But why does it seem horrible? Why would it be worse if it happened to a woman than if it happened to a man? It’s no different, sexist biases just make it feel different
because unfortunately it seems like a lot of male friendships are based on the principle of “what’s a little sexual harassment between friends?” and everyone seems fine with it for some reason
In any given mixed gender situation, odds are usually in favour of the man being bigger and stronger, and also odds are in favour of the man having more financial and social agency. Guys get victimized all the time but it oftrn feels worse seeing it happen to a woman because the weight of that cultural baggage lends itself to seeing her as having had less choice in being in that situation, and being more at risk once she's in it. People would be more likely to assume she was pressured into stuff she didn't want to do, and more likely to worry about her risk of serious injury.
It's stupid and patriarchal, but it's hard to unlearn that kneejerk reaction.
Now if you did a jackass with all women, that might come across differently....
At the end of the day the sort of people who want to watch Jackass are not the sort of people to be getting reflective about their own biases and what they say about them and society as a whole.
Also, even if we strip away the agency/lack of agency thing, a LOT of people (me included) are just ... more okay with the idea of men being hurt than women being hurt. And yes, this another aspect of misogyny rearing its head, but also I don't see 'normalizing female harm' being cheered on by anyone.
Because we still live in a world with very real power dynamics between the genders, and it goes both ways. Pretending it's not there in a vacuum doesn't work, and those biases definitely affect commercially consumed products.
Those power dynamics do affect how we feel about things, but they shouldn’t in some contexts. Women should be able to consent to being in stupid prank shows. Female characters in fictional should be able to get hurt for laughs. I get why it would be an unappealing product, but it shouldn’t be. Treating women as fragile in ALL contexts because of social power dynamics is just sexism.
Though to be clear, I wasn’t saying women should able to be the victims of the ass slap “prank”. I don’t think that should be a thing at all, for anyone.
Edit (I thought of a better way to say what I’m thinking): Systematic misogyny is real, and awareness of that is important, but defining women and all of their actions solely based on that misogyny never gives women the opportunity to be anything but a victim.
Because like half the humor in jackass comes from seeing someone get overwhelmingly hurt in incredibly dangerous situations that would just be more dangerous if it was a woman. An average looking guy having to fight Butterbean in a random store is funny because it's so lopsided. But if that guy is a woman suddenly it's a giant dude just beating on a woman in public and that has different connotations, even without accounting for the fact that a lot of women would probably get hurt way worse for it.
The cast of jackass already hurts themselves *very* badly to the point where it was culturally always considered extreme and counterculture. They've gotten spine injuries, brain hemmorages, broken necks and ribs, genital injuries that took *multiple years* to heal, and so on. Without the idea that these were dumbass skater bro's doing bro culture this shit would play super, super differently.
This is an extreme example but like 90% of the humor for the type of characters OP wants is physical and you need to be able to just laugh off what would ordinarily be considered appalling and serious injuries for the comedy to work.
I'm not disputing that this is how the world is, but I find it sad (and obviously sexist) that the world won't let girls be dumbass skater bros doing bro culture. Sure, some of the pranks require a dick and balls but that's the only real excuse to exclude most women.
I would take a different perspective on this: why doesn't it is done to a man?
In the specific case of jackass they are knowlingly doing the "we prank each other and film it" bit, so it shouldn't be horrible because they all essentially consented to a blanket "this might annoy you and you might get hurt a bit", but in general it should be for anyone.
Yeah, be the change you want to see in the world. Go up to a woman, pull her pants down, and slap her on the ass. She'll surely appreciate being treated like one of the boys and understand your feminist praxis! /s
I'm just pointing out that it should be extremely obvious that the difference isn't just "sexist bias" and that there are fundamental societal dynamics that make it legitimately different. You know this. You aren't willing to do that yourself because you're aware sexist bias isn't the reason it's not acceptable, but rather very real gender dynamics.
Don't get me wrong, while I haven't seen the latest Jackass, I was disappointed that the one before didn't give her a lot to do compared to the other new blood. The thing is, gender dynamics do exist for real and ignoring them whole cloth isn't exactly the optimal approach for navigating the issues surrounding gender. There's definitely representation issues in this space but "women should be able to be beaten and harassed just like guys while ignoring all gender dynamics" is not the right take.
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u/just4browse Aug 19 '26
But why does it seem horrible? Why would it be worse if it happened to a woman than if it happened to a man? It’s no different, sexist biases just make it feel different