A backscratcher (occasionally known as a scratch-back) is a tool used, as the name would suggest, for relieving itches for areas that cannot easily be reached just by one's own hands, typically the back.

They are generally long slender rod-shaped tools, with a knob on one end for holding and a rake-like device, sometimes in the form of a human hand, on the other end to perform the actual scratching. Though a backscratcher could feasibly be fashioned from most materials, most modern backscratchers are made of plastic, though examples can be found made of wood, whalebone, tortoiseshell, horn, cane, bamboo or occasionally ivory. Backscratchers vary in length between 12 and 24 ins. (30–60 cm.).

The first backscratchers were used by the Inuit and were carved from whale teeth. However, in recent history it was unquestionably also employed as a kind of rake to keep in order the huge "heads" of powdered hair worn by ladies in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In the past, backscratchers were often highly decorated, and hung from the waist as accessories, with the more elaborate examples being silver-mounted, or in rare instances with an ivory carved hand with rings on its fingers. The scratching hand was sometimes replaced by a rake or a bird's claw. Generally, the hand could represent either a left or right hand, but the Chinese variety usually bore a right hand.

Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal ( /ˈdʒɪlənhɔːl/ JIL-ən-hawl; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at the age of ten. Following his first lead role in 1999's October Sky, he starred in the indie cult hit Donnie Darko (2001), in which he played a psychologically troubled teenager alongside his older sister, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. In 2004 he appeared in the science-fiction film The Day After Tomorrow, portraying a student caught in a cataclysmic global cooling event. He then played against type as a frustrated Marine in Jarhead (2005). The same year his role as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain earned him critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He has since played the lead roles in many notable films, including Zodiac (2007), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) and Source Code (2011).

Gyllenhaal has promoted various political and social causes. He has appeared in Rock the Vote advertising, campaigned for the Democratic Party in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, promoted environmental causes, and campaigned on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union.