Driving drunk, continued: From Mansfield Park to Jackassville

Nowadays, my reading is much less obscure, at least so it seems to me. Oh, it may involve its share of Brit lit and world culture types, a half-finished Zadie Smith novel here, a just-begun Marlene Van Niekerk there. (Editor's note: Well, the latter did get a good review in the NYTBR, a pretty mainstream, if East Coast, source.) However, it also might be oriented toward a Bill Bryson goof-fest, A Year in the Merde-styled travelog/joke-a-thon, a Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Southern gothic escapade (read a decade after everyone else was done with it), a First Ladies Detective Agency whimsy, or, most recently, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.

I admit that I love Jane Austen's writing. Everyone talks about how Shakespeare speaks to us through the ages, but I'd argue he does so with a lot of swishy dramatic fireworks and in an (at least to me) almost unintelligible, florid language. I find that Austen, on the other hand, despite the different culture and time, does have quite a bit to say even today. I find her knowledge of human character so engaging, detailed, and precise, and her wry, dry observations about cultural mores, her not-so-subtly scathing social commentary, irresistible. I've begun to think about that party question--if you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?--and imagine myself sitting down for tea with Lady Jane to have a tete-a-tete about life, humanity, class, relationships, and the "politics of the party" (as opposed to party politics) while we attend a social function in Washington, D.C., which, next to Los Angeles, is perhaps America's most socially twisted environment.

Of course, I'm sure the first time I used the "F" word or told her about the ins-and-outs of contemporary gay society ("Yes, well, oddly enough, Miss Austen, having sex with a guy on the first date pretty much guarantees he'll never speak to you again--but will speak about you to all his friends; I'm sure it was much the same in your day, no?"), she'd immediately crawl back into the grave and pull the coffin lid back over her head. Still, if we made it through at least one cuppa and a few biscuits, a few "Yes, I'd rather like to think so's" and "No, I don't believe I should's," I'd be satisfied.

I'm almost done with Mansfield Park, and yet I am still not sure what to make of it. Is it a morality tale, a story of good Christian girl Fanny Price getting the man of her dreams while worldly, secular, London hussy Mary Crawford (and, let's face it, far more interesting and more typically an Austen heroine in her spit-fieriness) misses her chance at earthly paradise with rather tedious clergyman Edmund Bertram due to her sans souçi, faith-free, joie de vivre? Is it a delicate feminist tract with Austen lightly but pointedly pressing against the dress staves of female constraint and confinement in early 19th-century England? A rejection of the safety first mentality toward marriage and station in life, with Fanny turning away from the well-funded, roguish Henry Crawford, in favor of a Bertram-or-bust life? Does feminism come into play in Austen's portrayal of Fanny's mother, the slatternly Mrs. Price, trapped by her lack of reproductive freedom, destined to be a victim of biology, both hers and her husband's?

Or is this more a portrayal of class differences and struggles, of the poor, unkempt, improper Prices and the rich, tidy, yet still improper Bertrams and Crawfords, the latter being victims of their own social and economic successes, schadenfreudian patsies of the planter class? And speaking of planters, where's all this critical talk of the slave trade in Mansfield Park? Some allusions to plantations in Antigua, one question by Fanny about the trade itself, do not a political screed make. Even the sensible Jane A. is usually more persuasive in tone. Perhaps I should invite Harriet Beecher Stowe to tea as well . . . .

* * *

All of the above--and what follows below--is indicative of why I've yet to settle on an additional master's degree or never pursued a Ph.D., despite my long-standing guest worker status in academe. How can you channel all that class and crass, that trash and treasure, into a color-within-the-lines academic discipline?

Oh, I've tried, believe me. I spent a couple of years both in North Carolina and Texas taking advanced-level history courses, trying to find a proper place for nourishing and growing my intellect. It did sprout, even flourished a bit, my harvest at one point involving a 30+-page paper on Thatcher, the UK gay rights movement, and the appropriation of homoerotic images in pop culture, standing in contrast to Thatcher's more regressive take on contemporary society. Another bumper crop included a post-colonial analysis of gay relationships in Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, and the Mexican tourism industry. Hmmm, perhaps we're beginning to see my problem here, mixing pop music with political science, combining critical theory with porn imagery about "hot Latins," "submissive Asians," and "hung Black tops."

In spite of having some good "gardeners" in the form of accepting and encouraging professors (one female, one male, one constipated--two outta three ain't bad and all that), in the often male-dominated history classes I attended, I ended up feeling much more like a delicate little hothouse flower, an orchid of sense and sensibility if you will, among the vacant lot, concrete blocks, and weeds of the rest of the class.

Perhaps in another season, it would all be different. Nonetheless, in any discipline, there is a lot of slogging through dense, poorly written tomes, coupled with even more slogging through even denser and more poorly written critical theory. Discipline is what you need to get through the discipline, it seems. But, goodness gracious, must it all be so stiff and boring? After all, how many years left on the planet do any of us have? And why should I spend my time on something deadly dull when there are novels to read, movies to watch, and pop tunes to download?

Thus, what's a wee pansy of intellect to do? Other than blog away his troubles, I mean . . . .

* * *

Go see Jackass: Number 2, apparently. That's what he should do. And what I did in fact do. Hehe, I said "do do" . . . .

Maybe it was the wine that evening; maybe it was the thought of the impending birthday and the realization that following the same highway of interests, no matter how well-mapped, occasionally leads to dead-ends; maybe it's just that I was way behind on the tote board of my pledge drive to do one new thing a week, a goal I set during the doldrums of a gray last February. But when my friends the Cartoonist and the Pianist asked me if I'd like to go see Jackass: Number 2 with them, I jumped at the chance. And like any good jackass, immediately fell hard on the crossbar of my Schwinn. (Figuratively speaking.)

I admit that I do have a penchant--and a modicum of shame--for shows like The Three Stooges and The Beverly Hillbillies, but Jackass is so totally not the kind of movie I would normally go see. And, thus, that's exactly why I had to go.

I was familiar with the concept of Jackass and the subsequent rise of copycat idiocy that took place after every episode aired on MTV or after the previous movie (Number 1, that is) had screened. And while I'm enough of an old socialist that I can see logical and intelligent reasons for not exhibiting such dangerous behavior as displayed by the Jackass cast to impressionable minds, I'm enough of a libertarian/free market type to say, hey, if you're stupid enough to stand blindfolded before a charging bull or put a hook through your cheek and serve as shark bait for the cameras, then you get what you deserve, oh future Darwin Award winners.

Plus, I had seen Johnny Knoxville in the last John Waters' movie, that catalog of sexual perversions, A Dirty Shame, and thought he was pretty funny, especially in one of the outtakes in which he, well, um, becomes familiar with his own trouser snake. (I'll leave it to your imagination and your Netflix membership to explore further.) Plus, shallow person that I am, I do think he's kinda cute and figured I might get a little Knoxville T&A out of the $8 deal.

Well, no such luck, of course--after all, he's a star now, so nudity and really dangerous stunts that might mess up his face are left for his fellow Jackassites. There was indeed a fair amount of skin exhibited by Bam, Chris, Steve-O, and the others, some of it actually worth the price of admission. And there were also some genuinely funny segments, the kind that exhibit a goofy guy, pratfall and frat-full humor that even an ol' priss-pot curmudgeon like me isn't immune to.

However, there were also moments that conveyed an icky, not-so-fresh feeling, giving a weird sexual tension to the gags and gross-outs, which rubbed up against and in between the cast members, enveloping them in a blue-tinged, "I smell smoke" homoeroticism.

The most obvious example was the incident in which Bam is placed at the top of a carnival game, the one where the Strong Man uses a mallet to prove his power by swinging his big stick down hard on a box in order to try to make the bell ring at the top of the shaft, proving he's a bad mother--shut yo' mouth!

Except in this version, the Jackassites have replaced the thingie that hits the bell with a golden dildo, which when projected, aims directly at Bam's bare ass.

I sure hope that MTV Films and Paramount Pictures had a qualified Freudian psychologist on retainer throughout filming, 'cause these boys need to talk this out.

Like I said, this was the most obvious example of the Homoerotic Frolics on view. There were others, noticed by both the Pianist and me, although I have to admit, I can't remember all what I saw, given the passage of time and the fact that I watched a good portion of the movie with my hands over my eyes. I'm sorry, but I really could live my life without seeing Johnny and Friends try to grab an anaconda while in a children's ball room or assist in the studfarming of a horse jus' fer laffs.

Still, the fascination with snakes, rockets, butts, cocks, and the bodily functions and fluids of animals and each other played out at times like a segment of Stupid Perv Tricks. Boys, let's face it: You can go home to your wives and girlfriends, but there's something about being naked and touchy-feely with your male compadres that keeps you coming back for more. It may just be narcissism at work and play here, but you're just a little too interested in the male body--and in dominating the other male bodies around you--for this all to be just innocent, lighthearted fun.

Not that there's anything wrong with a little man-on-man sexual interest, but let's realize it for what it is--hombre-to-hombre semi-sexual hijinx of the boys-in-the-girls'-room-girls-in-the-men's-room-you-free-your-mind-and-your-androgyny variety. (With thanks to Shirley Manson and Garbage for that bit of lyrical inspiration.)

I'm not saying that any of the boys from Jackass are gay. Gayness involves a bit more than being interested in the bits and pieces of the men around you; if that were the case, then everybody who ever went into a men's room would be suspect. Gayness is as much a cultural identity, a social milieu, and even a political decision, as it is a sexual orientation. But there is this odd male heterosexual approach to homosexuality playing out here, an on-the-down-low-among-the-lowdown-and-dirty, the kind that sees sex between men as a game, a contest, a winner-take-all conquest, where one guy dominates another by bending him over and bending him to his will.

It's wet-towel-snapping-on-the-ass-in-the-locker-room gone askew. It's tacky jokes about being Bubba's bitch in prison. It's gauche beer commercials where one guy is outed as being more "feminine" or less "masculine" than the others. It's "making the coach proud," then "taking one for the team." It's World Wrestling Entertainment and the Superbowl all balled together. It's hazing. It's Guys Gone Wild crossed with Sean Cody.com. It's line-crossing ceremonies, and then crossing the line altogether.

In other words, it's smoke from a different fire, and understanding where that smoke is coming from and dealing with it effectively might just mean more shared humanity and less violence in the world. Or at least a little less repression.

Whew. I do go on. Surely, somehow, I could turn this spiel into a master's degree at some accredited university. Or I could just keep on torturing my readers with my endless observations on the ways and mens (sic) of contemporary sexual culture.

Which would be cheaper in terms of student loans and my own therapy bills.