On The Subject Of Being Bad Ass.

I'm in Video Production at my school and I made this poor kid, bless his heart, act in a short video I wrote called "How To Be Bad Ass." Now I'm sure when he was commissioned to do this project he was under the impression that he would be playing a bad ass. Well... that was not the case. The video is a satirical how-to training video in which a "wimpy" kid is turned into a bad ass. But by the end he isn't a bad ass... he just looks kind of silly. And maybe he dies. Who knows. I'm not making promises. Check it out when we're finished making it.

But in discussing this script with people, it became clear to me that there are some discrepancies over what a bad ass is. My assumption was that a bad ass is like an action hero who wears combat boots and runs from explosions really slowly.


Bad ass?

But long ago, the first time I tried to film this video, the actor came to shooting with a suede leather jacket and a silk tie, thinking of THIS type of bad ass:


Bad ass?

And then I started thinking, isn't the original bad ass like a dude with a motorcycle and tattoo sleeves? Or is it a coy, sophisticated genius, like Sherlock Holmes? Or is it Laura Croft? Or is it a ninja? Or is it someone who can put their foot behind their head?


Total bad ass.

I don't think bad ass is an image, or even a particular lifestyle. Through my extensive research of typing "bad ass" into the Google image search engine, I've determined that bad assery is a mindset. You could be whoever you'd like and still be a bad ass. Who knows. Maybe I'm a bad ass.

No. That's a lie. Bad asses don't have blogs.