Another view on Jackass 3D

Judging from the fact that I had the cinema entirely to myself, Jackass 3D may not be proving hugely popular – which is a shame, because parts of it were very funny indeed. From my point of view, however, it was probably good that nobody else was in the audience – it would have been embarrassing, as a health and safety professional, to be caught laughing at a film about people trying to hurt themselves. Some of the stunts that Johnny Knoxville and the crew perform are just puerile – such as the one in which they strap a guy into a portable toilet and bungee him into the air until he's covered in poo; or the one where they send a fat man out running wrapped in cling film to gather his sweat, and then drink it. Both of those involve health risks – you could contract hepatitis from the poo, or get bacterial contamination from the sweat. I did notice, however, that the film had a safety consultant. And the safety aspects of the stunts had actually been well thought-through. The stuntman in the toilet is strapped in carefully; and in another stunt, in which a man rides a jetski out of a swimming pool, up a ramp, and over a hedge, his landing area has been properly padded. They haven't quite considered the risks involved in every stunt – a man dodging a bull in one scene cracks his neck – but if they did make them safe, people wouldn't want to see the film. But I wouldn't want to see students at my university try any of these stunts. A few years ago, when I worked at Loughborough University, I found a video on YouTube showing some students recreating a Jackass stunt: they'd attached a plastic crate to the back of a car, and were riding around campus in it. I called them up and said, "Now I'm not your dad – but what the hell do you think you're doing?" They appeared suitably chastened. Tom Fleming is director of health, safety and welfare at the University of York. Jackass 3D is on general release.