In Which the Cookie Stand is Not Part of the Food Court.

For the chronically online you may have noticed an odd story/meme circulating through the social media sphere about the new Avengers movie. The long and short of the bit is what if Ant-Man killed Thanos by shrinking down, going into the Mad Titan’s butt, and expanding into Giant-Man. The whole thing was a silly affair: defiantly juvenile, but vigorously researched and reported on. It sat in the internet content butter zone of absurd, connected to mainstream popular culture, and more than a little grotesque, providing an edge of bad taste to the whole affair. It’s also a conversation that feels like it was ripped right out of Kevin Smith’s 1995 sophomore effort Mallrats.

The fact that such a conversation could simultaneously slip into the quasi-mainstream and feel like it could have come from Smith’s pen points to his work existing in a weird cultural limbo. Smith’s movies (specifically from the 90s) are hopelessly regressive and dated, and yet they still hit upon what the popular discourse around comics, movies, and fandom would be like. I don’t think Smith knew that the overly knowledgeable geek and comic nerd would become the mainstream, but he was tapped into ideas that would become culturally dominant. Hell he even built himself a little cinematic universe with his indie film friends.

So what of the Mallrats itself. Well there’s not actually much to it. T. S. Quint (Jeremy London) and Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) are both dumped by their perspective girlfriends. So to drown their sorrows they decide to shoot the shit at the local mall. The duo run into a whole slew of colorful characters including a butt obsessed store manager (Ben Affleck), local nerdy hooligans Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith himself), and comic book legend Stan Lee. Eventually they contrive a way to win back the affections of their significant others, and peace and harmony is restored as the men reunite with their girlfriends.

In other words, it’s a 90s indie comedy about slackers hanging out in an unremarkable place that tries to dig profundity out of the mundane and humorous. It’s crass, self-referential, has an early pop-punk driven soundtrack, and is more than a little shoddy. It’s scruffy and ungainly even at it’s slim 95 minute runtime, but it’s also surprisingly genuine. For all the snark, cynicism, and irony we associate with this era in popular culture, Smith is nothing but earnest with the handling of his characters. Yes that earnestness comes with a heaping scoop of scatological digressions and pop culture winking, but this is a film where our leads pair off with their respective love interests, with one of them getting a full on wedding. It’s practically the definition of a Shakespearean comedy.

This sincerity is one of the reasons I think Smith was able to become a staple of the indie movie scene during the last decade of the century. While his more talented compatriots (think Tarantino, Anderson, and Linklater) were able to meld junk culture with high art, Smith doggedly remained low-brow and unsophisticated. Where the comic talk in a Tarantino flick is used to communicate themes about identity and story telling, the comic talk in a Smith joint is meant to replicate how a bunch of nerds talk about comic books in a mall. This difference isn’t a diss on Smith. He was trying to replicate on screen the way he and his friends engaged with the world and provide a perspective that was, at the time, unique and cutting edge to the world of cinema.

Unfortunately the sincerity is what begins to undermine what could be an enjoyable hang out movie. Because in his efforts to recreate the casual chit-chat of stunted Gen-Xers Kevin Smith replicates the casual chit-chat of stunted Gen-Xers. This leads to a lot of talks and jokes that don’t just feel dated, but staggeringly regressive. First and foremost are Quint and Brody’s treatment of women, which is abominable. Their girlfriends break up with them for perfectly salient reasons (Brody is lazy nerd, Quint is too flaky) and then are basically publicly shamed back into their respective relationships. Brody promises to be less of a shit and finally introduce his girlfriend to his mom and do more things she likes to do, but it doesn’t feel like his character has fundamentally changed his worldview enough to believe that. Even with a little con man pep talk from Stan Lee.

Then we get to the side characters, and that’s where things get really rough. First is Affleck’s alpha male manager. A man who only picks up rebounds because it’s the only way he can convince women to have anal sex with him. Because hetero anal sex is weird and treated like some abnormality that needs to be shunned. This fact is worsened when Affleck gets thrown in prison and treated to the always hilarious male rape joke that is a staple of oh so much comedy. It’s shockingly prudish, and nearly 25 years later, frankly bizarre to make this character trait the butt of so many jokes. And then there’s Tricia. A character who’s only personality is statutory rape. She’s 15 and has sex with men of all ages, which is fucked up. The movie tries to hand wave this away, but it can’t. It’s gross and, of course, in light of recent events can’t be seen as anything other than terrible.

Sometimes these grating factors of the movie are prescient in their own way, but probably in a manner Smith never intended. If Brody was alive today he would be a belligerent GamerGater. He viciously attacks people in the line at the comic book store, degrades his friends and associates when they don’t agree with him about his interests, and treats women as objects or rewards for the committed. Just seems to be another piece of prescient pop culture dialectic from Smith, however accidental it might be.

So it comes down to this. The dichotomy between the sincere look at nerdy layabouts and the dated humor and shabby formal technique. Through all the aged-like-milk-on-the-counter jokes is a heart that truly just wants everyone to relax and have a good time. To let the world dissolve into the amiable dialog that exists within a group of people at a mundane gathering place. You can see why Smith struck a chord, nobody talked the way his characters did. That all fell away once the subjects of his conversations were no longer reserved for the niche but catapulted to the mainstream. And once Smith’s voice is robbed of what it made it special, all that’s left are shocks that are merely embarrassing or have lost their edge.

Odds and Ends

• Quint gets married on the Jaws ride at Universal Studios.
• Despite his myriad issues, Smith has a knack for using his actors. Lee is perfect as the snotty friend, Affleck is as the pompous bully, Michael Rooker as the overbearing father, and Stan Lee as the affable con man here to make sure everyone has a good time.
• Apparently there’s an extended cut that pretty radically remakes the context of the movie. It’s also two hours long, and in no world does Mallrats need to be two hours long.
• If I were to do another Smith movie it would definitely be Dogma. The strangest entry is his 90’s filmography.

As always, twitter, letterboxd, and I Chews You (the podcast about cooking and eating Pokemon).

With Jim Carry swirling in the news this week I thought I would step back and look at arguably his finest hour with 1998’s The Truman Show.