Few issues touch my heart as much as homelessness.  Those experiencing this condition are always in my prayers.  What I need to remind myself is that doing so is as effective as giving them money, or bringing them comfort, food, or shelter.  For those of you who do not believe in God, I expect you will scoff at that last sentence.  You might also look askance at the meager material efforts I make.  I am one person, and I will not describe in detail my individual efforts.  For you naysayers out there, whatever it is I say would likely be hurled back at me as not being enough to address the needs of the poor.  I will rely on my Faith to guide me in these areas, and trust in God for the rest.  These sentiments predate my recent viewing of The Jerk (1979), thus informing how I feel about it.  If nothing else, the film drove home for the notion that homeless shaming is just as egregious as any other example of social degradation.  Indeed, Christianity would probably say that it is worse than any other as you are often dealing with people who are truly powerless.  More immediately, I am yet again going to make a comedy seem much more serious than it is intended.

Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) is The Jerk, not because he is living on the street at the open, but for how he ended up in this predicament.  The rest of the movie tells this story.  If you know the actor, then the next scene will clue you into the brand of humor contained therein.  Navin grows up thinking he is African American living in a ramshackle house with a large family in rural Mississippi.  It is his birthday, and he is touched by the meager gifts his parents, grandmother, and siblings are able to cobble together for him.  It brings up for him growing feelings of somehow being different from the rest.  At this point, his mother (Mabel King), finally admits to her son the truth: that Navin had been left on their doorstep as a baby and raised as their own.  Still, it is not until he hears jazz music from a radio station in St. Louis that he realizes that he is, in fact, different, being able to keep rhythm with the music unlike the blues the family typically sings.  Thus, he resolves to leave, picking St. Louis as a destination, as good a place as any, I suppose.  He never makes it to the Gateway to the West.  He does, however, obtain a travel companion in the form of a dog he unfortunately names “Shithead.”  His first semi-permanent stop is at gas station.  Its owner, Harry Hartounian (Jackie Mason), takes Navin for a sucker and immediately offers the traveler a job as a pump attendant.  In this position, he encounters Stan Fox (Bill Macy), a struggling businessman with glasses.  Those glasses keep slipping off his face until Navin rigs a device onto the frame to keep them from moving.  Employment also brings a salary, which he sends part of back home, and his name in the phonebook.  He is particularly proud of this, but when a madman (M. Emmet Walsh) randomly lands on Navin’s name in its pages, Navin’s supposed new notoriety becomes a threat.  In the process of escaping attack, Navin inadvertently joins a traveling carnival as it pulls out of town.  Once more he is put to work, this time guessing the weight of revelers.  At the same time, he is introduced to other pleasures of the world not worth mentioning, but as doled out by macho woman, Patty Bernsteain (Catlin Adams), the fair’s stunt motorcyclist.  She is none too pleased when Navin meets Marie Kimble (Bernadette Peters).  Navin is instantly smitten with Marie, which is understandable given how abusive is Patty.  Though they are attracted to one another, which works due to her low intelligence, she feels she needs to honor her mother’s wishes for her to marry somebody with power and wealth.  Thus, she leaves, and he moves on to Los Angeles.  Before long, the same madman as before finds Navin.  Instead of finishing off his unsuccessful target, the would-be killer is now a private detective and hands Navin a letter.  It is from Stan Fox.  Visiting Stan in his office, Navin learns that the tycoon took the glasses solution and turned it into a multi-million-dollar business.  Fulfilling a spoken promise, Stan gives Navin half of the proceeds.  Unsurprisingly, it is Marie’s mother who tracks down Navin when the news breaks of the new member of society’s upper crust.  She gives him her daughter’s whereabouts, and soon they are married.  They have little clue how to behave, and there are a whole series of jokes about their awkwardness.  The money changes them.  When Carl Reiner (as himself, also the film’s director) brings a class action suit against the company producing the “Opti-Grab,” the name for Navin’s invention, Navin loses everything.  He walks out on Marie, claiming that all he needs is this paddle ball . . . and this lamp . . . and this chair, eventually trading it all for a thermos.  This brings us back to the beginning.  Not long thereafter, Navin’s parents pull up, having been alerted to his plight by Marie.  They are just as shocked to find him as he is since this is the first place they tried looking.  Anyway, Marie is with them and they all go back to Mississippi and a slighter bigger shack than the one they had lived in before thanks to dad (Richard Ward) investing the money given him by Navin.

What changes for Navin, and Marie to a lesser degree, in The Jerk is their simpleness being replaced by an attachment to material things.  This is why the climax of the film sees him taking a bunch of stuff with him as he leaves his wife.  It is also meant to be explain the title.  To be clear, though the movie is slightly racist, it is an enjoyable film.  The racism comes from the stereotypical way in which poor African Americans are portrayed, but there are far worse representations.  The issue I take with it is also with the title.  Homelessness is a serious issue, and God knows that those who live on the street are not there by choice.  They are not idiots, or jerks, in other words.  The Church has long kept people in this station close to its collective heart, going back centuries.  Yet, since history is apparently boring, I will give you St. Teresa of Calcutta.  Oh, wait, who cares about stuff that happens in other countries.  Alright, then in my experience as a youth minister, I have helped arrange for kids to serve in soup kitchens.  My diocese runs a homeless shelter called Pinellas Hope.  Young adults that I have known have gone and lived on the street for a night to get a sense of their situation.  All these things speak to me, personally, and why I am uncomfortable with this aspect of the movie.  To be fair, it is not a major component of the plot, but it did strike a nerve.

There are many who consider The Jerk to be Martin’s best role.  It is hard to argue otherwise.  There are some genuinely funny scenes, though the “dumb act,” if you will, does get a little tiresome.  It is not for younger audiences, but there are some solid lessons to be taken from it for adults watching it.