{"id":993,"date":"2024-03-21T14:12:26","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T18:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/?p=993"},"modified":"2024-03-22T13:56:36","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T17:56:36","slug":"korie-tinch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/2024\/03\/21\/korie-tinch\/","title":{"rendered":"Korie Tinch"},"content":{"rendered":"

A PhD student in Boston University’s American & New England Studies program, Korie Tinch<\/strong> draws upon queer theory and the social sciences broadly to investigate the construction and maintenance of sexual identities through popular culture. Korie approaches this topic through the lens of contemporary media consumption, especially underground music movements, reality television, and digital media. Korie\u2019s most recent line of research focuses on the roles of gender and sexuality among \u201cJuggalos,\u201d the vibrant subculture rooted in a dedicated fandom surrounding hip hop group Insane Clown Posse.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Skate Dudes and Str8 Dudes:
\nNormative Sexuality and the\u00a0Jackass\u00a0<\/em>Media Franchise<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a 2010 Vanity Fair interview promoting Jackass 3D,<\/em> franchise star Steve-O commented that the team behind the television and media franchise \u201calways thought it was funny to force a heterosexual MTV generation to deal with all of our thongs and homoerotic humour;\u201d he further claimed that said humor \u201chas been a humanitarian attack against homophobia\u201d and that in his opinion, \u201cgay people really dig it too.\u201d[1]<\/span><\/a> The case Steve-O makes for Jackass <\/em>having a thoughtfully anti-homophobic mission\u2014especially one that is received <\/em>as such\u2014is intriguing but tenuous when measured against public response to the franchise. Jackass <\/em>has long been derided as pointless and crude, with one particularly scathing, \u201czero star\u201d review of the first film published by the New York Post <\/em>lamenting the \u201cdepressing\u201d fact that \u201cthe mostly male audience at a screening\u2026laughed heartily at what was half a step up from a snuff film.\u201d<\/span>[2]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Recent years have seen more favorable reception of the franchise. 2022\u2019s Jackass Forever <\/em>notably holding a critical score on Rotten Tomatoes of 86 percent compared to the first film\u2019s 49 percent.<\/span>[3]<\/span><\/a> A standout review of Forever <\/em>by BuzzFeed culture writer Shannon Keating credits not just the film but the franchise overall with a palpable sense of earnest sweetness below its low-brow, slapstick surface. She writes that, as a viewer, \u201cyou come to watch somebody get hurt in the most absurd possible way, but you stay because these guys love each other endlessly for it.\u201d<\/span>[4]<\/span><\/a> Keating also attends to the homoerotic optics of the film and franchise in the course of her revie\u2014just one example amidst the Jackass<\/em> renaissance of popular journalists now articulating the franchise\u2019s materials with queer experience, or locating where that articulation is being voiced through public discourse on social media. In a 2021 piece that calls back to the 2010 Vanity Fair<\/em> interview, Joseph Earp proclaims that Steve-O and the other cast members\u2019 words therein only served to make more widely known that which had always been obvious \u201cfor astute fans.\u201d<\/span>[5]<\/span><\/a> Yet main cast members prior to the franchise\u2019s fourth and most recent film have been white, male, cisgender, and not openly queer themselves\u2014and the lion\u2019s share of consumers of their work have always been presumed to fit the same description\u2014even as much of their content relies upon male nudity and psycho-sexually charged antics. <\/span><\/p>\n

To what extent can the appeal of these flirtations with homoeroticism in fact be reduced to \u201cbenign violation\u201d<\/span>[6]<\/span><\/a> for an overwhelmingly heterosexual audience? Is it possibly the case that a deeply self-aware, critical engagement with the norms of gender and sexuality is at the heart of Jackass<\/em>, and that message is reaching a receptive queer audience? Or is the cast\u2019s suggestion of that being the case a matter of exaggeration? I seek to resolve these questions through the analysis of source material and its aggregate reception by the public. I approach this analysis through frameworks of key writings on gender and sexuality, with masculinity in the contemporary United States as a particular focus. I do not wish to ignore how the interpretation of Jackass <\/em>by its straight male viewers was at one time inextricably linked to negative public perceptions of homosexuality and gender nonconforming behavior and include closing statements that problematize that cultural linkage. Still, my article highlights a self-evident thread of queer audience identification with the Jackass <\/em>brand within popular media discourse. I advocate for such discussions to be taken as serious entries to the archive of queer media criticism. The question of whether the makers of the franchise authentically \u201cintended\u201d for its content to resist a heteronormative order is difficult to resolve; in any case I maintain that assessing it through the lens of queer frameworks to explore what it does for the queer viewers who claim it\u2014as shown subsequently\u2014fits productively into the study of gender, sexuality, and culture. Ultimately, I present this case with the aspiration of furthering the project of destabilizing the rigidity of the heterosexual and queer as cultural categories.<\/span><\/p>\n

Literature Review<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The work of Jane Ward serves as a natural keystone for exploring the relationship between Jackass <\/em>and contemporary masculinities. My title references a 2008 article by Ward on \u201cdude-sex\u201d as well as her 2015 book, \u201cNot Gay: Sex Between Straight, White Men.\u201d<\/em> Based upon extensive analysis of m4m (male-for-male) craigslist personal ads, Ward\u2019s texts present a subset of self-identified \u201cstr8\u201d men who seek out same-sex encounters while maintaining their heterosexual identity, for whom \u201cstraightness is constituted by their way of life\u201d instead of their sexual activities; rather, \u201cit is performed and substantiated through a hyper-masculine and misogynistic rejection of queer culture.\u201d<\/span>[7]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Not Gay<\/em><\/span> expansively applies Ward\u2019s nuanced conception of straight identity as a social category that doesn\u2019t bear a linear relationship to actual sexual experience\u2014particularly <\/em>for otherwise heteronormative white men\u2014arguing that \u201chomosexual sex plays a remarkably central role in the institutions and rituals that produce heterosexual subjectivity, as well as in the broader culture\u2019s imagination of what it means for \u2018boys to be boys\u2019\u201d; the book significantly claims that not only do homosexual encounters not necessarily compromise men\u2019s heterosexual social status maintained within a the landscape that casts \u201cstraightness and queerness primarily as cultural domains\u201d but in fact plays a hand in constructing and reifying said identity.<\/span>[8]<\/span><\/a> I take up this central argument, utilizing it in my attempt to disentangle the notion that the homoerotically charged scenes throughout the Jackass <\/em>franchise may indeed just be a matter of shock and grotesque amusement for an otherwise unbothered, heteronormative male audience. Ward briefly engages with Jackass <\/em>in the fourth chapter of Not Gay <\/em>as one example among popular media that compels \u201cviewers to celebrate homosexual play among edgy white dudes who are so reckless that their homosexual behavior reads as a macho display of endurance and self-sacrifice\u2014a homosexual sacrifice made for the sake of our entertainment\u201d and to a lesser degree, as a possible self-reflective engagement with masculinity that \u201cmodels a way for young white men to disidentify with the knee-jerk homophobia of their generation,\u201d<\/span>[9]<\/span><\/a> but she does not linger upon the details of its contents nor its contentious impact upon queer viewers, which I subsequently elaborate on as the main focus of my own argument. <\/span><\/p>\n

I also follow Ward\u2019s own reference to Jack Halberstam\u2019s The Queer Art of Failure. <\/em>Ward has characterized Jackass <\/em>after Halberstam as an example of \u201cprecisely the genre of lowbrow white male \u2018stupidity films\u2019\u2026that has the potential to disarm white hetero-masculinity by allowing it to be incompetent, ignorant, and forgetful of its own status and function.\u201d<\/span>[10]<\/span><\/a> While Ward mostly references Halberstam\u2019s formulations of ignorance and stupidity as potentially subversive ways of life, I extend the connections to his text. Jackass <\/em>has effectively been characterized by its detractors as a failure of taste and decency. I argue that this sense of \u201cartistic failure\u201d marks opportunity for the Jackass <\/em>crew to practice a sense of sincerity that many more \u201cserious\u201d artists may struggle to access, motivated by the goal of critical success. In Halberstam\u2019s own words\u2014deployed by him to critically assess the academy\u2014”being taken seriously means missing out<\/em> on the chance to be frivolous, promiscuous, and irrelevant.\u201d<\/span>[11]<\/span><\/a> Parallels might be drawn between Jackass <\/em>and any number of iconic queer bodies of work that have been targets of or responses to respectability discourse as it pertains to art; Jackass<\/em> especially shares proximity to camp filmmaker John Waters who has long championed the franchise, befriending and collaborating star Johnny Knoxville, even appearing briefly in the series\u2019 second film installment. <\/em>In subsequent sections I elaborate on how this interpretation of the franchise as an example of subversive, artistic failure cuts across various themes in The Queer Art of Failure, <\/em>from the underestimation of so-called \u201clowbrow\u201d media and cultural projects to the role of unbecoming in gender performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, themes of earnest platonic affection between cast members characterized as non-stereotypical displays amongst straight men arise throughout the public discourse surrounding Jackass.<\/em> I have related these themes not only to Ward\u2019s reflections on the often underestimated and denied ambiguity of even heteronormative homosocial relations, but also back to models of queer social organization posited by Michel Foucault.<\/span><\/p>\n

The materials to which I apply above frameworks range from the content of Jackass <\/em>itself, to public response in the form of commentary on social media and popular press. Tweets by queer individuals who identify Jackass<\/em> as formative to interpreting their own identities make up most of the former, while the latter includes several online articles and, significantly, an episode of the StraightioLab <\/em>podcast that focuses on Jackass.<\/em> In the following section, I describe some of the events and general aesthetics of the franchise, using key moments from the 2006 film Jackass Number Two <\/em>as case examples. Later, I juxtapose the 2000\u2019s era antics of the cast and crew with some very visible difference in the content their most recent film (2022\u2019s Jackass Forever<\/em>), <\/em>but as my analysis takes up the reflections of viewers who identify their earlier works as formative media, those entries into the franchise constitute my natural starting point and primary focus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Examining the Content of Jackass<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Deliberate appeals to shock and disgust have always been essential to the franchise\u2019s formula and what audiences expect to see from it. There is a consistent emphasis on nudity and raunchy humor in the content. In many instances, it is genital proximity between male cast members, as well as the infliction of pain to genitals, from which Jackass <\/em>extracts its humor. <\/span><\/p>\n

A mere four minutes into the run time of Number Two <\/em>and directly following the film\u2019s suburban running of the bulls introduction sequence, the viewer observes a scene in which a \u201cpuppet\u201d that is shortly revealed to be cast member Chris Pontius\u2019 flaccid penis\u2014comically disguised as a mouse with fabric and googly eyes\u2014is attacked by a captive snake. Fellow cast member Johnny Knoxville is manipulating Pontius\u2019 genitals as if a marionette and narrating the scene in character as a magician while the rest of the cast look on gleefully and laugh (0:04:31). <\/span><\/p>\n

A few segments later, Jackass <\/em>cast member \u201cDanger\u201d <\/span>Ehren McGhehey and motocross athlete Thor Drake (making a guest appearance) are shown attempting to complete a vertical loop on miniature motorcycles. An unseen cast member (possibly Chris Pontius) comments from off-screen, \u201cI love that confidence. I\u2019m not gay but I\u2026 I kind of want to fuck him\u201d regarding Drake as he\u2019s seen approaching the loop (0:13:06). At the conclusion of the stunt, Pontius jokes that McGhehey is \u201ctotally going to lose [his] virginity\u201d after the movie\u2019s release, to which McGhehey laughingly responds, \u201cI don\u2019t think dudes count, Chris\u201d (0:13:45-0:13:52).<\/p>\n

Immediately following the loop sequence is a scene in which Bam Margera\u2019s buttock flesh is branded with a hot iron. The crew is onsite at a cattle ranch, and both Ryan Dunn\u2014Margera\u2019s castmate and close friend who ultimately administers the brand\u2014and Johnny Knoxville provide complimentary description of Margera\u2019s bare rear. Knoxville then attempts to help stabilize Margera as Dunn heats up a metal instrument crudely resembling a penis and testicles which he proceeds to brand Margera with as several cows look on calmly (0:14:08).<\/p>\n

Numerous other moments from the film may be considered tenuously charged with homoerotic or queer implications, including Margera\u2019s request to have a dildo launched at high speed (via carnival strength game apparatus) towards his anus rather than a heavy weight launched at his testicles (0:10:35-0:11:08), or his off-handed comment that he would \u201cFrench kiss\u201d Knoxville for hypothetically accomplishing a particularly risky stunt involving rubber balls propelled by a powerful explosive (0:33:31-0:33:39); Chris Pontius\u2014whose appearance in revealing women\u2019s clothing is a frequent component of Jackass <\/em>productions\u2014standing by in a flowered bikini and bunny ears as Wee Man and Preston Lacy tandem bungee jump off of a Miami bridge (0:25:15-0:25-19); John Waters\u2019 aforementioned brief appearance as he presents a \u201cdisappearing act\u201d in the form of Wee Man, in his underwear, being body slammed into a mattress by a much larger and equally undressed woman (0:37:09-0:37:40). These clips from Number Two <\/em>are fairly representative of the content featured throughout the show and film series. Said typical content makes up many of the examples that might be cited by viewers as variously either degrading or affirming to individuals whose identities or experiences are sexually marginalized. Though the filmmakers\u2019 intent obviously cannot be measured by an observer, the remainder of this article interprets responses to this material mostly through the lens of queer viewership and compares the perceptions <\/em>thereof with relevant theoretical literature, largely on the homosexual activities of white men who are understood to be heterosexual social and cultural subjects.<\/p>\n

Queer Reception and Analysis<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

While there are several instances of critics and fans avowing the franchise\u2019s queer leanings that I will explore in this section, the one that best encapsulates recurrent and significant themes may be the Jackass <\/em>centered episode of the StraightioLab <\/em>podcast. <\/em>The show\u2019s tongue-in-cheek description declares it to be \u201can intellectual podcast where smart comedians George Civeris and Sam Taggart unpack the rich, multi-colored tapestry of straight culture,\u201d while the episode in question is described in a manner that sets up the hosts\u2019 subsequent humorous yet genuinely thought-provoking meta-analysis of their topic:<\/span><\/p>\n

Intellectual powerhouse Sarah Squirm joins Sam and George to unpack the cultural legacy of the subversive feminist art project known as the Jackass franchise. Gender politics, self-harm, trigger warnings, the failures of television criticism, the field of linguistics… it is ALL addressed. This episode is the podcast equivalent of jumping off a bridge into alligator-infested waters while your boys look on. For your own safety, do NOT try this at home.<\/span>[12]<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The hosts and guest Sarah \u201cSquirm\u201d Sherman identify how a generous reading of the franchise can locate within it models of care, self-awareness, exploration of bodies and identities. They also stress its subversive elements of social nonconformity and a sense of artistic integrity that is unconcerned with critical recognition. Simultaneously, they identify a disconnect between their contemporary identification with the material as gay and female spectators versus the reception of the show and early films in the franchise at the time of their release.<\/span><\/p>\n

Civeris, Taggart, and Sherman\u2019s thoughts are strikingly echoed throughout other responses from a variety of writers and average social media users alike. My own cursory review of Tweets around the time of Jackass Forever\u2019<\/em>s release in early 2022 turned up over fifty examples of users describing the franchise\u2019s relationship to the development of their own gender or sexual identity. In the next section I will explore in-depth the ostensibly queer dimensions of Jackass <\/em>and its fandom, as well as consider counterarguments based on its role outside LGBTQ lives and communities. I do so by analyzing pull quotes from the podcast, articles elaborating on the above themes, and example Tweet screenshots I have collected through searches that mention both Jackass<\/em> and key terms related to queer identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Care, Community, and Kinship<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cJackass<\/em> is pro-gay but someone using those exact tactics to, like, bully you in school is not<\/strong>\u2026because everyone in that show is part of a community, they have agreed to the rules, and they are, in fact, using a form of group therapy to process their trauma<\/strong>. They have their version of safe words\u2026it is within a safe space.\u201d
\n-George Civeris[13]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the features most consistently noted by the hosts of StraightioLab <\/em>and other queer commenters are negotiation, agreement, and encouragement throughout the participation of the Jackass <\/em>crew in their own antics, and how the nature of their association with each other is exactly what enables them to pursue such physically and creatively ambitious feats in their work. While Civeris\u2019 suggestion that they are using this environment to \u201cprocess their trauma\u201d is decidedly tongue-in-cheek, he and his co-hosts are hardly the only people to have commented on the possibility that Jackass <\/em>showcases or implies a certain amount of unpacking the expectation that men be emotionally closed off to those around them. Other commenters have quite seriously considered that the cast\u2019s collaborations have facilitated exploring alternative, care-driven masculinities. Journalist Jess Thomson\u2019s 2022 piece on the franchise\u2019s so-called \u201cpositive masculinity\u201d and its reception by queer viewers champions it as exceptional amongst its 2000\u2019s era comedy contemporaries for showing men \u201ccomfortable with each other\u2019s bodies\u201d to the degree of homoeroticism, but \u201cin a way that doesn\u2019t mock being gay;\u201d she suggests that it was refreshing for audiences to witness in media \u201cdudes just genuinely caring about each other\u2026they always help each other up off the ground, regardless of who knocked them over in the first place.\u201d<\/span>[14]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all hot, they\u2019re all hilarious, they\u2019re guys hanging out with their friends\u2014they\u2019re all REAL FRIENDS<\/strong>. We all see these [other] shows\u2014like, these reality shows where you see a group of friends all doing stuff? They\u2019re not friends. They don\u2019t like each other.\u201d
\n-Sarah Sherman on the cast of Jackass<\/em><\/span>[15]<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Such a reading of Jackass<\/em> not only points out the sense of sincere affection and closeness exhibited by the cast members but also represents them as notably rare displays in their historical context.<\/em> The hosts of StraightioLab <\/em>especially contrast this to other works in the reality television genre\u2014such as the Real Housewives <\/em>franchise\u2014that rely upon interpersonal conflict and apparent histrionics for entertainment. At the same time the dynamics at work in Jackass <\/em>are \u00a0problematized by Civeris as something that until just last year excluded any women, and arguably is part of a cultural metanarrative that glorifies male homosocial relations for being perceived of as free from pettiness or drama that ostensibly undermines the depth of female friendships.<\/span>[16]<\/span><\/a> But the podcast\u2019s earnest engagement with the centrality of trust and communication to the Jackass<\/em>\u2019 creative process relates it back to what Sherman describes as an intentional \u201cconsenting community that has the common understanding of play and laughter\u201d among the cast.<\/span>[17]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Again, this apparent model of care baked into the foundation of Jackass <\/em>is a frequent focus of commentary in a multitude of the sources I have examined. Thomson\u2019s piece includes interview quotes from two other queer Jackass<\/em> fans affirming this interpretation. These respondents emphasize how the cast has projected a sense of being \u201cvery supportive and brotherly with each other,\u201d expressing their masculinity in a way that is \u201ctaken so lightly and positively, it feels safe to engage in,\u201d especially when framed in contrast to male-centric comedy that directly targets minorities (sexual an otherwise) as the butt of its jokes\u2014something Thomson and her respondents likewise remarked the series surprisingly avoided leaning upon during its early success.<\/span>[18]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Shannon Keating and Joseph Earp\u2019s articles also cite moments of vulnerability that accompany the crassness and danger as examples that counter the series\u2019 reputation as a bastion of toxic masculinity. Following Ward, it might be argued that the heteronormatively \u201cnecessary\u201d performance of masculine strength and unseriousness across the rest of the content \u201cjustifies\u201d these glimpses of tenderness and precludes them from becoming threats to the straight identities of their various actors. At the same time, the idea that the cast exhibits some expansively queer \u201cway of being\u201d in their interactions is hardly unprecedented. In the highly influential Friendship as a Way of Life,<\/em> Michel Foucault elaborates upon subjects becoming or embodying queerness by relating to each other socially in ways that are as much or more \u201cunsettling\u201d to the scripts of heteronormativity than even homosexual contact. He characterizes his own lifelong experience of \u201cbeing gay\u201d as at its core about \u201cwant[ing] relations with guys\u2026not necessarily in the form of a couple but as a matter of existence,\u201d such as the sharing physical space (nonsexually) and emotional vulnerability.<\/span>[19]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Yet what of<\/em> the presence of those acts we might define as homosexual according to Ward\u2019s usage \u201cas a technical description of same-sex sexual behavior\u201d?<\/span>[20]<\/span><\/a> As I have established, both genital proximity and sensory excess, usually in the form of pain, are integral to Jackass. <\/em>Ward\u2019s theories, even with a concession to the self-awareness of the franchise, would likely explain the acts of pseudo-sexual intimacy\u2014the nudity, proximity to and targeted abuse of the genitals\u2014primarily as iterations of the bonding rituals of endurance through combinations of the (sexually) humiliating and physically daunting long associated with esoteric, white male social spaces that rationalize such displays as vacated of sexual meaning. As such, in a sense the cast may be viewed as \u201cinoculated\u2026against authentic gayness\u201d<\/span>[21]<\/span><\/a> particularly in the eyes of straight viewers whose cognitive dissonance wards off reflection upon their own sexual subjectivity. But by the same token it is this very denial that suggests there is a lurking homosexual threat, the avoidance of which must be cultivated by the viewer to maintain their own heteronormative status. While cast members don\u2019t outwardly express sexual gratification from these activities, they are a source of some delight and perhaps an extension of Foucault termed making oneself \u201cinfinitely more susceptible to pleasures.\u201d<\/span>[22]<\/span><\/a> The hosts of StraightioLab <\/em>and others have likened some of the stunts to \u201cexploration of kink.\u201d<\/span>[23]<\/span><\/a> Underscoring such an assertion is the notion that many of the cast\u2019s activities on display (genital torture, gender nonconforming dress, nudity, and so on) are analogous with deliberate deviance from sexual norms for <\/em>sexual pleasure. At the very least, these encounters constitute exploring the uses of the body for sensory excess in often socially unsanctioned ways. The following section delves into the role of and reflections upon the body\u2014white, cisgender, and male or otherwise\u2014woven into the franchise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Embodiment, Dis\/identifying, Un\/Becoming.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that they\u2019re hot, as you said, is like part of that too.. You\u2019re saying, \u2018look, these guys are like, white men\u2026that have the body that we are conditioned to think is ideal. Now we\u2019re gonna literally have an alligator bite their nipples off.\u2019\u201d
\n<\/span>-George Civeris<\/span>[24]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Halberstam refers to masochism on the part of men as a behavior that \u201cinhabits a kind of heroic antiheroism by refusing social privilege,\u201d while \u201cthe female masochist\u2019s performance is far more complex and offers a critique of the very ground of the human.\u201d<\/span>[25]<\/span><\/a> Arguably the self-injurious antics showcased on Jackass <\/em>may speak to both characterizations of masochism. Civeris describes some degree of alienation experienced as a viewer on the outside of heterosexual normalcy, felt as an \u201cenvy of being liberated enough to destroy your own body,\u201d while he also characterize the franchise\u2019s frequent deployment of \u201cdanger specifically targeting the male genitalia\u201d as aesthetically compatible with a certain radical feminist perspective.<\/span>[26]<\/span><\/a> This interpretation casts the stars\u2019 work as a form of self-critical, or even self-deprecating, engagement with masculinity through the violation and destruction of (largely, traditionally attractive) male bodies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you do to escape the violent architecture of masculinity?
\n<\/span>You literally self-combust by destroying your masculine body.<\/strong>\u201d
\n<\/span>-George Civeris<\/span>[27]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

I argue that what queer viewers seem to widely take away from these feats of bodily strain is a philosophical interrogation of what the body is \u201csupposed to\u201d be or do. Much of the negative response Jackass <\/em>has received relies upon an implicit disgust at the \u201cabuses\u201d the cast put themselves through, with their work routinely being characterized as stupid, incapable of providing insight or benefit beyond juvenile entertainment. If we take seriously the possibility that the cast are deconstructing an imagined strict narrative of what the body is \u201csupposed\u201d to be put to productive use\u2014socially and economically speaking\u2014then their antics illustrate another register of critical embodiment. Might this not be its own response to the expectations of liberalism \u201cwhere certain formulations of self (as active, voluntaristic, choosing, propulsive) dominate the political sphere,\u201d compelling actors to do something \u201cworthwhile?\u201d<\/span>[28]<\/span><\/a> Halberstam discusses this liberal selfhood in opposition to what he calls \u201cradical passivity\u201d on the part of female actors, but the same liberal values might be criticized through the avenues of time-wasting, as well as compromising the body\u2019s integrity and subsequently its ability to operate \u201cproductively.\u201d This line of analysis has implications critical of capitalism and the Protestant work ethic, as well as calling into question bioessentialist arguments against medical transition, the latter of which has been especially implicated in the comments trans and gender nonconforming viewers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Around the release time of 2022\u2019s Jackass Forever, <\/em>film critic Henry Giardina compiled tweets in which transgender fans of the franchise explicitly linked their affection for the series to trans identity and experience. Giardina\u2019s examples echo the StraightioLab <\/em>hosts\u2019 identification of kink as an element of the Jackass<\/em> brand, idly musing its role in the realization of \u201cgay little trans mascs into bdsm,\u201d while others seem to stake more explicit claims about the series\u2019 formative role\u2014that it \u201cmade them into the dudes they are today.\u201d<\/span>[29]<\/span><\/a> Many tweets I encountered in repeated searches expressed similar or related sentiments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Figure 1: Tweet from @cowboywav reading, \u201cgay transmascs were just watching jackass at age 14 like \u2018why do I like this so much,\u2019\u201d dated August 7, 2021.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

User @cowboywav\u2019s above tweet (figure 1) is hardly the only one I could personally locate that articulates early exposure to Jackass <\/em>especially with transmasculinity. I collected screenshots of at least twenty-two example original tweets\u2014some of them threads with subsequent responses\u2014most of which referenced the concept of \u201cgender envy\u201d inspired by the members of Jackass. <\/em>The PFLAG National Glossary defines gender envy as \u201ca casual term primarily used by transgender people to describe an individual they aspire to be like. It often refers to having envy for an individual\u2019s expression of gender\u201d and \u201cis sometimes experienced by people expressing themselves outside society\u2019s gender stereotypes.\u201d<\/span>[30]<\/span><\/a> A tweet at the time of Forever\u2019<\/em>s release by user @injvre not only cites this phenomenon as one the author has experienced, but goes on to claim that the franchise \u201cmade them trans\u201d in some regard (figure 2).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Figure 2: Tweet from @injvre reading, \u201coh now that i actually understand what gender envy is i KNOW jackass made me trans,\u201d dated February 5, 2022.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Culture writer Niko Stratis published an article titled \u201cJackass <\/em>Made Me the Trans Woman I Am\u201d through now-defunct Bitch Media <\/em>on the date of Forever\u2019s <\/em>release elaborating trans identification with the franchise in great detail. She describes being \u201cby all outward appearances\u2026a young man among other young men\u201d who nonetheless \u201cnever quite felt like a man\u201d and \u201cstruggled\u201d with the expectations placed upon her to \u201cbecome\u201d one; Jackass <\/em>presented for Stratis what she perceived to be an alternative masculinity, one exhibited by the same \u201ctypes\u201d of men that populated here surrounding but who exhibited \u201clittle of the bullying bravado I\u2019d witnessed at my local skate park.\u201d<\/span>[31]<\/span><\/a> Crucially, although the franchise relies on the body as a site for humor, Stratis characterizes the uses of the body at work therein not as a reinforcement of a masculine physical ideal but a break from it. As Stratis<\/span><\/p>\n

tried to find my place in the skate park, it seemed that my masculinity was measured in the prospective inches of my genitalia. And as I grew to understand my body as one I felt disconnected from, I developed anxiety around not being classically manly enough. I just wanted to learn to kickflip down some stairs; balls didn\u2019t seem to be necessary to do that. Jackass<\/em>, by contrast, seemed to make an enemy of balls: Along with dicks, they were under constant threat of attack.<\/span>[32]<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She goes on the claim that the crew exhibited \u201ca notable lack of language around dicks being the core of a man\u2019s strength,\u201d which, however tenuously\u2014and I will consider the opposite argument in this article\u2019s closing section\u2014threatens to upset contemporary narratives equating anatomy with gender determinism. \u00a0It remains unclear whether the \u201cgender envy\u201d described by the aforementioned Twitter users is contrarily a matter of desiring to inhabit the perception of masculine bodies onscreen. However, some cited the likes of watching the cast \u201cdoing stupid insane things\u201d together as the target of this feeling (figure 3), suggesting that for them a sense that what they were missing out on was the ability to behave like men or boys\u2014supporting Stratis\u2019 reading of Jackass <\/em>as championing a masculinity not grounded in the physical, and reinforcing earlier points about the centrality of friendship in the crew\u2019s dynamics as something longed for by non-cishetero male viewers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Figure 3: Tweet from @livjeanee reading, \u201cJackass is so gender envy I just want to be a man doing stupid insane things with my friends just because it\u2019s funny like yes I can do stupid insane things with my friends but it\u2019s different as a man. No way to describe it,\u201d dated May 24, 2022.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Art, Rebellion, and Respectability<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe commitment is a real like, thing\u2026So many people are like, half-assing everything they do<\/strong>, especially in the entertainment industry. Sort of being like, \u2018well how can I just like, clock in, baby, and get like, my royalties. And be like, the most inoffensive that I possibly can be<\/strong> for a half hour on NBC.\u201d
\n<\/span>-Sam Taggart<\/span>[33]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

I have referred briefly to what I perceive as Jackass\u2019<\/em> proximity to queer media that gladly embraces the sensational and the grotesque. This to me is an essential consideration for explaining the appeal the franchise has to queer viewers that by now I hope is well-established. It is the sense of unwavering gumption in the act of performing\u2014what Sherman calls \u201ccommitment to the bit-ment\u201d\u2014which Civeris uses to credit, however humorously, his claim that \u201cJackass <\/em>is more politically progressive than the LGBTQ center\u201d he was the head of on a college campus.<\/span>[34]<\/span><\/a> Recent years have seen the expansion of \u201cfamily friendly\u201d content featuring queer characters or displays, accompanied by debates about homonormativity and the expectation of performing socio-moral purity in order to assimilate into mainstream culture, as well as misgivings about the sanitization of art and media broadly. Against this backdrop, the puerile and vulgar contents of Jackass <\/em>may be read as critical provocation.<\/span><\/p>\n

To begin addressing Jackass\u2019 <\/em>contentious subversiveness, I think it is pertinent to not discount that the cast\u2019s stunts\u2014including and perhaps especially genitally targeted ones\u2014may be tantamount to seeking thrills and danger as a display of masculine eminence, however differently they may be interpreted by individual viewers. Likewise, their homoerotic displays may well amount to little more than a flavor of \u201cdefiant stunt[s] that produced among onlookers the desired degree of shock,\u201d the likes of which Ward characterizes the Hell\u2019s Angels kissing as much as \u201can expression of \u2018lust\u2019 and \u2018brotherhood.\u2019\u201d<\/span>[35]<\/span><\/a> I close my analysis by delving more extensively into less optimistic readings Jackass, <\/em>including its overlap with queer experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Problematizing Intent, Interpretation, and Legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe legacy of [Jackass]\u2026whether it\u2019s their intention or their fault or not, it did inspire some of the worst behavior<\/strong> among teenage boys\u2014and later, adult men.\u201d
\n<\/span>-George Civeris<\/span>[36]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

As much as can be said about Jackass<\/em>\u2019 appeal to queer viewers and its illuminating visions of gender performance in action, there remains the question of how intentional these outcomes have been throughout the creative process. There also remains the problem <\/em>of how the more negative iterations of its influence were felt by young queers through the conduit of straight teenage boys and young men looking to emulate the cast\u2019s antics. The StraightioLab <\/em>episode addresses these issues more directly than the articles I have cited. Taggart in fact suggests that there has been an ongoing and emphatic \u201cartpop-ification\u201d of the franchise that perhaps only retroactively casts its content as \u201cpro-gay\u201d and \u201ccommenting on masculinity instead of embracing it.\u201d<\/span>[37]<\/span><\/a> Both he and Civeris cite episodes of explicitly homophobic bullying at their expense by fellow high school students who idolized the Jackass <\/em>cast. While Steve-O and his collaborators may purport that inclusivity and support of queer viewers is at the heart of their work, that aspiration became dislodged in the ways that many young, straight male viewers regurgitated what they took <\/em>to be the point of the series.<\/span><\/p>\n

Civeris, Taggart, and Sherman\u2019s comments also allude to the advent of outright damaging prank-based digital content that boomed within the last two decades. Others have explicitly deemed the rise of said content\u2014the existence of which as a cohesive and far-reaching phenomenon came after the 2005 launch of YouTube, nearly five years after the premiere of Jackass <\/em>on MTV\u2014arguably a direct effect of the success of the series. <\/em>Writing for NBC at the time of Forever\u2019<\/em>s release, Morgan Sung went so far as to claim the<\/span> \u201cfranchise laid the foundation for the prank culture that long dominated YouTube and Vine.\u201d<\/span>[38]<\/span><\/a> Sung cites Sam Pepper as a notable example, having been the subject of multiple controversies involving sexual misconduct in association with a specific prank video in 2014, and in 2016, a video created under the pretense of faking the murder of one of Pepper\u2019s friends in front of another; the prank target\u2019s ignorance was later revealed to be fabricated. Despite these incidents, Pepper maintains a significant online following.<\/span>[39]<\/span><\/a> More recently, YouTube star David Dobrik, whose wildly successful content has relied on \u201cdaredevil\u201d behavior, has been the subject of similar claims about perpetuating and facilitating sexual misconduct, and additionally engaged in a stunt that resulted in his former friend and collaborator Jeff Wittek\u2019s grave injury and near death.<\/span>[40]<\/span><\/a> With the exception of Bam Margera, most of the Jackass <\/em>cast by contrast have not been the subject of large-scale public controversies. Margera has been plagued by legal troubles related to his very public, tumultuous journey with substance use especially after the untimely death of Ryan Dunn\u2014issues that contributed to his being excluded from most of the filming and final theatrical cut of Forever<\/em>; other cast members, some of whom have likewise shared histories of drug use over the course of their careers, ostensibly attempted to intervene to have Margera involved contingent upon his own sobriety.<\/span>[41]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Setting aside the complexities of addressing substance use\u2014being outside the scope of this article\u2014the Jackass <\/em>crew\u2019s handling of ongoing ordeals with Margera not only supports a sense of mutual responsibility for each other, but also for the effects their work has on the public. Notably since the show\u2019s first airing on MTV, it has prominently featured disclaimers (that the hosts of StraightioLab <\/em>compare rather disputably to trigger warnings) to not recreate its content. Said disclaimers failed to dissuade would-be copycats, contributing to the franchise\u2019s move to film releases exclusively.<\/span>[42]<\/span><\/a> Out of the sources I\u2019ve reviewed, the hosts of StraightioLab <\/em>are the primary voices pointing out that much of the queer nostalgia for the show does seem to benefit from being viewed retrospectively, with the enlightenment of the present. That is not to say such identification with the franchise is invalid, but that it only mitigates the effects of homophobic and misogynistic harassment that may not have precisely resulted<\/em> from Jackass, <\/em>but were rationalized on the basis of it. If anything, this analysis serves to deepen the understanding viewers can have of this body of work, whose complexity and cultural impact has been largely disregarded until now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jackass Forever<\/em> introduced viewers to a series of new cast members, featuring comedian Rachel Wolfson as the cast\u2019s first (and to date, only) female member, and multiple Black members including actor Eric Manaka and former rapper Jasper Dolphin. The visible diversity of this cast iteration compared to previous installments was commented on at the time of its release, with Knoxville stating the original crew \u201ccould have done a better job about incorporating more people, but we didn\u2019t;\u201d in the same interview, he marvels at the franchise receiving critical approval for the first time and emphasizes the centrality of male nudity to the series\u2019 humor.[43]<\/span><\/a> For all the trouble and labor dedicated to producing set humor, one wonders if the franchise\u2019s so-called \u201canti-homophobic\u201d intent might have been made more explicit to the betterment of 2000\u2019s era culture and the aftereffects we feel of it today. Even so, the more \u201ctraditional\u201d Jackass <\/em>installments clearly hold great significance to the development of many queer individuals, with several of the Tweets I reviewed for this piece specifically naming them as an instigator of \u201cgay awakenings\u201d (figure 4).<\/p>\n

\"\"
Figure 4: Tweet from @AlexPBannon reading, \u201cIt\u2019s time for the Jackass franchise to be properly recognized as at least PART OF the sexual awakening of gays of a certain age.\u201d Dated February 2, 2022.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One might also wonder if much of the franchise investment held by white gay men, specifically, can be credited in part to a sexually-charged consumer gaze that is as much adhered to whiteness and masculinity as it is to heterosexuality. My own view is that the relief of witnessing a masculinity that doesn\u2019t entail a toxic level of seriousness\u2014is indeed willing to \u201cliterally self-combust\u201d in the words of Civeris\u2014with actors taking physical risks not just in the name of heroism or bravado, but primarily in the name of absurdity and fun as has been suggested across the spectrum of sources I cite here, explains this fascination at least as plausibly The imagined boundary between the cultural realms of heteronormativity and queer art has long been taken for granted, despite their relatively recent and highly arbitrary definitions and applications. Making these connections between Jackass, <\/em>its reception by queer viewers, and multiple works by queer theorists offers us an opportunity to erode the separation of queer art and media from \u201ceverything else,\u201d which can unwittingly reinforce the strictures of normative identity.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/span><\/a> Eric Spitznagel, \u201cThe Stars of Jackass 3D On God, Cancer, and Homosexuality,\u201d Vanity<\/em> Fair<\/em>, October 14, 2010. https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/2010\/10\/the-stars-of-jackass-3d-talk-about-god-cancer-and-homosexuality<\/a><\/p>\n

[2]<\/span><\/a> Lou Lumenick, \u201cThe Plot Sickens,\u201d The New York Post<\/em>, October 25, 2002, https:\/\/nypost.com\/2002\/10\/25\/the-plot-sickens\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/span><\/a> https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/jackass_forever<\/a>; https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/jackass_the_movie<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/span><\/a> Shannon Keating, \u201cThe New \u2018Jackass\u2019 Movie Is Funny, Thank Goodness,\u201d BuzzFeed, <\/em>February 8, 2022, https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/shannonkeating\/jackass-forever-review<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/span><\/a> Joseph Earp, \u201c\u2019Jackass\u2019 Has Always Been Deeply, Deeply Queer,\u201d Junkee<\/em>, July 26, 2021, https:\/\/junkee.com\/jackass-forever-queer\/303129<\/a><\/p>\n

[6]<\/span><\/a> Sean O\u2019Neal, \u201cThis Is Why You\u2019ll Never Stop Thinking About \u2018Jackass,\u2019\u201d Men\u2019s Health, <\/em>February 2, 2022, https:\/\/www.menshealth.com\/entertainment\/a38678294\/benign-violation\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[7]<\/span><\/a> Jane Ward, Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men <\/em>(New York: NYU Press, 2015), 130.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/span><\/a> Ibid, 34.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/span><\/a> Ibid, 125-126.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/span><\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/span><\/a> Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure <\/em>(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 6.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/span><\/a> Georg Civeris, Sarah Sherman, and Sam Taggart \u201cJackass w\/ Sarah Squirm,\u201d January 18, 2022, StraightioLab, <\/em>presented and produced by George Civeris and Sam Taggart, podcast, MP3 Audio, 1:14:22, https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/straightiolab\/jackass-w-sarah-squirm<\/a><\/p>\n

[13]<\/span><\/a> Ibid (0:40:25-0:41:05); emphasis added.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/span><\/a> Jess Thomson, \u201cHow Queer Folks Embraced the Positive Masculinity of \u2018Jackass,\u2019\u201d Xtra Magazine, <\/em>February 17, 2022, https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/culture\/jackass-queer-positive-masculinity-218348<\/a><\/p>\n

[15]<\/span><\/a> Civeris, Sherman, and Taggart, 2022 (0:37:00-0:37:15); emphasis added.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/span><\/a> Ibid (0:37:20-0:37:50).<\/p>\n

[17]<\/span><\/a> Ibid (0:41:25-0:41:35).<\/p>\n

[18]<\/span><\/a> Thomson, 2022.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/span><\/a> Michel Foucault, \u201cFriendship as a Way of Life,\u201d in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth <\/em>(New York: The New Press, 1997), 136.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/span><\/a> Ward 2015, 37.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/span><\/a> Ibid, 25.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/span><\/a> Foucault 1997, 137.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/span><\/a> Civeris, Sherman, and Taggart, 2022 (0:43:53-0:44:09).<\/p>\n

[24]<\/span><\/a> Ibid (0:46:25-0:46:45).<\/p>\n

[25]<\/span><\/a> Halberstam, 2011 (139).<\/p>\n

[26]<\/span><\/a> Civeris, Sherman, and Taggart, 2022 (0:57:56-0:57:09 and 0:45:42-0:46:08).<\/p>\n

[27]<\/span><\/a> Ibid (0:55:58-0:56:11); emphasis added.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/span><\/a> Halberstam 2011, 140.<\/p>\n

[29]<\/span><\/a> Henry Giardina, Trans People Love \u2018Jackass,\u2019 and It\u2019s No Wonder Why,\u201d Into, <\/em>February 8, 2022, https:\/\/www.intomore.com\/film\/trans-people-love-jackass-no-wonder\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[30]<\/span><\/a> PFLAG National Glossary<\/em>, s.v. \u201cgender envy,\u201d https:\/\/pflag.org\/glossary\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[31]<\/span><\/a> Niko Stratis, \u201c\u2019Jackass\u2019 Made Me the Trans Woman I Am,\u201d Bitch Media, <\/em>February 4, 2022, https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20231015043047\/https:\/\/www.bitchmedia.org\/article\/jackass-made-me-the-trans-woman-i-am<\/a><\/p>\n

[32]<\/span><\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[33]<\/span><\/a> Civeris, Sherman, and Taggart, 2022 (0:44:20-0:44:45); emphasis added.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/span><\/a> Ibid (0:44:04-0:44:41).<\/p>\n

[35]<\/span><\/a> Ward 2015, 69.<\/p>\n

[36]<\/span><\/a> Civeris, Sherman, and Taggart, 2022 (0:51:40-0:51:5); emphasis added.<\/p>\n

[37]<\/span><\/a> Ibid (0:40:25-0:40:44).<\/p>\n

[38]<\/span><\/a> Morgan Sung, \u201c’Jackass’ and the Rise and Fall of Prank Content Online,\u201d NBC News, <\/em>February 5, 2022, https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/pop-culture\/viral\/jackass-rise-fall-prank-content-online-rcna14000<\/a><\/p>\n

[39]<\/span><\/a> Louise Griffin, \u201cHow Disgraced YouTuber Sam Pepper Became a Viral TikTok Star: From Big Brother and Distressing Pranks to a Fully-Fledged Comeback,\u201d Metro UK, <\/em>January 14, 2020, https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2020\/01\/14\/disgraced-youtuber-sam-pepper-became-viral-tiktok-star-big-brother-distressing-pranks-fully-fledged-comeback-12031928\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[40]<\/span><\/a> Florence O\u2019Connor and Zoe Haylock, \u201cA Timeline of the David Dobrik Allegations and Controversies,\u201d Vulture, <\/em>June 27, 2022,<\/p>\n

[41]<\/span><\/a> Karla Rodriguez, \u201cBam Margera\u2019s Turbulent Relationship with the \u2018Jackass\u2019 Crew, Explained,\u201d Complex, <\/em>September 29, 2022, https:\/\/www.complex.com\/pop-culture\/a\/karla-rodriguez\/jackass-bam-margera-beef-explained<\/a><\/p>\n

[42]<\/span><\/a> Jeremy Dick, \u201cSteve-O Says Early Jackass Series Controversy was Justified,\u201d Movieweb, <\/em>June 25, 2022, https:\/\/movieweb.com\/steve-o-says-jackass-backlash-was-justified\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[43]<\/span><\/a> Andy Greene, \u201c\u2019It\u2019s Funnier if His Cock is Out:\u2019 Johnny Knoxville on the Past, Present, and Future of \u2018Jackass,\u2019\u201d Rolling Stone, <\/em>February 7, 2022, https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/tv-movies\/tv-movie-features\/johnny-knoxville-jackass-forever-interview-1296064\/amp\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A PhD student in Boston University’s American & New England Studies program, Korie Tinch draws upon queer theory and the social sciences broadly to investigate the construction and maintenance of sexual identities through popular culture. Korie approaches this topic through the lens of contemporary media consumption, especially underground music movements, reality television, and digital media. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1115,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions\/1115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}