The Jim Carrey Effect

It all started when Roy Pearson carried a pair of pants to Custom Cleaners in Washington, D.C. in order to get some alterations done. This was not a very unusual thing to do, but what happened after that was. The laundry lost Pearson’s pants. When Pearson went to pick up the pants, Custom Cleaners told him that they could not find them. Pearson was so infuriated that he filed a $67 million lawsuit against the cleaners. The lawsuit attracted a lot of attention, especially in light of Pearson’s profession. He served as an administrative law judge in the District of Columbia. Some observers referred to the case as “The Great American Pants Suit,” and others referred to the judge as “Judge Fancy Pants.”

Some time after the lawsuit was filed, Pearson came out a loser. First he lost the lawsuit. The suit was deemed to have no merit. But then he had a more serious loss. Pearson had served on the bench for two years and was up for a ten-year term at the Office of Administrative Hearings. Instead of getting the appointment, he was told to vacate his office. The judicial committee that reviewed Pearson’s legal work noted he lacked “appropriate judgment and judicial temperament.” Pearson came out a loser all the way around. He lost his pants, his lawsuit, and, ultimately, his job.

Overreacting and losing control is a human tendency. It happens when anger blazes up and turns normally clear thinking into fuzzy and distorted thinking. It produces what John Ortberg has called “the Jim Carrey effect”: As you get mad and madder, you get dumb and dumber.”

You take the case of a North Carolina driving instructor. The driving instructor was helping a student driver learn to drive on the freeway when another motorist cut the driver’s ed car off in traffic. This so infuriated the driving instructor that he ordered the student driver to pursue the offending automobile. Eventually they forced the other car off the freeway. According to a police report, the driving instructor got out and belted the offending motorist. With a teacher like this, you have to wonder what kind of driver the student driver eventually turned out to be.

Or, you take the case of Guy Boos. In September of 1999, police were dispatched to a Wisconsin resident’s home after neighbors reported gunfire. When police arrived, they discovered what had happened. Boos, age 37, got mad when his washing machine broke down. In fact, he got so mad at the washer that he pushed it out the door and down a flight of stairs. He then got his 22-caliber pistol and fired three rounds into the machine.

These obviously are extreme examples, but, if the truth were known, in large and small ways we all overreact and do some irrational things. James said, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires” (James 1:19-20).