Introduction: There's a Time and Place …

There are different iterations of body humor, everything from slapstick to gross-out humor. Often with body humor the body is out of control, a body that is excessive, eliciting laughter. Watching people vomit, for example, can be side-splittingly hilarious. Kitao Sakurai's 2020 Bad Trip includes a scene with vomiting. Jeff Tremaine, known as a director/producer for the Jackass franchise, is one of the producers of Bad Trip, and the hallmarks of Jackass are evident in Sakurai's film. While Bad Trip has a clear narrative through-line—by comparison the Jackass television spots and films are by and large episodic with little or no narrative trajectory—what Bad Trip does is to stage scenarios in public to elicit “authentic” responses from social actors. And in this sense Bad Trip is closer to the Bad Grandpa films (a spinoff of the Jackass franchise).

In sum, Bad Trip is a bromance road movie, where our central protagonist, Chris, enlists his best friend Bud to travel from Florida to New York City in pursuit of his high school crush. At one of their stops along the way, they stop at a huge country western bar called the “Electric Cowboy,” complete with a dancefloor, and rows of pool tables. Chris pounds shot after shot and becomes increasingly intoxicated. He climbs to a loft above the bar, yet another drink in hand, and publicly professes his affection for Bud. Predictably, Chris teeters over and falls (approximately 8 feet) into a disguised set piece (obviously, pre-positioned for this stunt, and designed to break his fall). The bar erupts in gasps, Bud helps Chris to his feet, and a woman, stating that she is a nurse, comes to evaluate his condition. With a circle of onlookers, Chris cups his hands to his mouth, and twice ejects a torrent of vomit that spatters the crowd. As part of Bad Trip, the scenario is in effect a prank played in good fun—and in fact at the end of the film, as the credits roll, the cast and crew reveal to the social actors the reality of the situation, and everyone has a good laugh.