Slapstick Humor: 'Jackass 3D' and Its Comedy Tradition

Slapstick Humor: 'Jackass 3D' and Its Comedy Tradition: "On Oct. 11, the Museum of Modern Art held a screening of Jackass 3D, which opened in theaters on Friday. It's safe to say that when Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Wee-Man and the rest of the Jackass crew started to film one another getting hit in the crotch, they probably didn't expect to be featured by such an eminent artistic institution. While a healthy debate can be waged over whether making urine snow cones and eating them is art, their version of modern-day slapstick has its roots in a long line of classic comedy pioneers who realized that sometimes the funniest thing to watch is other people's misfortune. As MoMA curator Josh Siegel told the New York Times, Jackass 3D is 'merely the climax — or the lowest depths, if you prefer — of a tradition that dates back to 1895, when the Lumière brothers drenched a poor sap with a garden hose and filmed it.'"