Thoughts on The Social Network and Jackass 3D - From a Young (not really) G(eek)’s (Male) Perspective
It’s funny that the last two weeks have seen the release of The Social Network and Jackass 3D. On the surface they may seem completely unrelated, however, when considered a little, actually have something in common.
The Social Network is a film squarely about this generation. It’s about our hopes and dreams and it’s also about our issues and problems. The children of the eighties grew up idolizing the action hero, our parents leading the way in the decade of excess. We were picked on at school and spent lunchtimes in the library. The noughties saw us enter our adult lives and the repressed nerd began to poke his head out from the darkness and see the rise of the modern geek. The information revolution provided the opening every closet geek longed for. They needed us. The character of Zuckerberg is the perfect distillation of a generation of young geek males. The film also ponders on the psychology of a generation that creates and uses “The Social Network” (*hint. It’s Facebook), a site that provides an avenue for stream of consciousness “status updates” (quite funny when you consider that the Zuckerberg character used Facebook as a way to update his status”.)
When I first saw Jackass, it wasn’t on a television in the lounge room. It wasn’t with my parents. It was on my 17 inch CRT monitor, with a pair of headphones, at the Valhalla LAN party. A 20mb Real Media file that had been downloaded from the internet by a nameless friend on the other end of an ethernet connection. The image quality was terrible and sound as poor. In grainy, pixelated perfection, a twenty-something Tennessee native introduced himself as Johnny Knoxville and proceeded to blow my mind. It only took a few stunts to sell me on the idea and I proceeded to download every episode I could get. Here were a bunch of guys doing everything their mothers told them not to. It was the perfect shot of testosterone for a generation of young males raised indoors and overdosed on estrogen by over-protective mothers. It was the emergence of the DIY daredevil. Men without fear. Our Project Mayhem by proxy. It was also a phenomenon only truly possible this generation. Made possible by a proliferation of cheap home video cameras and the rise of the internet in a time before YouTube. It also meant that I could watch a show that, here in Australia certainly would not have aired on free-to-air tv. You could download it and watch it, and pass it on to your friends like your best kept secret. Three movies later and the guys have likely made their last movie. They have delivered a much needed injection of fun into our cinemas and delivered a sucker punch to the James Cameron school of 3D that was sorely needed. If this is their last movie it will be a great wrap up.
If The Social Network is “about” what defines this generation, then in a very meta way, Jackass 3D “is” what defines this generation.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
