I had an epiphany…

A certain guilty pleasure I’ve allowed myself to indulge when the opportunity arises is watching reruns of Mtv’s Jack***.

The premise of the show is simple: send a group of 20-something guys out into the unsuspecting world to wreak havoc on all they find, turning even the simplest of pastimes into a potentially deadly extreme sport (i.e. extreme pogo sticking) or simply allowing their friends to shoot them point-blank range in the crotch with a paintball gun.
Sounds painful, no? Yes. And also hilarious.

This show was condemned by parents and all responsible-minded adults for its complete lack of consideration for acceptable social behavior, not to mention the fact that it blatantly promoted any form of self-destructive behavior that the human mind could conjure up. I don’t mean deliberately destructive, but jumping into a shopping cart and then pushing it over an embankment is par for the course.

Mtv gave as stern a warning as they could think of to tell the young stupid children that they shouldn’t try this behavior at home, etc. and the Jack*** crew themselves made it clear they wouldn’t watch or open any home-made submissions of other people trying to imitate them. Despite all of their attempts, the show only survived for a few seasons. Not only did public opinion eventually convince Mtv to pull Jack*** from production, but more interestingly, the boys of Jack*** became some notorious that their pranks seldom worked because unwitting bystanders would recognize them and want them to get in on the action. This drove the crew overseas for the end of the series’ production, where they found anonymity once again.

Juvenile? Yes. Immature? Yes. Childish? Yes. Irresponsible? Yes.

I cannot debate the moral relevance of this television show. The whole idea is reprehensible to have adults behaving in such immature ways, engaging in all of the behavior our mommies always told us not to.

So the popularity of this show is no surprise. Many people just watched it because it was the forbidden fruit. Either their parents forbade them to watch it, or it allowed us to live a tiny part of things we always wished we’d gotten to do.

And yet there’s me. I didn’t discover this show until its tenure on Mtv was nearly over. Certainly not any earlier than my junior year of college did I learn of the antics of Steve-O, Wee Man, Johnny Knoxville and Chris Pontius.
Yes, I laughed at all of the groin shots, the potty humor and wreckless self-destruction, but I now realize that there was something deeper to the motivations of these men responsible for this show.

Consider it the same motivation that not only drew millions of men to the visceral thrills in the film Fight Club, but to the films' philosophy, as well.
The idea is that men are men. Its not a new idea, but it is a largely over-looked one in modern-day America. We have engrained, encoded urges and motivations inside of us that are beyond the current understanding and description of modern psychology. It is the same urge that fought and won battles on primitive battle fields, the same urge that draws athletes to the field of competition.

And in today’s gender-neutral, anything-goes social muddle people like to call the Modern Man, any masculine, grotesque or adventurous behavior is discouraged and pushed deep into a boy’s mind. We’re told its not acceptable behavior in “this day and age” for a boy to want to play with toy guns and swords, challenging his foes (imaginary or otherwise) to combat. We say it encourages violent tendancies and we prescribe medication to bury a boy’s programming deep under a sea of psycho-babble.

And yet the beast emerges. I suppose that’s really the beauty of it. Despite a society that says such rough horse-play, violent games and self-destructive behavior is not only bad for the individual, but also for society, it rears its head, and secretly, people who share the same spirit rejoice, take pride, and feel the thrill of simply being alive.

This is my epiphany...I can’t fault myself too much for enjoying Jack*** because I see in it boys/men who have an unchannelled, undisciplined and uncontrolled spirit for adventure that I feel inside of me as well. It would be infinitely more useful for them if they used this in a more productive manner, but watching boys be boys for a while gives me great pleasure to watch.

T.