Saturday, September 23, 2006

Check your brain at the door...

So, Mike Judge is making a movie called Idiocracy about a future world suffering from the conciquences of the "dumbing down" of the viewing public. I'm sure the history books for that future world will have chapters titled "JackAss-It's Affect on the Bush Administration", "JackAss #2-Ha, ha falling down is funny" and "JackAss III-trees are made of wood"...but you know what?...I don't care. I love watching these guys torture and abuse themselves for my enjoyment. Honestly it keeps me from doing it. I grew up in the 80's on the cusp of the takeover of the video game, pre-internet, pre-myspace, pre-most of the crap that keeps kids in front of monitors. So, we would sit around outside and come up with the most outlandish thing we could think of to keep us entertained...fear of injury was the last thing on our mind. Such great games that we "invented" were "DodgeDarts" (think dodgeball but with darts...duh), "Hold the firecracker too long" (that one was more a discovery then an intentional creation), "GI Joe's burn good" (no explination needed.) and "Who can swallow their tongue and not die?" (this is something I'd rather not get into and still follows me to this day.) The stunts on JackAss weren't invented with the show...Johnny Knoxville is 35...this is the crap we all did when we were kids. I know this is going to make me sound like a callous, well, uh...jackass but I laugh at this stuff, the crotch hits on "AFV" are garaunteed to garner a chuckle or two. When warning my daughters of the dangers of climbing on top of the stack of boxes or walking on a precarious ledge I tell them "If you fall I'll help you but I will laugh at you first." So it's understandable that I would enjoy this bit of lowbrow effort in cinema. And on top of that, I will refuse to be feel guilty about it. I will laugh, I will hopefully laugh so hard that Mr Pibb and Popcorn fly from my nose...heck I may even trip Andrew on the steps of the theater on the way out just to prolong the joy. I can't help it...I like shiney things and things that fall down or blow up or a 35 year old dumbass that would take a bat to the groin for a paycheck and "fame". As I sit there basking in the warm glow of the silver screen, popcorn and Mr Pibb running down the front of my t-shirt, I will think to myself "there but for the grace of God go I." Stay in school don't do drugs.

1 comment:

Matthew Russell said...

I think if you take Alex, hit him in the head with a hammer then push him down a flight of stairs, set his shoes on fire then make him eat a raw steak...yeah, do all that and you'll be caight up to watch the second one.