Hacker Cinema
The Jerk
1979 · Film · 94 min
Directed by Carl Reiner
After discovering he's not really black like the rest of his family, likable dimwit Navin Johnson sets off on a hilarious misadventure that takes him from rags to riches and back again. The slaphappy jerk strikes it rich, but life in the fast lane isn't all it's cracked up to be and, in the end, all that really matters to Johnson is his true love.
5 positive14 neutralfrom 19 commenters
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20 comments on Hacker News
the post is gaslighting his own mom
> It’s that some of the folks who used to use it that way don’t remember that they did. When I asked my mom to define the word this week, she used the modern meaning, with no apparent recollection of her former firm conviction that a jerk was a dope, dodo, or dimwit. Did someone Neuralyze my mom,
No, they didn't. It's well documented the meaning was already changing in the 70s. "The Jerk" the movie might make it seem ambiguous but usage meaning "obnoxious/asshole" was common in the 70s and 80s. Dictionary defintions just mean they were out of date to common usage.
It doesn't help that you can warp the "idiot" meaning into the "obnoxious" meaning in the form of "If you'd stop being stupid you'd realize your being obnoxious".
> In fact, “the 1970s is when you start to see the obnoxious meaning really take off,” says Michael Adams, an English professor and specialist in lexicography at Indiana University Bloomington and the author of Slang: The People’s Poetry and other books about language. Not only was there “a rising use of ‘jerk,’” but there was also “the absolutely predictable development” of “compound forms like jerk ass, jerk face, jerk wad, jerk weed. … That is another reflection of the obnoxious meaning, and basically a generation of heavy slang users looking for a way not to sound like they come from the 1930s by using jerk in the traditional way of their parents and grandparents.” Martin, Adams notes, was in his mid-30s when The Jerk came out, old enough that in contrast to the kids on the cutting edge of jerk usage, he would have been “referring to an older use of the word.”
So the movie quote says the character was a pumpkin, but definitely not a jerk. Isn't that movie from the late 70s? So the shift took place by then. Or did the movie somehow redefine it?
Interesting. I'm thirty-something and I do seem to remember my grandparents using "jerk" to mean "idiot", but for my entire life I've always thought of it as a kid-friendly way to say "asshole".
It always confused me when my grandparents would call someone who was perfectly nice a "jerk", and it wasn't until I watched the Steve Martin movie four or five years ago that I understood why.
Here’s the sort of spooky thing. It’s not just that there are multiple generations who’ve never known a “jerk” was once a simpleton or sap. It’s that some of the folks who used to use it that way don’t remember that they did. When I asked my mom to define the word this week, she used the modern meaning, with no apparent recollection of her former firm conviction that a jerk was a dope, dodo, or dimwit.
I am gen-X and I have no recollection of that former meaning at all. I was 10 or 11 years old when the movie The Jerk came out, and I recall being mildly confused about the fact that he didn't really seem like a jerk, and sort of thinking that he must be acting that way on purpose.
It's a good time as any to remind everyone that The Jerk is still one of the funniest movies ever made. It could never be made today, and I suggest you pick up a copy if you've never seen it.
If you've seen Steve Martin's The Jerk, you'd know he becomes a real jerk in the modern sense during the movie.
> pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book
This is used as a plot point in Steve Martin's movie "The Jerk". The titular character proudly sees their name and number in a phone book; the scene changes to a crazed gunman randomly choosing their next victim from a phone book and landing on the same name and number. Hilarity ensues.
I'm reminded that my city used to have red-light cameras on major intersections. Each year the local newspaper would publish a list of intersections with the most red-light violations, and each year the list was almost identical to the previous year. The newspaper article was always presented as support for the red-light cameras ("Look at all these bad drivers we're catching!"), but in my mind, it was just the opposite. First, if people keep running the same red-lights in the same intersections at the same rate, then red-light cameras as a deterrent isn't working. Second, and most important, why not just fix the god damn intersections so people don't feel the need to run the red-lights? ... But then I remembered this scene from "The Jerk", an old Steve Martin movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meBXuuy9xto
That's a clever abuse of data but, though this may come as a surprise to you, very few people actually die by means so traumatic (crushing, incineration, explosion) that it's impossible to determine which organ or necessary biological system failed critical to their death.
This same process would determine almost nobody has died of cancer, gunshot wounds, drowning, smoking, etc. as they lead to parts of one's body no longer functioning which in turn causes death, as opposed to some sort of central and essential death descending upon them.
You may even recall how this exact same handful of cases were used to "demonstrate" that doctors were just making it up as they couldn't explain the cause of death. May I refer you to the 1979 film The Jerk, as the main character exclaims "there's something wrong with these cans!" when they were, in fact, being shot by a sniper.
Thank you for listening to my TED talk
I’m very sorry the movie made you that angry. I hope it’s one of those things you can see again in a few years and enjoy in a new light. I was like that with Steve Martin’s The Jerk: hated it, thought it was banal, came to appreciate it years later.
You may or may not be right about the ideas in Glass Onion being trivial, but how blind must the author of this clickbait review have been to not even notice that literally Yo-Yo Ma, literally playing himself, literally sets up the movie’s structure and explains why it plays out the way it does, in one of the first scenes? You can think that’s dumb, but you can’t ignore it when writing a critique!
This supposed revelation of “bad writing” is just clickbait from someone who didn’t understand the (yes, blatant! yes, arguably trivial!) structure the movie was exploring.
Thank you achenet!
Maybe everyone should watch the Steve Martin movie "The Jerk".
He searches for his "purpose".
SPOILER: It turns out to be his dick 8-)
It was just a person, on the internet making a 4 word reference to a famous movie... I don't know why you're intent on endlessly attacking the "lack of insight" from the poster.
Have you seen the Jerk? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jerk
Brings back fond memories of foraging in the Welsh Valleys every September October, millions of them for free (must be the sheep turds) - they were just as good fresh or dried, mushroom tea - amazing, despite the muddy fragrance, was particularly good for watching comedy films such as Steve Martin’s The Jerk or Airplane - used to be literally rolling on the floor with unstoppable laughter. Of course our Idiotic UK government could not allow such fun to be had, so deemed this wonderful gift from nature illegal and now turds like this couple can make a fortune.
Sensible Move - Magic Mushrooms are a truly wonderful very safe natural drug which does not harm others, like violence inducing Alcohol. Some suffer bad trips especially Women, but like a bad dream soon passes, with no harm done. One positive of the damp weather in Wales UK is abundant Magic Mushrooms in the Welsh Valleys in September to October. I took tens of thousands age 17 to 21 then grew out of them, fond memories though. The most I laughed in my entire life was watching Airplane on MM literally rolling on the floor creased up, Steve Martin films like the Jerk were also good on MM. Idiotic UK government made them an illegal Class I drug.
"The Jerk, " was such a classic movie.
Steve Martin's movie "The Jerk" is the older usage, and it's dated to 1979.
This reminds me of that old Steve Martin movie, The Jerk, where the protagonist finds out that he's in the phone book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7aIf1YnbbU
I enjoyed reading his story -- not the actual sequence of events obviously, but in the telling. It bears some similarities to "The Jerk" and "Life Stinks" but it could be a worthwhile movie (hope I didn't jinx it.)
Some things I might have done differently --
1) Left LA for someplace cheaper once I decided to take the sabbatical.
2) Not have eight children. Four would have been plenty.
As others have pointed out, most who flock to LA to work in entertainment leave without much to show for it except a healthy dose of cynicism.
The idea of Google Glass throws up a few red flags for me...
1) Safety - For some reason thinking about a wireless device strapped in a stationary position on my head brings about heightened concerns of the long term impact of having a electromagnetic field being constantly generated next to my brain... Thinking of horror stories from when cell phones first came out.
2) Safety again - The static position of the glass directly over just one eye makes me think of Steve Martin's downfall in The Jerk. If people are actually wearing these things all the time, I would be concerned with how something that you're constantly having to readjust your focus to see with only one eye may cause a disparity in vision. Of course google could adjust the focus of the glass to be some arbitrary amount of feet out to help with focusing but this seems like it would make for less usable space on that tiny screen and still doesn't address the long term effects of having something statically in the field of vision of only one eye.
Both of these may very well have been exhaustively researched and or studied by Google but I think that with the semi-controversial design of this computer, Google might put an "Is It Safe?" section to their marketing material explaining how they've addressed safety concerns.
Also, in regards to privacy... As some have mentioned the concerns of being video taped while in the presence of wearing Google glass may prompt a lot of businesses/agencies to disallow their use while in their establishment with signs posted on the door. I don't think jewelry stores or banks or other security prone establishments would want people to so easily be able to comprehensively case the joint with almost complete anonymity. Plus fears of an Orwellian future where everybody is watching everybody for some unknown third-party viewer would not be unfounded.
Aside from that, I don't really see the value in Google glass. Perhaps it's just the way they've marketed it.... but it just looks like a cell phone that's been moved to your eye. I really don't need to start seeing POV films of people eating dinner or highlights from a drunken night out. The glass does not seem to offer much more usability than a smartphone and some duct tape for POV filming. Not to mention that I believe Mom may have already patented this idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaHUpWuqNHY (Futurama)
Terrible and tragic? Yes, absolutely. However, blaming Google Earth for this is ridiculous. It reminds me of the scene from Steve Martin's classic movie, The Jerk, where his character, Navin, is picked at random out of the phone book as a target for murder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcwz8-EfFYE