dogmas that are supposed to make us comfortable.
What is Jackass Forever’s perception of the body and where does it put itself in that conflict? At its barest bones, it’s usually a “sticks and stones may break my bones”. In some of its vignettes, we see the likes of Knoxville and co try to revisit some of its most infamous stunts like the Cup Test - which was originally seen in the TV series and repeated in the first Jackass film released in 2002 - where Ehren McGherey simply gets hit in the testicles as painfully as he can. Now in Forever, McGherey gets hit in the same area by famous boxers, hockey and softball players. Also a pogo stick. The typical friction would usually be a normative limit, however, it is established, but age plays a significant factor and how it could change the attitude of the actor. Needless to say, McGherey remains the same person as he was twenty years ago, albeit with injuries that are at best short term.
Over the years since its previous effort, Jackass Forever wouldn’t be appropriate in the age of safetyism, but in its demented logic, it is also about protecting and strengthening the body. You can also see the people capturing the antics while wearing masks, given that new precautions were already taken for granted in order to make this film possible. That sounds surprising, but the Jackass franchise, possibly so it doesn’t become a legal liability by the concerned faction of its crowd, has put precautions for anyone not to commit copycat stunts in its beginning and end. If anything, it is that aspect that makes them recognizable.
If Forever feels different, it’s that you have grown up with these actors that at a certain point, they are going to have to face their mortality on their own. After all, one of their original members Ryan Dunn died prior to Jackass 3D’s release, and Bam Margera became messed up in substance abuse, that much of the material involving him has been removed (fingers crossed for the uncut version) that he sued them in return. Knoxville has faced another rodeo, which looks like an unsuccessful attempt of the same stunt from previous entries. Jackass has already captured a cultural cache that has since gone to accept their own bodies and weaponize it for self-interests, and that is why it remains hugely popular. And I hope if this is the final entry, it’s a solid black swan.
Is Don’t Look Up the Reverse Green Book?
As the Academy Awards nominations are announced, there has been trepidation about Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay’s film about climate change a comet coming to obliterate Earth is going to win Best Picture. It is not the most likely to win (that would be The Power of the Dog, which is at 13/2 odds according to Gold Derby), but it might as well be, in its own weird way that makes little sense if you aren’t embedded in Film Twitter land, a controversial one. This is the case that Vulture’s Allison Willmore made:
Serious subject matter and showbiz stories are the two things the Oscars love most, and Don’t Look Up offers both by way of a hilarious convergence. In the film, the public is so fixated on a pop star’s romantic travails that they allow the news of the impending apocalypse to pass unnoticed. Celebrities are, in its construction, simply so compelling that they’re indirectly ruining the world, and how better to atone for that distracting fabulousness than by saluting the work that makes this claim with the biggest award Hollywood has to offer.
If you have ever been familiar with the kind of prestige films that get nominated, then this should make a lot of sense. It is mainly popular with the typical voter, it has got its message across the Netflix audience that has continually streamed the film, even if the target was them. To McKay and screenwriter David Sirota, this makes a significant difference, not just in getting people to acknowledge that action must be taken to prevent the comet, but that the elites are now listening. It is the rad-lib version of Oscar bait. It is the reverse Green Book, a movie that is so self-congratulatory by embodying cringe-worthy stereotypes that only boomers can recognize.
Keep in mind that no one in my circle has a fondness for Green Book. But it is a box office smash hit and has an ultimately anti-racist message that may have affirmed their perspective because it makes them feel relaxed. It’s certainly forgettable, of course. But it wouldn’t be tolerated by the chattering class, who ironically enough, cannot stand Don’t Look Up in spite of the film meeting much of their ideological beliefs. Now that we live in a different age, where we shouldn’t relax because we are living in multiple simultaneous crises. Both films make us feel a sense of value that artistry is damned, does accomplish gaining an audience based on that.
I propose that every year, the Oscars should have a Best Picture nominee merely for owning the libs. And by that, I mean self-pitying critics who spend so much of their time on Twitter that they invented a type of guy and then get mad at that person for what they represent.
Movie of the Week: Roma (2018)
Roma, Alfonso Cuaron’s semi-autobiography, was the first Netflix release that was nominated for Best Picture, winning Best International Film, Best Cinematography and Best Director. The black-and-white camerawork stands out, and the saintly virtues of grace, which is simple yet strongly effective in getting its narrative across. It was definitely a standout in an utterly mediocre lineup of nominees (and that includes Green Book). Cuaron is a master of the tracking shot, understands its strengths and harness it to make sure it is less of a gimmick, which would in effect, become a distraction. That’s not to say it is used sparingly, but it is filmed so beautifully that you think it is. A good example of this is when the family gather together in a large field, with jovial festivities that send off with a burst of fireworks. Central to the story is Cleo, an Indigenous maid that looks after a wealthy Spanish family, whose matriarch has issues of their own. But the performance from Yalitza Aparicio is subtle enough that it drives the film’s core to a beautiful crescendo.
Roma is the kind of film that would have been a victim of a streaming algorithm, regardless of how acclaimed it is from prestigious institutions and journalists. But it did get something more coveted than bear attention from streaming services; a Criterion Collection release.