the groundhog day project

Note: today’s entry was mostly written while sitting in the waiting room while my car was getting maintenance, so access to some resources was limited.) The Jerk begins outside a movie theater--where a "comedy thriller" is playing--and includes director Carl Reiner as himself, with a direct reference to his filmmaking. (His going cross eyed because of Navin's Opti-Grab leads to Reiner to yell 'cut' too late while filming, which leads to a car crashing, actors die, and Reiner leads the class-action lawsuit against Navin.) These Hollywood references matter in a film that deals so much in issues of class. Navin grows up poor (and black) in the south. Upon getting to the city, he gets a low class job as a gas station attendant. He works as a carnie. It is sheer luck that he succeeds at all in his life; while it is Navin's ingenuity that leads to him making the Opti-Grab, that is the only evidence of any cleverness on his part (plus, perhaps, his delay of ...

It occurred to me watching The Jerk that "jerk" didn't necessarily mean the same thing in 1979 that it does today. Words change, connotation changes. Today, Merriam-Webster defines "jerk" as a: "an annoyingly stupid or foolish person" and b: "an unlivable person; especially : one who is cruel, rude, or small-minded." Anecdotally, I can say most people I know (including movie characters) tend to use "jerk" to indicate that "b" definition. Specifically, I use "jerk" to describe someone who is deliberately or impulsively hurtful. But the Online Etymology Dictionary points out that in 1935, coming from "American English carnival slang, of uncertain origin", "jerk" referred to a "tedious and ineffectual person." This feels more accurate to describing Navin Johnson in The Jerk . He's far from cruel. In fact, he's almost obnoxiously pleasant, like when he gets that first ride hit...

Why is The Jerk funny? I mean, is absurdity enough? It holds up as something funny, so perhaps absurdity can be timeless. Roger Ebert makes a distinction in his review between what he calls Funny Hat and Funny Logic approaches. For example, it is funny that Navin grew up with a black family in Mississippi and thinks he is black. When he learns that he was left on their doorstep, and he sets out on the road, he wears a bomber's helmet with goggles. He looks ridiculous. But, there is no reason that he grew up black (except for a little racial/cultural appropriation in the satire to come, maybe), and no reason he wears that helmet, except that the imagery is, on a very simplistic level, funny. (Like the visual of Navin's birthday dinner: tuna on white bread with mayonnaise, a Tab, and two twinkles.) This is Roger's Funny Hat humor. The hat is funny because it looks funny. The humor does not come from the reason Navin wear's the hat, it just comes from the visual. Sim...

Not really, though. We were pretty well off when I was born, I'm pretty sure. Nine of us in the house. Living on a lot of credit, though. Sometime in the late 80s that fell apart. I don't quite remember when. When I was young, though, whether it was true, whether it was because of credit cards or whatever, I figured we were affluent. Not that I knew the word affluent . We lived in an old house, two stories, with a small attic and a basement, a working fireplace, four bedrooms and a back room that was part utility room with the washer and dryer and part puzzle/game room. What I wouldn't do for a room like that today, when there are far more games I'd like to play and more folks than just my sisters I might want to spend time playing them with. I don't remember exactly how young I was when we got our first VCR, but I remember that VCR--a Quasar that loaded from the top, and the remote was not wireless... As "Mr. Nussbaum tries to buy some gas with a stolen Maste...