Author Topic: Chasing Amy  (Read 2176 times)

FroHam X

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Chasing Amy
« on: June 10, 2011, 10:29:10 AM »
Chasing Amy

Chasing Amy plays like a bad joke. The thinly veiled agenda emerges, poor arguments are made and the film is almost disgustingly condescending. The characters no longer become people, but little mouthpieces for director/writer Kevin Smith to espouse his deep and meaningful insights into the world of sex.

My response from the comments on your blog:

See, where you’ve seemingly missed something is in the idea of Holden as a character. Holden is not a straw man, he IS Smith. He is a representation of the juvenile and simplistic view of rex and relationships that most men, including Smith have, particularly in their youth. The film plays out as a deep and often emotional look at that weird combination of male romanticism, vulgarity and immaturity on the topic of relationships. Alyssa isn’t a better person because she has a more worldly view and experience of sex, but Holden is worse because he cannot get past that. Ultimately, the realisation is that sex is both extremely important and not important at all. It’s the “who” it’s being done with that matters, not the fact of having it or the manner in which it happens.

That climactic scene you bring up is actually the one scene I originally didn’t like. But over time I’ve come to learn why it’s great, and that it’s greatness is why I didn’t originally care for it. By attempting to initiate a threesome, Holden reveals that even with all he has gone through and all he has learned, he still has not changed enough to save his relationship and his friendship. He thinks he has understood his own immaturity, but by relating immaturity to sexual experience he has actually understood nothing. From a dramatic perspective it kind of flies in the face of narrative convention, and is actually a pretty ballsy scene on Smith’s part. The real ending is the coda, in which years have gone by, and we get the sense that Holden maybe has, finally, gotten over his insecurities and can better live with himself, his relationships and his past.

You seem to think Smith is making some ideological statement about sex (not that you actually explain what that ideology might be), but that’s where you’ve gone astray. There is no grand ideology about sex, nor does Smith think he is better than you or anyone else because of his sexual views. The film is about male immaturity and insecurity in the face of the complexities of sex. In Smith’s world, sex just is. It’s there. Omni-present. Complicating the way people interact with each other. And Chasing Amy is his ode to discovering maturity, or at least attempting to, in the face of all that complexity.

Nice post but I disagree that Smith does not have an "ideological statement" to make; he does. He is trying to counter the silly notion that people fit into rigid  life-long sexual orientations.

Although I agree the word "ideological" is wrong since it's not some political belief but scientific fact.

P.S. This part of your review is very naive and actually kind of insulting Sam;

Quote
Most of these issues arise in a scene where Alyssa and Holden talk about how one loses their virginity and what penetration means. The problem is that the film sets these questions are abstracted. Virginity becomes more of a social rite of passage than a scientifically definable phenomena. The ideal of losing virginity is abstracted to a point of being preposterous instead of understanding it as an actual biological occurrence.

The idea that virginity is some kind of biological question is so out-dated it's like arguing that the sun revolves around the earth. This notion means that someone who has had 30 seconds of missionary sex once when they were 14 is not a virgin but a lesbian/gay couple who have been together for 40 years are virgins. It's a silly 1950's view of sexuality.

Chasing Amy

Let he go, son. Just let her go.

I normally hate this criticism of criticism but you totally and completely missed the point Sam. The film does everything but take a simplistic view of sex. It's the rare film that views sexuality as it really is, a continuum. The idea of heterosexuality and homosexuality as immovable categories  we all fit in (especially for women) has been disproved so many times; yet is still a widely held belief.

And yes sex is no different than anything in life, if a persons experience is limited then their understanding is equally limited.

Anyway, I love this film and think it is among the most insightful sex films ever made.

Although I agree the word "ideological" is wrong since it's not some political belief but scientific fact.

I'd say he gets a bit more "ideological" in calling out men for their bullshit tendency, if they are immature, toward slut-shaming, which ties into the whole virginity discussion. It is the perhaps ingrained desire of a man to have ownership of his mate's sexuality to assure paternity. However natural it is, it is also terrible and Chasing Amy is a good display of how destructive it is of modern relationships with all their complex emotion.

One of the more interesting things I heard about Chasing Amy came in one of the Kevin Smith Q&A DVDs where someone took him to task for all the homophobic things Banky says and he basically made the point is he wrote Banky to basically be the voice of ignorance and thus things he says are negated through the character development. The film, like you say, is ultimately very respectful of sexual orientation and experience.

P.S. This part of your review is very naive and actually kind of insulting Sam;

Quote
Most of these issues arise in a scene where Alyssa and Holden talk about how one loses their virginity and what penetration means. The problem is that the film sets these questions are abstracted. Virginity becomes more of a social rite of passage than a scientifically definable phenomena. The ideal of losing virginity is abstracted to a point of being preposterous instead of understanding it as an actual biological occurrence.

The idea that virginity is some kind of biological question is so out-dated it's like arguing that the sun revolves around the earth. This notion means that someone who has had 30 seconds of missionary sex once when they were 14 is not a virgin but a lesbian/gay couple who have been together for 40 years are virgins. It's a silly 1950's view of sexuality.
Maybe I'm completely wrong on this and, NSFW doesn't the loss of virginity in a woman actually occur with the tearing of some tissue that causes bleeding?
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FroHam X

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Re: Chasing Amy
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2011, 10:42:24 AM »
Alright, so to Clovis, I guess, yeah, the thing I took issue with was using the word "ideology". It's not apt at all. "Ideology" implies some system of belief. I don't think Smith approaches it that way at all. He has a point of view, one that he feels is correct, but it is a point of view that he simply explores with Chasing Amy. And also, I don't think Smith would argue that there are people who are definitely gay or definitely straight, just that the lines are probably not always so rigid, and that bisexuality is probably a heck of a lot more prevalent than people care to admit. I think Smith, especially around Chasing Amy time, would say that in the end orientation is not the issue, it's about who you care about and love, who, individually, attracts you, and who you want to be with.

And even then, that's not the broader theme the film explores. The gay/straight/bi stuff is the lead-in to the much more personal exploration of male insecurities, and in that sense it is totally an exploration, and I don't think the message is voiced like some politician trying to draw an ideological line in the sand. Chasing Amy presents some very real people who connect with each other in some very real ways but all talk like Kevin Smith.


And Sam, the virginity issue. Bleeding and such. That's the hymen breaking, and yeah, that does happen during first intercourse. But not always. Many girls break their hymen through totally innocent means, like riding a bike. Of course there is a physical component to virginity. You either have or have not done it. But most people would argue that the loss of virginity, and more importantly, sex in general is an emotional thing. It's the emotions and feelings that sex can bring about in a person that have a effect, not whether a girl's hymen is broken. Chasing Amy is an exploration of that concept. It takes a really good, complex look at relationships and how sex affects them and the people in them.
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Bondo

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Re: Chasing Amy
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2011, 11:12:28 AM »
The hymen is completely irrelevant to virginity. Virginity isn't a light switch that is on and then it is off. If you have someone who has never had any relations then sure, they are a virgin. They are less of a virgin once they've touched each other, less of a virgin once they've had oral relations and less of a virgin through any manner of penetration. It's all a matter of degrees until you feel like you're fully sexual, whatever that may mean for each person individually.

That is the brilliance of the discussion. It shows how impossible it is to define an on/off standard for virginity. It really does ultimately depend on the person's own sexuality (which isn't to say their orientation).

FroHam X

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Re: Chasing Amy
« Reply #3 on: June 10, 2011, 11:23:07 AM »
Exactly right, Bondo.
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Clovis8

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Re: Chasing Amy
« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2011, 12:16:30 PM »
Not to mention, masturbation. 

FroHam X

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Re: Chasing Amy
« Reply #5 on: June 10, 2011, 12:25:03 PM »
Does it really count if you lose your virginity to yourself?
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Clovis8

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Re: Chasing Amy
« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2011, 02:12:28 PM »
Does it really count if you lose your virginity to yourself?

I meant losing the hymen to masturbation, not your virginity. :)

Beavermoose

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Re: Chasing Amy
« Reply #7 on: June 11, 2011, 03:26:46 AM »
If men don't have a hymen does that mean they can't lose their virginity?

Totoro

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Re: Chasing Amy
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2011, 06:30:46 AM »
Virginity only matters to virgins.