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Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
directed by Kevin Smith
with Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith
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One would have thought that GLAAD-- Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation-- would have had better things to do than to attack Kevin Smith's new film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as being homophobic. Even queers who might have agreed with GLAAD's strong-arm tactics on Eminem and Dr. Laura-- and there were plenty who didn't-- would probably admit that Jay and Silent Bob was pretty innocuous and not the threat that GLAAD imagined and proclaimed.

For those who came in late, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back continues the adventures of the two stoners who have appeared in previous Kevin Smith films Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma. Jay is a perpetual idiot motor-mouth who is just a little less obsessed with proving his heterosexuality than he is with his homoerotic obsessions. Silent Bob-- whom Jay refers to as his heterosexual life-mate-- is his mostly silent, obviously long-suffering partner. They are, in terms of American cinema, the newest incarnation of Laurel and Hardy, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, or Abbott and Costello. But while the homoerotic content of all of these were ostensibly subtextual-- excerpt when Laurel and Hardy ended up in bed together, Bob and Bing kissed, or Lewis kept ending up in Martin's arms-- the homosexual tension here is up front.

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So what did GLAAD say? In a letter to director Smith, Scott Seomin wrote that he and "two colleagues... were overwhelmed by the potential negative impact for the film with what we would assume is a large share of its target audience: teen and young adult males. We will be public and aggressive in our condemnation and will provide substantiation for our opinions." Their reasons included that "Specific epithets for gay men include not only traditional slurs but also have the potential to introduce an expanded vocabulary of defamatory words and phrases."

But Seomin isn't stupid. He knows that the film is satire. But he does believe that audiences are: "We believe that satirical sophistication is not a fundamental expectation of an audience bombarded by fag jokes and gags revolving around genitals and simulated sex acts."

Smith responded saying that the film was not homophobic, that he has a gay brother and lots of gay friends, and that GLAAD misread the film. The fight then heated up when GLAAD asked Miramax, the film's distributor, to make a 200K donation to The Matthew Shepard Foundation [run by Shepard's parents, who have received a major GLAAD grant last year and with whom GLAAD has worked very closely] to show that they were not homophobic. Miramax didn't fall for the shakedown, but Smith-- in a moment of panic?-- forked over 10K to the Foundation to show his good will. GLAAD then leaked the story to Entertainment Weekly, who made the leap that Smith was apologizing for a homophobic movie. Smith denied this publicly. And GLAAD was left looking the fool, not to mention unethical.

But what of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?" Well, the good news is that Smith has overcome some of his former problems as a film maker-- his tendency to overplay a joke, to go for the obvious, to miscalculate timing-- and has produced a marvelous, consistently funny, all-out comedy that hardly misses a beat even when it's just trying to be dumb. But the better news is that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is actually one of the best, most perceptive, and on-target comedies about queerness and queer-hating that Hollywood has produced. It would be near impossible-- unless, of course, you are GLAAD-- to view the movie as anti-queer.

The plot of the film is complicated and essentially inconsequential. Jay (Jason Mews) and Silent Bob (director Kevin Smith) were lionized as dumbbell superheros in a comic book which was sold to a Hollywood studio, and they go on a road trip to stop the film from being made. By the time that Jay suggests that Bob give him a blow-job as a way to get out of an arrest when they are trapped on an off-limits Hollywood set-- and Bob thinks it's not a bad idea-- you know that Smith is dealing with a lot more stuff that just making stoner or fag jokes.

Smith's ability to deal with this material in such sophisticated and challenging ways comes from not being scared by homosexuality. On his web page-- www.viewaskew.com -- he has posted a response to GLAAD part of which reads: "You all know me. You all know how big a fan I am of the gay community. You all know the respect and fascination I have for gay culture and practices. I've said in many an interview, from Chasing Amy onward, that the only reason I never dabbled in homosexuality when I was younger was because I wouldn't know what to say to a guy after he blew a load in my mouth-- a sentiment that says more about my social awkwardness than any socially awkward stereotypes that've been unfairly hung on the gay community."

How could you not love a man who could say that?

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com