I feel like everyone should be forced to watch that speech sometime in their adolescence. It speaks so loudly to how men view women, sex, homosexuality, etc and to how men view female promiscuity so negatively.
Amazing stuff.
Agreed. Just rewatched it and it was so good. Great writing and acting.
shareIt's a good speech, though I tend to view all promiscuity rather negatively. I'm not a prude and I'm not against one nighters for anyone but continual repetition is very offputting if done by either sex.
shareWomen tend to be the same though, I have known lesbians who are against male homosexuality and also known women who aren't keen on being with a man who has been with many women.
In the case of this film Holden has the added burden of his small community being aware of Alyssa's past and he doesn't know how to deal with that.
Not to mention the added shock of him finding out that she was less than honest about it all, in terms of leading him to believe that he was the first man she had been with.
Sometimes a movie or tv show plot is so stupid that only the stupid can understand it.
The lying part is definitely a lot to take. Don't worry, I know a lot of people who take the side of Holden. Amy isn't totally exempt from faults here.
shareDoes it really matter if some guys from Holden’s high school thought Alyssa was a slut back in the day? He’s an adult with a life in New York, high school should be a distant memory.
The past is the past and I wouldn’t get hung up on such things, nor would I particularly care about the sexual (mis)adventures of someone I was seeing.
I guess those were the flaws in Holden’s character, which were Kevin Smith’s flaws when he dated Joey Lauren Adams himself.
It’s funny because you’re pretty much with Holden all the way and Banky is the one with ‘issues’, but then Holden turns out to be a judgemental prude with an ego. I can relate to his annoyance with Alyssa knowingly deceiving him into thinking he’s her first guy, but it’s strange for him to have bared his soul about his pure love for her in his car, only for him to be all ‘bye, SLUT’ when he discovers she took a couple of dicks 🤷🏻♂️
The past is the past and I wouldn’t get hung up on such things, nor would I particularly care about the sexual (mis)adventures of someone I was seeing.
can do , doesent always.
She seemed to have moved on and wasnt affected by her past , until holden started freskign out
Experiences can shape who we are, who we become. Having had all of the guys that Alyssa seems to have had would have made her cynical in the end as we see in the film. She insists that she was using them and maybe she was but they were also using her and they are the ones who get to walk away without any stigma.
Not sure if it really would have made any difference if Alyssa didn't lie to Holden about him being her first guy. In the end Holden was too innocent for her anyway, not that too many guys especially back then would be keen on a girlfriend with such an extensive sexual history.
Agreed that experiences shape us, but sometimes it is in a negative way. We can learn to cope with past mistakes, but that doesn't mean we always recover from them.
shareYes that is what I am getting at. Unpopular opinion but women and men are different, I have read theories that too many sexual partners can be harmful emotionally to women. Alyssa seems very damaged in this film, leaping from partner to partner, seesawing back forward from man to woman. She is seeking something which she could have found in Holden but is uncompromising.
Oh, gotcha. We are on the same page.
shareIt's turned into an unpopular opinion but it's the correct opinion that aligns with biology, and it's not something any amount of media propaganda can change.
The reasons for those difference is in the biological purposes of men and women. It's not just a theory that too many sexual partners can be damaging to women, there are multiple studies that back that up:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3752789/
It's interesting that for women, no matter the age, having too many partners was always affecting them negatively.
The reasons for this is because women DO need an emotional attachment to a partner, and needs that reinforcement because her job as a species is to nurture and grow more humans. That requires a certain kind of biological essentialism for attachment -- to care for and nurture a child, and ensure there is an appropriate protector there to care for them.
Media tells women this doesn't matter and to sleep around as much as possible and have as many abortions as possible, because it's "a woman's right", when in reality, all it does is cause emotional detachment, emotional distress, and lots of depression, as observed in studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3929105/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/abortion-and-mental-health-quantitative-synthesis-and-analysis-of-research-published-19952009/E8D556AAE1C1D2F0F8B060B28BEE6C3D
These days media will tell women there are no consequences for having multiple abortions or partners, but the results in the decay of societal inter-gender engagement says otherwise.
This isn't to say that men should be sleeping around willy-nilly, but it is to say that the repercussions for women doing so is much more detrimental to their emotional well-being over the long term compared to men.
Yep in the end nature is all about the continuation of the species. That is why you tend to see one bull and a dozen cows for example. A man can spread his seed easily and leave. Better for society and family if he doesn’t but in terms of biology it’s that easy.
A woman is left to bear and raise the child.
I never understand why abortion is always cheered the way it is. It’s the celebration of the destruction of life, I know some will argue a foetus isn’t a human being but it is the start of one. Another topic of course.
Yup she was very persuasive to make women think its it's ok to be finger cuffs.
I disliked this movie, it annoyed me. Mainly because whole plot hinges on an implausible lie, and also because it's SO about the straight white man's feelings - the other characters aren't fully developed, they're just there to help him work though his feelings.
There's a quote floating around the internet, something like: "Do you realize how many movies are about a straight white man learning to deal with one single human emotion?". This is one of those films.
I watched this again last night and I enjoyed the film for what it is. I don’t think the topic has aged very well but in 1997 it was still a big deal.
I’m not so sure Banky was even gay to be honest so there are two straight guys but I know you mean Holden.
Holden doesn’t come off as looking very good though. He is insecure and naive and his ego can’t handle that Alyssa did things before she met him.
Alyssa also has some issues.
At the end of the film they have the chance to reconcile but he walks away from her and Banky.
Holden is paying a high price for his own mistakes.
Well, it's nice that some people liked the movie after all the trouble they went through to make it, but it really did get up my nose.
Seriously, that implausible lie? Which was stupid in the first place, and holding onto it until the dramatic finale? Very unbelielvable.
Was it implausible though? Holden believed she was a lesbian, just like he knew he was straight. If he said he had never been a with a man it would just be taken as the truth.
Alyssa wanted him to like her and went along with what she thought he wanted to be believe. A stupid mistake but the people in this film are messed up, I'm not denying that.
Regarding the Big Lie, of course Holden believed it, he's an honest guy and honest people believe the people they like are honest too. And I can see why she made the lie in the first place, he mildly annoyed her and she wanted to shake up his thinking a bit. But why stick to the lie that long? It would have been so easy to undo, like at a critical moment she could say "I lied, I like a bit of dick after all, let's go?" or something to that effect, it's not like he'd stop and protest about being lied to, it's the sort of thing people laugh about afterwards.
Because seriously, the character is a mostly-lesbian feminist, and what the hell kind of mostly-lesbian feminist wants to build up a guy's male ego with lies? What kind of mostly-lesbian person would even think of that, after years of sharing their feelings with women - would her relationship goal be to get him to a place where they could share feelings? Kevin Smith ought to stay away from sexual topics, he really can't keep his own insecurities and fears out of it.
Yes he is a straight (pardon pun) regular type of guy. His friend Banky even says so in regards to girls like Alyssa being totally different to who they are as men. Her sexual experience and views on sex are just foreign to someone like Holden, likewise, Holden's views are seen as quaint to Alyssa. In short, I never saw them as being a good long term couple for each other.
So why didn't she retract the lie straight away as per your comment? I think she just wanted it all to go away and be with Holden. I think she knew Holden wouldn't be able to handle it and just sidestepped the whole thing to make it simple for herself and him. But as with most lies, if you don't retract them straight away it just gets worse later.
Was she even sharing her emotions and feelings with women though? I am reading between the lines here but it seems to me her relationships with women were more simple and possibly less emotional. Maybe that is why she preferred to be with women. Maybe because they all know each others lies and insecurities and therefore not bring them up because they know it's a waste of time?
I doubt for example another woman being worried or asking if Alyssa had been with men or not. I think they would just assume she probably has at one point.
Kevin Smith's films exist in a certain time point for Gen X'ers at the point in their lives. In 1997 it was still a big deal to date a lesbian who may or may not also be Bi and has also had threesome's and been filmed etc etc
I think now all of the above would just be a given and no one would really care at all and in fact the guy would probably be thrilled he has a very sexually experienced and open woman. Holden was too concerned with the long game and his rep as a man when he should have just sat back and enjoyed what Alyssa could offer him even if it was short term.
Chasing Amy is based largely on Smith's insecurities about dating Joey Lauren Adam's and her sexual experience as well as a friend of his who fell for a lesbian who is also in this film. So I guess in this case it is all about exploring Holden/Smith's insecurities.
Oh no, they definitely weren't a good long-term couple! Totally agree there, too many differences and insecurities, something else would have broken them up if the whole Big Lie thing had never happened.
As to that lie, you say "... I think she just wanted it all to go away and be with Holden", but IMHO the character was written with enough emotional intelligence and pride that she'd be aware that the only way to be with Holden, to have a worthwhile relationship, was to come clean and re-establish the relationship with honesty and openness. To fail to do that was the act of deep insecurity, and a total failure to understand how loving relationships work. It all speaks more to a certain screenwriter's insecurities, than a believable interaction between these two people.
You mentioned earlier that the other characters aren't fully developed and I would agree that applies to Alyssa in particular as she is one half of the "stars". Even though I watched this just a few nights ago I found myself still wondering what her job was today and realized she was also a comic book producer but we don't see any of her work or find out what motivates her.
The point for my tangent is that as you say there are many other things that would have broken them up if it wasn't for her Big Lie. Not to mention that even if she told Holden that she had been with guys before she would hardly have gone into details and confessed that she was with two at once or was filmed while in college. Banky still would have gone snooping and Holden would have been upset about the whole finger cuffs thing anyway. So we are back to square one in regards to Holden's insecurities.
She was written with emotional intelligence and pride but I think Smith becomes conflicted or just chooses the wrong path with this film. He doesn't know if he wants it more of a romance/drama or a romance comedy. He chooses comedy and the film suffers for it.
Why would Holden choose to have the finger cuffs discussion at the hockey game? Why would he think that was a good time or place? Why isn't Alyssa more understanding, why can't she just say "ok, lets go home and chat about this" rather than scream her sexual exploits at him in the stadium and then the car park? Would the High School year book really allow non authorized nick names? I'm not American so I don't know how all that works.
None of it is realistic but it is somewhat amusing. Just like the black guy shooting Banky at the convention, what about traumatized people?
What can I say, it's not a bad film, but it is the work of an immature filmmaker, one who can't fully develop the characters who aren't much like himself. Or who doesn't see the need to do so.
So I didn't like it overall, but I understand why other people do.