Culturebox: Jackass 3-D

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movies Jackass 3-D My eyes have now seen a Porta Potty become an excrement milkshake. By Dana Stevens Posted Friday, Oct. 15, 2010, at 1:44 PM ET When I was pregnant, I was afraid of having a boy. It wasn't that I didn't like little boys, but there was something about them that felt alien to me: the stores of excess aggression, the fascination with scatology and penis jokes, the constant need to prove ... something by risking their own safety and that of their equally incomprehensible little friends. If I had a boy, I feared, there would be something about his sense of humor and his source of deepest joy that I would never understand. As it turned out, I had a girl, so I've never had the chance to investigate the validity of this (no doubt grossly oversimplified) view of the juvenile male psyche. But however misguided my fears may have been, some nightmare version of them is now being projected multidimensionally onto the big screen in Jackass 3-D (MTV Films). This is the third cinematic outing for Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of former skate punks and other assorted lunatics--men who Manohla Dargis, writing about the first Jackass movie back in 2002, called "the nation's stupidest non-elected white guys." Their stock-in-trade, practiced since their MTV show first aired in 2000, is to envision and then put into practice stunts that push every boundary of safety, taste, and the basic human instinct for self-preservation. For me, watching Jackass 3-D was like being plunged into a Hieronymous Bosch painting of hell, yet this very reaction attests to the franchise's primal, diabolical power. To continue reading, click here. Dana Stevens is Slate's movie critic. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Dickerson: The Miserable Debate Between Sharron Angle and Harry Reid HIV Scare: Does the Porn Industry Keep Track of Who Has Had Sex With Whom? Did 30 Rock's Live Screw-Ups Make the Show Better Than Its Taped Episodes?	Advertisement
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