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Comment by freetime2 | Hacker News Reader

The term "toxic masculinity" gets used a lot these days, and I think it applies pretty solidly to a lot of what goes on in Jackass - both on-camera with the reckless stunts and violence, and off-camera with the reckless drug usage. I loved watching the show growing up, but I don't think I would ever want to be friends with those guys, and it's definitely not something I would ever want my sons to emulate.

That being said, there is something so relatable with the way those guys interact with each other. All of my closest friendships have looked kind of like that, but on a much smaller scale. Teasing, pranking, competing, etc. seems to be a pretty universal way for males to show affection for one-another. The more terrible things I can say to a person and get a laugh in response, the better the friend.

The amount of openness and vulnerability that those guys share with one-another is actually pretty endearing.

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Completely disagree. IMHO, toxic implies negativity toward others, e.g. chauvinism, domination, aggression, etc, which the jackass members don't really match.

Fair enough - I actually dislike the term "toxic masculinity" and tend to never use it because it is too vague. But Jackass felt to me like a case of "I know it when I see it". That's an extremely nebulous argument, though, and I'm happy to concede that it was a poor choice of words.

To be more specific, my biggest issue with Jackass is that they glamorize excessive risk taking. Lots of broken bones, concussions, drug addictions, drug overdoses, etc. came from that show - and IMO they are lucky that it wasn't much worse. [1]

[1] https://youtu.be/_D7IAvRAXng?t=100

I'm not sure I see the stuff here as toxic. In particular, there is heavy consent and a bit of looking in the mirror to these pranks that seems missing from the toxic side.

Is it to ridiculous extremes such that I am glad it isn't me? Yes. Absolutely. Do I feel these folks needed reining in? I mean, for their sake.

> Do I feel these folks needed reining in? I mean, for their sake.

Yup when I called their behavior "toxic" before, I was mostly thinking from a self-harm perspective. Actions that harm others are worse, of course, but self harm falls under the umbrella of "toxic" too.

There's also the issue of millions of kids watching the show and in some cases trying to emulate it. I'm an ardent supporter of free speech, so I'm definitely not calling for censorship here. But I wouldn't call the enormous cultural impact of Jackass a good thing, either.

> The more terrible things I can say to a person and get a laugh in response, the better the friend.

This sums up my closest friendships as well.

The true mark for when someone has traveled from acquaintance, through friendship, and kept going much further beyond, is when you say the most idiotically, obscenely, insensitive comment to them, and, after a laugh, get something even stronger thrown back at you.

You've got it backwards. Toxic masculinity is exactly the avoidance of vulnerability and emotional openness you praise, not horsing around with your buds.

You don't have to guess on the definition by the way, as academic terms tend to be well explicated.

> You don't have to guess on the definition by the way, as academic terms tend to be well explicated.

I disagree that the meaning of "toxic masculinity" is as clearly defined as you claim, or that it is even an academic term [1]:

> The term ‘toxic masculinity’ is not an academic term. It has little currency in academic scholarship on men and masculinities, although this may be changing. Common terms in scholarship for dominant forms of masculinity include ‘hegemonic masculinity’, pioneered by influential theorist Raewyn Connell, and simply ‘masculinity’. There is of course academic debate over how to understand these terms.

If you can cite a clear, concise, and universally accepted definition of toxic masculinity, though, I would be interested to read it.

[1] https://xyonline.net/content/toxic-masculinity-primer-and-co...

I cannot cite a universally accepted definition of anything. That is an impossible standard and I'm sure nothing I say will satisfy you. The only help I can offer you here is to question the neutrality of that link.

You watched folks drop out here and there after not surviving the hardcore guy ridicule. And the truly awful stuff they pulled in their early days. I always imagined, everyone parties, someone comes up with something horrible or dangerous, then the cameraman waves hundred dollar bills around to drunk twenty year olds to get it on tape.

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