Yes, I agree. It’s a ridiculous premise to begin a piece of writing that has any pretentions of being serious, but I mean it. There will be a host of caveats throughout this but stick with me.
I went to see ‘Jackass Forever’ yesterday. The fifth in the series of movies that emerged from the TV series. Mostly I’m going to assume you know what Jackass is, but for those that have no clue, it’s a bunch of people loosely affiliated to the skateboarding scene doing a bunch of stunts and pranks on each other, where physical harm or fear is the primary intention or outcome. It started out as an MTV series in the 90s and inspired other similar programmes, probably most notably ‘Dirty Sanchez’ in Wales – again, skateboarders hurting each other in various imaginative and brutal ways. I’m not a TV historian, but to me it comes from a lineage of programmes such as ‘Banzai’ (which itself comes out of a history of Japanese game shows) and the segment on Channel 4’s ‘The Word’, called ‘The Hopefuls’ where people would do various shocking or humiliating things after announcing, ‘I’ll do anything to get on TV’.
I loved the Jackass TV series and I’ve loved the movies. I’ve never tried to be analytical about this love, partly as I’ve just always enjoyed this stuff. ‘You’ve Been Framed’ has been a part of my life as long as I can remember (and I think we can all agree it reached its absolute peak in its final years with Harry Hill providing the voice over).
In terms of Jackass, the movies really do lift it from the TV series. There are the big budget opening scenes, the high production values, and the clearly more expensive stunts and japes. I remember sitting in the cinema watching ‘Jackass 3D’, genuinely marvelling at what a time it was to be alive – in terms of technology – as I got to watch, in 3D, as Bam Margera urinated off the top of a caravan on to one of his unsuspecting co-stars, all filmed by a camera taped to his penis.
Of course, there are lots of problems with Jackass too, which I’m not going to try and go into here but, yes, it IS very patriarchal – a bunch of boys/men fooling around with no consequence to their actions other than physical harm (notably, a woman – Rachel Wolfson - has joined their ranks for this latest film. The most ‘2022’ moment in the film happens when a scorpion falls from her face on to her chest and in response to her calls to ‘get it off’, Chris Pontius replies that he can’t until she gives him her consent.) It has traditionally been a bunch of white men engaged in this tomfoolery but, again, in this latest film some of their new friends and stars that make an appearance are Black. I’m not interested in analysing whether these are conscious decisions or not, but the fact that even Jackass appears to be responding to the times we live in can only be seen as a positive thing. Lastly, it can also be accused of simply being dumb; a bunch of people doing nothing but hurting themselves and each other for the amusement of themselves and others. But then, is that not OK? Is it not just clowning taken to a logical extreme?... (and is something I’ll come back to in point 3). All things for discussion by people more knowledgeable than myself.
The day that I went to see ‘Jackass Forever’ also happened to be the day after Russia invaded Ukraine. And this brings me to my first real Jackass-positive. I’d been meaning to go and see the film for a while but, thankfully, hadn’t made it. I’m a child of the 80s. A product of the Cold War. I grew up genuinely believing that I would be incinerated by a nuclear blast, and those fears have never truly gone away. So the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, causing all those childhood anxieties to come bubbling back to the surface, felt like the perfect moment to go in search of pure escapism – which is what Jackass is. There’s no narrative. It doesn’t request that you think deeply about what’s going on. Equally, it’s not a passive experience. On some level you’re an active participant in the action on the screen. Just by being there, laughing, groaning and wincing along, you’re part of it. There’s an almost real-time transference of the agency and intention of the stunts into the cinema where you are. This isn’t just documentation of a bunch of stuff that’s happened, it’s a spectacle. You can feel it in the cinema itself. The others there are groaning and wincing and laughing along with you. That rarest of things happens and it becomes a shared moment between strangers. The singular act of going to the cinema becomes communal. We were no longer a bunch of individuals who happened to be in the same space, but a collection of people sharing in an experience, together, and not alone. (I’m aware some might disagree with my position on this but, in general, I find cinema to be a very solitary experience, even when it’s full. Despite being surrounded by other people, I don’t feel like I’m sharing anything other than the space with them. It’s just lots of people all having their own experience in the same room. This Jackass experience felt different. As though I could have turned and spoken to any of the others in the cinema with me and it wouldn’t have felt weird or intrusive.)
And this brings me on to the first main point I wanted to make. What can we learn from Jackass point 1:
There’s value in the tribe.
A long time ago I read Sebastian Junger’s excellent book ‘Tribe’. After watching the film yesterday, I’ve started reading it again today. ‘Tribe’ is an examination and rumination on the role of the tribe in human society. I don’t think it’s of any question that humans are fundamentally a tribal society. Junger’s book takes a psychological and anthropological look at the role tribes have, and still, play. He examines how society today is constructed in such a way as to make being in a tribe, and all the positives that come from its societal management, almost impossible. I’m massively over-simplifying things in making this statement, but that’s essentially one of the things you’ll see being discussed and examined in the book.
After reading the book the first time (I guess about 10 years ago), I became very aware I was no longer in a tribe. The book enabled me to identify that I HAD been in tribes before, and by ‘tribe’ I don’t mean ‘gang’; I mean a supportive collection of people who had a common bond and commitment to each other, to support and protect one another and work for the good of the group, as well as the fulfilment of the individual. The first time I experienced this was in my mid-to-late teens as a wannabe rock star in Margate, Kent. There was a vibrant and supportive network of bands and musicians in the area at the time, working together to put on gigs, geeing each other along with (mostly) friendly competition and rivalry. Over time this extended nationwide as we gigged wider afield and became friends with other bands in similar tribes across the UK. Of course, I didn’t view it this way at the time. I just knew I was part of something bigger and more important than myself, that was challenging, fulfilling and communal, all at the same time. Suffice to say, some of the best friends I have today, nearly 30-years on, are some of the people from this original tribe.
The second time I experienced being part of a tribe was ten years later in my mid-to-late 20s. I was five-years-or-so into a career as an artist when I began working with an arts organisation based in the Lake District called Grizedale Arts. It was a pretty magical moment in the organisation’s development where a new director had come in, Adam Sutherland, and turned everything on its head. He wasn’t interested in sculpture trails in forests, he was just interested in putting interesting artists from any background in a forest and seeing what emerged. They had an old BnB called Summer Hill where visiting artists used to stay. It was in the middle of nowhere, so you’d pitch up there and just have to get on to with anything up to 10 or 12 other similarly disorientated artists who might be there at any given moment. Grizedale’s projects were messy and chaotic and fun and real, and made you aware you were part of something bigger than yourself; your individual input was important, but it was just one part of a much larger organism. There were no stars. You were all just part of a communal endeavour. To say that’s a unique thing in the artworld would be a huge understatement.
Again, on a national scale, I had artist-friends in most major cities in the UK. I could be confident to show up at an opening or event pretty much anywhere and there would be people there who I knew or had met, or who knew someone I knew. Everyone seemed to be existing in that same way – part of an extended tribe, ready and willing to extend the hand of friendship to anyone they knew, or who knew someone they knew. We were all part of something bigger than ourselves and there was value in being an open and active participant in that thing.
And I see that, on a smaller scale, in the Jackass films. They’re a tribe in this sense – a group of individuals engaged in a collective endeavour for the greater good. One individual’s pain is a sacrifice to the tribe and their communal endeavour. There’s evidently a love and respect between these individuals that runs deep. In many ways that’s unsurprising, as they’ve been working together in this way for the past 20+ years now (and were presumably friends before that point). And it’s of no surprise that Jackass came through the skateboarding community. The skate community are a tribe very similar to the one I’ve described through my experience of music. Anyone who’s ever been a skater will tell you the same thing. It’s an extended family of-sorts (in a good way), where doors are always open, and floors are always available to sleep on. It’s also a pursuit that takes focus and presence…
Which brings me on to – What can we learn from Jackass point 2:
Being present and in the moment.
The proven medical benefits of mindfulness and meditation are givens now, aren’t they? If you’re still in the camp of thinking they’re just hippy-shit, you’re probably not alone, but I’d also strongly recommend you go and do a bit of reading around it. I don’t mean that patronisingly, I’m doing you a favour. There’s an amazing thing in the world that will make you feel better than you do now, for free, that you’re not accessing yet. I’m no expert (I’ll use that qualifier about pretty much anything other than 80’s UK Thrash Metal and public art) but you could do worse than read one of Ruby Wax’s books (yes, the comedian from the 80s. She went to Oxford and got a Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy Masters, and really knows her stuff. She also talks in terms of evidence, not opinion or perception) – ‘Sane New World’, or a ‘Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled’ are probably good places to start.
Again, I’m not here to sell you mindfulness, but I am talking about the value of pursuits that place you unavoidably in the moment. We all spend so much time thinking about the past and the future that the precise moment we are living, barely gets a look in. There are all sorts of things other than meditation that can bring that about for the individual. I can only talk from personal experience and I’d list surfing, skateboarding, drawing and playing the guitar as four things that do/have done that for me.
I started to learn to surf sometime in my 30s. I’d skated a bit in my teens and had got back into it around the same time I decided to try surfing. The first time I ever surfed was at Watergate Bay in Cornwall. I had a short surf lesson and was then told, “Right, I’ve told you pretty much everything you need to know at this stage. Now just go and practice”. The conditions weren’t great that day – the waves were quite large, fairly choppy/messy, lots of white water etc, so it made it really hard for a new surfer with a foamboard to get out any distance at all. But I spent a couple of hours just trying and failing (both in terms of surfing and getting out through the waves) and at the end of those few hours, exhausted and happy, I also realised I’d not been thinking about anything else – at all – whilst I’d been in there. In a good way, I wasn’t capable enough at what I was trying to do to be able to do anything other than concentrate 100% on the job at hand. And that’s never really gone away with surfing (partly as I’ve never massively improved). As I say, skating, drawing and playing the guitar are much the same for me – things where my mind rests quite easily in a place of total concentration whilst I’m doing it. It’s pretty magic.
And so back to Jackass…
They’re totally ‘in’ what they’re doing. Johnny Knoxville in a rodeo ring, waiting to get hit by a charging bull isn’t thinking about anything other than what’s happening at that exact moment. Dave England and Sean McInerney aren’t thinking about anything else when they’re in a pitch-black room believing there’s a deadly rattlesnake loose in there with them. I’m not suggesting for a moment that you need to put yourself in danger to achieve this state. More broadly I think I’m comparing the act, for them, of making these films and programmes as a mindful act. The individual stunts are mindful acts in and of themselves, but that decision to come together to make a new film or programme could be compared to someone else’s decision to go on a mindfulness or yoga retreat. The value of being here, now, can never be understated. That thing you’re worrying about in the future – it probably won’t happen, and if it does it won’t play out how you think. That thing you’re worrying about in the past, it’s probably only you that’s worrying about it. There’s that wonderful idea which I believe to be Buddhist wisdom...
“If it can solved, there’s no need to worry, and if it can’t be solved, worry is of no use.”
And finally – What can we learn from Jackass point 3:
They’re having fun.
This is obvious. Despite the pain and fear, the people involved are clearly having fun. Some of it might appear a bit forced, but I really don’t question that it’s (mostly) real. I mean (other than the money), why keep coming back over 20 years if you’re not enjoying it? And, in terms of the money, I think we can assume they’ve all made enough money off the previous movies/programmes to not have to do this anymore if they really don’t want to. So, it must be fun. Which taps into my earlier comment about it potentially being seen as dumb. And if it IS dumb, then so what?...
I’m not a believer in guilty pleasures, and by that I mean I don’t believe anything should be seen as a guilty pleasure. If you like something, it’s just a pleasure. You don’t need to feel guilty about it. Of course, I’m taking the phrase in its most commonly used way, such as liking a low-brow TV show being classed as a guilty pleasure. I don’t mean that if you like killing small animals, this is simply a pleasure and should be enjoyed. The caveat to anything I say about this is that if no-one else is getting hurt (or is agreeing to getting hurt), then it’s fine. Fill your boots. Just don’t cause unrequired or unrequested pain to anyone or anything in your own pursuit of happiness.
So, they’re having fun making these things. We all deserve to have fun, in whatever way works for us. To quote the mighty Kurt Vonnegut...
“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.”
I had a genuine moment of exhilaration in the cinema when I engaged consciously with the thought of how much fun they appeared to be having. To risk clichés - life is short and we spend too much time worrying about things that simply don’t matter. There is time for more fun, even if its pretty fleeting. There SHOULD be time for more fun, as most of what we do the rest of the time doesn’t actually matter (yes, brain-surgeons blah, blah. Don’t @ me.) What I’m saying is a lot of the things that I know consume my head space really don’t matter. I’ve spent way too much time thinking that space or contentment will emerge in some magical collision, but they haven’t, and they won’t. And if you spend too much time waiting for the right conditions to do something, you’ll never do anything. So work out what makes you happy, what you see as fun, and go and do more of it.
And that’s largely it. What can we learn from Jackass? – the value of the tribe, being present, and having fun. That’s what we can learn from Jackass. And I’m not joking when I say that either. These films are a joyful celebration of the potential of all those things at work.
Postscript
One unresolved question I have, which is not specifically Jackass related, but does relate to the subject of the tribe is:
Can a tribe be scattered?
We know it can, on some level, from what I’ve said above about the art scene I found myself part of in my late-20s. But what I’m really asking in this question is whether it’s possible to be part of a tribe that you rarely see? Is close physical proximity, regularly, a necessity for a tribe to exist and maintain its essential being?
For example, I don’t know if I have a tribe anymore. In many ways that statement is a contradiction, as if I don’t know if I have a tribe, then I don’t have a tribe, right? It surely can’t be possible to be part of a tribe but not really know it…
That said, I’m keen to consider this further. In real terms I still have members of both of my previous tribes who are unquestionably there for me whenever I need them, as I am for them. Some of them I’m in touch with every day, via WhatsApp or other digital means. Others I might not see from one year to the next, but occasionally share texts and calls with, and when we meet it’s like we’ve never been apart. And there are new members too. People I DO see in person regularly for different reasons.
But does this amount to a tribe or is this just a disparate group of old (and new) friends - more of a support network than a tribe. At this point I’m inclined to think it’s the latter. I wonder if for a tribe to really function as a tribe there needs to be a common interest or goal (primarily the wellbeing of the members of the tribe, but also, in my experience…) this often coalesces around a common interest or thing; music, skating, art etc. Something bigger, even, than the tribe itself. I don’t know. But I’m very interested to talk more about this stuff to anyone that’s interested to.
