Tom Usher reflects on the legacy of Jackass, a 26-year project that he calls the finest document of idiocy and the Freudian death drive in modern culture. The final film, Jackass: Best and Last, serves as a swansong for the franchise that debuted in 2000.
Early Influence and Stunt Culture
Usher, who was 12 when Jackass first aired, describes how the show became an invitation to imitate stunts. He recalls a friend jumping off a wall and cutting his head open, and himself jumping out of a tree into a bog, ripping the skin off his arm. The show’s warnings were ignored, as the pursuit of humor outweighed safety.
The Psychology Behind the Stunts
In Philippa Snow’s book Which as You Know Means Violence: On Self-Injury As Art and Entertainment, she notes that Jackass “resembles a post-9/11 show, with its giddy violence sometimes mirroring the helpless, hopeless mania that follows serious trauma.” The camaraderie among the cast, she argues, stems from “the muddling of terror and eroticism inherent in being made aware of one’s mortality.”
A study in the British Medical Journal, tongue-in-cheek yet scientifically rigorous, found that 88.7% of Darwin Award winners (those who remove themselves from the gene pool in idiotic ways) were men. The paper suggests that idiotic behavior may confer a selective advantage on those who survive.
Contrast with Modern Perfectionism
Usher highlights how the cast’s willingness to degrade themselves contrasts with today’s filtered, perfection-seeking world. He notes that no influencer would likely undergo an anal probing by a robot claw, as Steve-O does in Best and Last. Usher relates this openness about flaws to his own life, finding camaraderie through shared risk-taking, such as in combat sports.
The Unsustainable Nature of Idiotic Behavior
A post-credits scene shows director Jeff Tremaine shaken after a near-death experience, telling Johnny Knoxville, “You could’ve been killed. It’s dangerous.” Knoxville replies, “I want it to be dangerous. I want it to be dangerous.” Usher concludes that such obsession with defying death is not sustainable, quoting Hunter S. Thompson: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”
