If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough. Indeed, Jackass is a finely tuned allegory of personal crisis and hard evidence of society's refusal to acknowledge the deviants of its own creation. No mere cry for attention, Jackass is a celebration of personal growth, and a triumphant tribute to the bonds of masculinity.
The crew's false bravado and studied nonchalance are but a flimsy facade. As Jackass unfolds, we see walls tumbling down to reveal raw, unchecked emotion.
Steve-O's exhibitionism, Bam Margera's violent Oedipal crisis, Knoxville's glaring social ineptitude. Their manifestation of grief via self-inflicted pain and their flagrant disregard for the safety of their own genitals all point to a deep bodily mistrust born of the confusion and denial of puberty.
Are we really running from alligators, boys? Or perhaps personal demons?
Knoxville, you're an idiot. I love you. But I want my eight bucks back. That's not to say that I don't still hold a wee little soft spot in my heart for you and the boys; you made my Sunday nights half an hour better and plugged the gap between The Simpsons and South Park.
We had a good thing going.
So, for the love of all things painful and profane, why did you make a movie? Thanks to the "R" rating there's a little more skin, a little more language, a little more blood. But it's just the same old, and I didn't even have South Park to look forward to once it was over.
Still want to see it? No, really, it's OK. I won't hold it against you. Moron. If you must, catch a matinee. It's three bucks cheaper. Even better, you can avoid the front-row high-schoolers' commentary, as the delinquent little cherubs are safely locked away until three in the afternoon. Bless their young, impressionable little souls.
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