I've looked quite a bit for an answer to my question, but haven't found anything similar yet. Essentially, I want to call a function that accepts an event and would normally be attached to an element via a click or some other event, but instead just call it directly.

In essence, I know that I can do this to call my function (written in jQuery):

```
function updateThisValue(event) {
    ...some code...
}

jQuery('#myElement').on('click', updateThisValue);

jQuery('#myElement').trigger('click');

```

Is there a way, instead, to call the function directly?

```
function updateThisValue(event) {
    ...some code...
}

updateThisValue(***jQuery event object here***);

```

For context, I'm using Backbone to update a form on a webpage, and have defined a custom View that is defined to call one of its methods (updateThisValue) on particular events. Within a different method of the same View I want to be able to call the "updateThisValue" method directly. However, "updateThisValue" uses the event object within its code. So if I call the method directly, it fails with an error.

Is there a way to do this? Or do I just have to trigger the thing manually (by code) as per my first I-know-I-can-do-it-this-way example? Just feels like a hack, is all.

Thanks.