chasing amy

ok, so, i got chasing amy from netflix recently, seeing as it's one of those movies that everyone kept telling me i had to see.

my relationship with kevin smith had a rocky start. i was in my late h.s./early college years when he was putting out clerks and mallrats. cosmo tried to get me into his stuff, but...i simply wasn't feeling it. i recall him attempting to indoctrinate me during a lazy saturday afternoon in bed. about 10 minutes into mallrats, i demanded that he "turn this shit off".

now, with a little more life experience and a slightly modified sense of humor, i'm cool with smith. i loved dogma on sight, and he's probably one of the few people who's stuff i'd throw down $8-10 to see, no questions asked.

so, back to chasing amy.

the whole madonna/whore dichotomy has always pissed me off. when holden made his plea to alyssa in the car, my heart melted. i started thinking of how much i miss being in love, those first stirrings of knowing that this person is just wonderfully right for you (at least for now...lol), and building up to the first moment you let them know. the honesty, the passion, all that romantic shit.

and then he finds out--via an infantile, sexually frustrated, hatin ass so-called best friend--that the girl has a "past" and throws it all away.

...only to wise up later.

dumbass.

having been on alyssa's end of this latent male wisdom, i'm sorry i didn't see this sooner. it might have cushioned some of the blows i've gotten since.

i would rant and rave over where hayden got off blasting alyssa for living a little, but i know where he got off.

just like i know where banky got off with his the-man-doth-protest-too-much homophobia.

praise be to my mom & dad, i don't know what it's like to be uptight about just about every bodily function and every position that ain't missionary. but a lot of folks do--and are still living there well into adulthood.

hence hayden's hangups and inability to cope with alyssa--who, to me, embodied the free-wheeling, no holds barred feminine principle.

and we all know what happened to the feminine principle.

the movie touches on the ways in which sons are guided while daughters are either imprisoned or left to fend for themselves (e.g. alyssa's parents never being home). our desires are worthless, fleeting, and/or inconsequential.

boys get to take over the world while girls walk around in a daze wondering why they're here at all--unless it's to get the boys, who are in charge, to like them.

alyssa's what happens when (a) the "good girl" type isn't properly internalized and (b) the boys don't matter so much.

and men wonder why their girlfriends don't tell them shit. 90% of y'all couldn't handle it if we did.

what alyssa (and the proverbial amy) said was true: if we want you, we want you. all the other stuff doesn't matter.

we have to find ourselves just like you do, only there's no "wrong" way for men to do so.

kudos to smith for turning this stuff on its head and bringing it to the light of day as, i suppose, only a good catholic boy could do.

menfolks: i love y'all, i swear i do, but PLEASE find a way to handle the egos. thanks.