JACKASS vs PSYCHOTHERAPIST A PHONE INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN BALTIMORE, Licensed Clinical Social Worker & Psychotherapist, done on 10/10/00. This interview was originally published in the last issue of Level Magazine. Susan Baltimore: So what are we doing? Did you get my fax? SB: I did, but... forgive me that I didn't carry it to Ireland. No problem. I basically wanted to get your opinion on Jackass. You watched the pilot I sent you? SB: I did, I watched the whole thing. You know, developmentally, it's not even adolescent humor. It's really preadolescent humor. It's all those silly, "I knock myself down in the street to make you laugh" kind of jokes. Adolescents are really much more advanced. It's really pretty primitive humor. What is it that attracts us to that? Maybe I shouldn't say us, because obviously some people... SB: Are repelled by it. Exactly. Then the other people are drawn to it -- sort of how you're drawn to a car wreck. SB: I think there is something about the primitive in other people. There's something amusing about the primitive in other people. It's a way, I think, to imagine that we don't own it -- though the primitive exists in all of us -- whether we acknowledge it or not. I think that this guy provides a focal point for everybody -- including you and me -- to say, "oh, isn't he disgusting? and we're not..." You're referring to the main guy? Johnny Knoxville? SB: Yes. He is a pretty sick cookie. Most of us have a certain amount of mastery over those impulses. And most of us have mastered those impulses by the time we are 12 or 13. But he's going to make some money off of those impulses. Do you think that's part of his motivation? SB: I that that's a motivation at the manifest level. But I think that at a less obvious level -- at a more subconscious level -- that he's an abuse victim. Look at the things he does in an effort to make people laugh. Those things would never occur to an average person. I mean, my mother would have knocked the shit out of me. It would never occur to me to taze myself... and the porta-poo-poo thing... those things would never occur to me. That's pretty masochistic stuff. Somebody in his life was entertained by him getting the shit kicked out of him. Do you think this primitive level of humor has a different effect on males than with females? SB: There's something more appealing to males -- and I don't mean this in a sexist way -- about throwing off civilization. I think civilization works better for females than it does for males. That's interesting. SB: I think that being unencumbered and uncivilized is more appealing to men and that may be why that show is more appealing to males. Do you think this show compares at all with any of its predecessors? Like say Candid Camera meets Andy Kaufman and Tom Green? SB: Those shows, those people, first of all, are so much more cerebral. Candid Camera seemed civilized and cerebral -- Andy Kaufman I think less so. He was much more hostile and much more sadistic than this guy is. This guy is a masochist -- except for the piece with the baby doll in the bicycle seat. That's a different guy, actually. SB: Is it really? That guy is really sadistic. Tom Green, the little bit of Tom Green that I've seen is not masochistic, though he leans towards sadistic. But the bits he does with his parents has a larkish quality to it. For instance, invading their bedroom with a cow's head? There's a larkish, little boy quality to it, but it's not poo-poo humor. It's a much more evolved humor. All of those shows and people you've mentioned delight in the shocking, but they come from different places in their effort to shock. When you think of Tom Green or Kaufman, aren't you talking about a humor that makes people think a little? To me that's what make this show repellent, "don't bother to think -- just be primitive and wallow in the mud." Even South Park has a little intellectual quality to it. Asshole is totally primitive. It's called Jackass. SB: Oh. This whole time I thought it was Asshole. [pause] SB: Can you think of one cerebral thing about it? I can't. The dwarf... children are either frightened or amused by what is so different. And a dwarf is different -- particularly one all dressed up on a skateboard (Jason "Weeman" Acuna). It's the humor of 4 to 6 year-olds. Would 4 and 5 year olds get the humor in that? SB: Interesting... they'd laugh or they'd be afraid. 4 to 6 year-olds have huge fantasy lives and so, the Oomph Lumpah could work for or against them. Just by virtue of this show being some sort of pinnacle of absurdity -- can you find anything positive from it? [pause] SB: To me, no. It seems like devolution instead of evolution. It's going backward. This doesn't seem in any way progressive. It moves backward. That's my opinion. Would you consider any of it harmful for viewers? Or would you consider it harmless? SB: I think some of it is relatively harmless. I suppose a dwarf skateboarding in an Oomph Lumpah outfit is relatively harmless. I think the bits with the baby on the back of the bike (Dave England) is just plain mean. The tazer, pepper spray and stun gun bit does seem harmful to me. I seems harmful to invite people to laugh at you while you hurt yourself. I know there is a place for that in comedy -- thinking in terms of slapstick humor -- but in slap stick there is a way in which you know they are never really getting hurt. But you're not quite sure of that in this show. He seems to be really hurt. He pulls the barbs out of his skin from the stun gun. SB: Yeah. I generally I had a really negative response to it. I'm trying to remember if there was any of it... it's kind of like, why? What about the guys in the fat suits (Bam Margera) skating around and falling really hard? SB: You know what, that's the one thing that seems like old fashioned comedy. Like true slap stick. I have a question for you? What is your opinion? I'm sickened by my own laughter. It is complete abandonment in rebellion. How do you think it'll go over? SB: I think it'll do well. Does that reflect the age we live in? SB: Yeah. I think people are less and less inclined to think about anything. Words are very important in terms of development -- the more language you have, the more you think. Jackass could actually be considered obstructionistic in terms of development. It invites people not to think.