Posted by Zos at baltbay1-17.dial.umd.edu on November 16, 1999 at 18:18:04:
Did anyone else perceive strong messages about racism, and to a
lesser extent, feminism, violence, and religion in this movie? The
majority of it seemed to be about the current emasculation of the white
man due to Christianity and the perpetuation of racists attitudes.
Namely the stereotypes that black men are somehow more manly than white
men and that they have bigger penises. Many many jokes were made to
this effect which went well beyond the realm of bad taste. There is
even a scene where fellatio between Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) and the
13th apostle (Chris Rock) is implied. It is definitely significant that
the angels are without sexual organs or anuses. They are white men
castrated by the religion of Christianity, unable to properly express
either hetero or even homosexuality. Jay and Silent Bob are seen to
make a ploy to become part of the black gang after the striper scene,
which by the way also exemplified a way too prevalent theme in
pornography resultant of racist attitudes. Jay and Silent Bob represent
the young white men of today, it's idol rockstar/rappers, Korn, Limp
Bizkit, and a host of other knock-offs, adorned in their Addidas
uniforms, sporting their Christian crucifixes, striving to be
assimilated into the particular cult of black ethnicity typified by most
rappers with their endless macho posturing, espousement of drug
addiction and violence, and of course the inherent racist attitudes
which must keep such a cult alive. In their self-loathing they try to
become more "black" by weak-minded conformity and the most abject
hypocrisy.
When Bartleby (Ben Affleck) is done with his killing spree at the
very end, he makes a comment about what a great release it was after
thousands of years of repression, and "if they only let us masturbate."
This is a very poignant comment upon how things like WWF and socially
glorified violence are merely a substitute for eroticism, providing a
cheap sexual thrill, and often an outlet for homosexual urges. It was
interesting how very few, if any people in the movie theater laughed at
that, but they sure thought all those black men with big penises jokes
were hilarious. Fucking idiots.
Almost all of the fools I've seen review it have said it didn't
criticize the Catholic Church. They are blind. This film was very
Satanic and had many anti Christian messages to it. The beginning
dialogue between Loki (Matt Damon) and the nun was quite good. I think
that it is very probable that Kevin Smith was familiar with the works of
Anton LaVey when he wrote this movie. Satan fails to succeed in his
rebellion because he is tied to God and Christian dogma. The Satanism
of LaVey does succeed because the idea of God is done away with
completely, moreover Satan is not actually believed in, but used as a
symbol of the individual as opposed to the mass or as representative of
the balancing force in nature. Much of the terminology used, the names
of the angels especially, showed a significant knowledge of Kabbalistic,
mythological, and occult ideas.
There is also a feminist message as far as all the comments of Jay and Silent Bob are concerned. I think this really came out in the end
with the appearance of Alanis as the female God and the emphasis upon
virgin birth. This I feel was intended to bring to mind the past pagan
age wherein the female was exalted because of the mystery surrounding
childbirth when the role of the man in the process was not known. Jay's
pussy licking joke at the end was typical of the type of stereotyping of
all women as having lesbian tendencies, women are just very different
emotionally as well as in other ways and they are not all lesbians.
Am I close on any of this Kevin?
- Matt