A Little Problem with Joe Dirt
This one discrepancy in Joe Dirt has always bothered me.
Many of you are thinking; really, there was just one thing that bothered about Joe Dirt?
Joe Dirt may not have been a critically acclaimed film. It didn't feature a hot french woman going crazy with a dead rabbit in her fridge, or highlight the immeasurable tragedy and sickening depravity of the Holocaust, but we have other movies for that.
I like to be entertained by a movie, and not feel like I've been gut-punched by it (I get more than enough of that from The Walking Dead, thank you).
I enjoy Joe Dirt. I have probably seen it 30 times since it came out in 2001. The dude is a rocker, and an optimist, and a there is a delightfully ridiculous crew of supporting characters. It does break my rule about the dog dying, but I skip that part when I re-watch, and I tell myself that it's not real and the dog is fine. I laugh a lot, and have adopted several quotes from the movie onto my casual dialogue. Plus, any time that I get to see Christopher Walken, I am happy.
That being said, there is something that's bugged me. It has nagged at me because it violates the rules of its own world, but I think I have finally reconciled it.
On the day that lil' Joe Dirt was lost, he'd climbed into a trashcan to dig for buried treasure. He comes up for air, holding his find proudly above his head as though he was about the summon the power of Grayskull, and exclaims, “Hey Dad, look, it's the good stuff, none of that pussy Skoal.” But no one is there to answer him. Poor little Dewy finds himself alone in the world. It was a pivotal moment in his life and in the story. Had it been filmed in front a live studio audience the collective Aaaaawwwwww would have been deafening.
Now, let's jump ahead a bit to Joe working in an oil field to earn the money for police artist sketches of his parents (they go wrong, but that isn't the point).
He gets fired, collects his week's pay, gets in a fight, and kisses the attractive woman on his way out. He exits with a cool, “Keep that Skoal, baby.” Don't mind me while I shiver in disgust as she unleashes a long, brown river of chew spit.
Did you catch it? Does it bug you too?
In the start of the story a clear hierarchy for chew is established insofar as Skoal is on the very bottom, labeled “pussy.” Yet now Skoal is a brand for which to be proud. Joe didn't need to state the brand of chew that he transferred in his, what I can only imagine to be gritty and foul tasting, kiss. The line could have been, “Keep that chew, baby.” Or, for the love of Odin's ravens, they could have made it gum; “Keep that gum, baby.” Then she blows a bubble, which is still gross, just not gag inducing. My point is that it could have been written any number of ways, but they chose to use Skoal in a violation of their own established chew rating. Skoal was not cool in the beginning, but now Skoal is a bragging right.
Some might reason that Joe is just happy to have been able to have name-brand chew, but since there's no way that he bought it this unlikely to be the reason. Duder had spent all the money he had just before he crashed at the oil field, and had not yet gotten paid. He was begging for food scraps. He probably got this chew the same way that he did as a kid; the garbage. Joe Dirt is not using the brand to brag about his monetary worth because it's zero, and everyone there knows it.
The reason for this shift in his opinions is finally clear to me: a lot has happened to Joe since he could fit completely inside a trash can, and this discrepancy signifies a change in his character.
Lil' Joe, as seen in the trash can, was a product of his familial environment. He was a kid. He lived with his parents and sister, and, like most little kids, worshiped his parents and desired their praise. We learn that his parents are at least a bit trashy. His mom thought that a mullet wig was the ideal choice for her infant son, and they let their son dumpster dive for tobacco products. We can only assume that he learned the term “pussy” as an insult from them, and that his opinion on Skoal is derived from theirs. He is a tiny snapshot of his parents.
The characterization of Joe's parents is worsened when he recovers a memory revealing that Joe's parent's surname was not Dirt. They gave him that name as a deviation from their own, presumably to inflict pain and humiliation upon a baby. That's fucked up. Further, they did not burden both of their children with this moniker; only him. He was singled out for this degradation.
Just when you think your opinion of them cannot get worse, you find out that he was not left at the Grand Canyon by mistake. His parents were not tormented with the loss of their child, forever searching, forever wondering if they would be reunited, setting a hopeful place for him at Thanksgiving, etc. No. They abandoned their son in the desert and never looked back. They only ever reached out to Joe when they thought he'd gotten some reward money, so that they could weasel that from him. They are wholly despicable human garbage monsters.
Joe's 180 on Skoal is not a mistake or oversight. It subtly shows a deviation from the opinions and values that he held as a child, the values that he mirrored from his parents. This little detail shows us that Joe Dirt has formed his own beliefs contrary to his brief parental upbringing, and is, or is becoming, his own man. He is not like his parents anymore. This malleability in his personality shows that he has been influenced by those he has met since his parents abandoned him, and that he will continue to be open to similar change.
There is hope for Joe Dirt.
We see Brandy showing him trust, kindness, and generosity, Clem being brave and self-sacrificing, Charlene maintaining a positive attitude and soldiering on, Kicking Wing being honest and selfless, and Charlie (sort of) rising from the ashes. We can believe that some of that will be adopted by Joe Dirt.
By the end of the movie, after Joe has developed these traits from his family of choice rather than those of his family of origin, he at last manages to defeat Robbie and his constant bullying and degradation.
The Skoal is a clue; one small sign that Joe is different from his vile parents, that he beat them, and that in the end he is a good person with the strength of character to overcome the Robby-s of the world. Rock on.
