Breath of Fresh Ink.com

08-22-2006

Johnny Knoxville Embraces His Gayness, Weeds Underwhelms

In the September issue of Out magazine, Johnny Knoxville, who the magazine brands as quite possibly the gayest straight man ever (which, honestly, I could think of some gayer ones), talks about Jackass (the show and the movies), and A Dirty Shame, a film he made with John Waters. And of course, addresses his gay fanbase.

During the filming of A Dirty Shame—a film credited for bringing gay bears into the collective American consciousness, Knoxville developed a thing for bear culture and tried to get himself on the cover of American Grizzly magazine.

“They said they don’t do celebrity endorsements,” he laments. “I was so angry and hurt. I asked John, ‘Do you have a number for the editor?’ But he didn’t want me to grovel.” Instead, Knoxville tattooed a bear on his arm with Grrr! written across its belly. Then he bought all the MTV executives subscriptions to American Grizzly, “whether they liked it or not.”

Which pretty much sums up the Jackass mentality. Its devoted fan base knows that not only is Jackass really juvenile, it’s also perceived as really, really gay, a quality that Knoxville appears to relish. “A few different publications gave us awards for, uh, gayness,” he says.

“After this next movie comes out we might be looking at some lifetime achievement awards.” The franchise is essentially Girls Gone Wild for homos, an amateurish production where jockish straight boys get naked and, as Knoxville says, “wrestle around and hurt each other. There’s ass play, giggling. It just comes real natural.” So natural that while shooting Wildboyz—the Jackass crew’s current MTV venture, which is like National Geographic with G-strings and injuries—“they got some notes from above saying, ‘OK, guys, this is almost too gay. Can you tone down the gayness?’ And so they tried to make it not as gay, but then it just got gayer,” Knoxville says. “So it seems we are no longer driving the ship.”

More of the article can be found at Out.com, you can read it in full in the September issue of Out magazine.

More pics in the forum.

So the new season of Showtime’s biggest hit..wait…Showtimes ONLY hit Weeds started last week, and I have to say guys, I’m ridiculously underwhelmed. I’m disappointed in the writers and producers of this show because honestly, you’re letting your only gem slip. It was SUCH a great show, and although it far from sucks now, it’s no longer must-see TV.

Okay, did anyone else WAY see the DEA agent’s comment coming that he knew Nancy was a drug dealer? First of all, I kind of had a feeling he knew when he called her saying he was in front of her house and was about to walk in. Then once Nancy got in the car and started rambling I was like…”I bet you at the end of the little speech, he’s gonna say he knows”. And what do you know? He did.

Y’know, I love this show, always have–and will continue to watch anyway…but the first two episodes of this season just don’t have the spark that I loved from previous episodes. Kind of the problem I had with the second season of Desperate Housewives. I was like..okay, this is still a good show–but it’s just not pitch perfect like it was before.

Hopefully the next few episodes of Weeds will get better, because so far I’ve been pretty underwhelmed. Even the lines they’re giving the BRILLIANT Elizabeth Perkins (who is half the reason I watch the show) are pretty stale.

Posted by Chris Evans in Movies, Television, Celebrities, Mary-Louise Parker, Gay, Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds | RSS 2.0