WHO’S the biggest jackass?
Is it the kid who nearly kills himself imitating what he sees on MTV’s “Jackass”?
Is it Johnny Knoxville, the titular star of the show who regularly injures himself in the act of performing outrageous stunts?
Is it the viewer who has embraced the show and made it the highest-rated program on MTV?
Or is it the MTV executive who looks at the ratings and money the show is bringing in and then chooses to ignore the fact that the program demeans his network and its viewers and has a harmful and persuasive effect on some of them?
The answer is: They’re all jackasses.
As much as I hate to pick on any kid who bangs himself up so badly that he winds up in the hospital, I have to ask of the ones who hurt themselves imitating Johnny Knoxville: What on Earth were you thinking?
The latest incident happened Monday afternoon in Independence, Ky., about 15 miles south of Cincinnati.
Three teenage boys – two 16 and one 17 – decided it would be fun to videotape one of them being hit by a car. So one of the 16-year-olds held a video camera as the 17-year-old drove a 1983 Honda Civic into the other 16-year-old.
Videotape seen yesterday afternoon on MSNBC and Fox News Channel showed the victim flipping end over end over the roof of the car and landing on the street. He was rushed to the hospital with injuries to his chest, right leg and neck.
The boys said they were inspired by “Jackass.”
Elsewhere in Jackassland, a 19-year-old wearing a hospital gown and waving a chainsaw ran out into the middle of traffic Sunday afternoon in Afton, Minn., about 10 miles east of St. Paul. Nobody got hurt and the man got a ticket for disorderly conduct. He told police he was imitating “Jackass.”
Much more serious were the severe burns sustained in separate incidents by three younger boys – two in Connecticut and one in Florida – who doused themselves with flammable liquid and lit themselves on fire in the manner of – Who else? – “Jackass” Johnny Knoxville.
Though it’s difficult to know for sure, I like to believe that when I was 11, I would have had the good sense not to light myself on fire. And when I was 16, I doubt if I would have stood in the path of a moving car – TV show or no TV show.
To put it bluntly, the kids who got hurt imitating Johnny Knoxville could very well be just plain stupid, although that doesn’t absolve Mr. Jackass or his jackass enablers at MTV.
In case you haven’t seen “Jackass,” that’s the MTV show in which Johnny and his pals engage in stunts aimed at testing their physical limitations. Yes, people get lit on fire and stand in front of moving cars. In one famous bit, Johnny had the contents of a Porta-John poured over him. I once turned on the show to see someone tossing darts at Johnny’s bare chest. One reader told me recently he saw Johnny attempt to inseminate a cow with his hand.
If this sounds to you like the behavior of a jackass, then I guess that’s the point. It also sounds like the behavior of a pathetic loser, which is what we used to call anybody who would agree to be showered with human waste.
These days, though, such people become stars on MTV.
And that makes the folks at MTV the biggest jackasses of them all.