In Praise of Jackface

Lost brought us a lot of things: smoke monsters, overblown religious allegories, and that weird episode with Allison Janney. But it also gave us six years of Matthew Fox’s attempts at emoting, which certainly ran the gamut from acceptable acting to preposterously hilarious hamming. Who could forget every time Jack Shephard cried, or when he shouted the famous line, “We have to go back, Kate!” At some point during the six-season run, being stuck on an island with Jack became the worst part of being stuck on that island in the first place. In celebration of Matthew Fox’s birthday, let’s take a look back at some of the greatest examples of the phenomenon known as Jackface.

Jack’s tears, typically squeezed out of those overactive eyeballs, were often as befuddling as that smoke monster.

Jackface was always heightened whenever Jack got his hands on a gun.

Jack was, apparently, really into choke-play.

I’m willing to give Jack’s smug know-it-all expression a pass here, as John Locke was the biggest wise guy on the island.

Pensive Jack considered a plan of action, only to recklessly do something incredibly stupid.

Here, Jack tried in vain to get the fake-beard trend (or, as I called it, Face Wig) to happen.

Meanwhile, Jack either had a big boo-boo or was invoking Nelly’s band-aid craze from the late ’90s.

Jack’s bedside manner involved intense staring and probably misdiagnoses.

“Hi, I’m Jack Shepard. I contain multitudes. Or do I?”