Film and Media Studies Commons^™

The Leisured Testes: White Ball-Breaking As Surplus Masculinity In Jackass, Christina M. Tourino

English Faculty Publications

In Jackass: Number Two (2006), Bam Margera allows Ryan Dunn to brand his posterior with a hot iron depicting male genitalia. Bam cannot tolerate the pain enough to remain perfectly still, so the brand touches him several times, resulting in multiple images that seem blurry or in motion. Bam’s mother, who usually plays the role of game audience for his antics, balks when she learns that her son has been hurt as well as permanently marked. She asks Dunn why anyone would ever burn a friend. “Cause it was funny,” Dunn answers.[i]

Jackass mines the body in pain as …