1997 was a big year for bi history: I came out, and so did the movie Chasing Amy. Though I’d never seen a Kevin Smith film — I didn’t know anything about him, or Jay and Silent Bob, or any of it — I knew from the moment I read about Chasing Amy that I absolutely had to see it. I was already a committed fan of indie gay film (blame and/or congratulate my mom, who introduced me to films like The Wedding Banquet and Jeffrey at a tender age), and Chasing Amy — well, the premise seemed intriguing. So, R-rating be damned, I went to the theater with my sister and bought a ticket. (No one carded me, I was an old looking 14.)
If you’ve never seen Chasing Amy, chances are good the only thing you know about it is that it’s the story of a straight man who manages to convert a lesbian to banging dudes. That was, indeed, the premise implied by the film synopsis, a premise that led many queers to preemptively reject the film as hateful ex-gay propaganda (it’s not). But if you’ve actually seen the film, hopefully you agree that it’s a much deeper movie than that sketchy premise implies — indeed, I’d argue that it’s one of the more insightful films about the messy, confusing experience that is human sexuality.
But first, a quick plot synopsis: Chasing Amy is the story of a New Jersey-based cartoonist named Holden, who lives and works with his best friend Banky (they co-write a comic strip about two stoner superheroes, Chronic and Bluntman). At a comics show, Holden meets an indie cartoonist named Alyssa, and he’s immediately smitten. They come from the same area of small town New Jersey, they know all the same people, they seem to truly click. But, whoops! Turns out Alyssa is a lesbian. But the two of them keep hanging out as friends, until at one point Holden confesses he loves Alyssa, thinks she loves him, and can’t let this opportunity pass. She gets furious, runs out of the car, and then… comes back and starts kissing him (?!?!). Somehow, against all odds, Holden has turned a lesbian straight. But the closer he gets to Alyssa, the more jealous Banky becomes, until he’s inspired to dig up dirt on Alyssa and learns that not only is Holden not the first man she’s slept with, but she actually had quite a history with men back in high school (including having a threesome with two dudes). Banky takes this back to Holden, who can’t deal with it, and ultimately winds up ambushing Alyssa with a proposal that she bang him and Banky at the same time, both to make things “even” between them and to address the obvious crush Banky has on Holden (oh, yeah, Banky being a repressed queer is also a plot point). Alyssa, to her credit, refuses and leaves. Then there’s a little epilogue that’s a year later, when Alyssa has clearly gone back to dating women and Holden has realized what an immature shit he was.
Anyway. That’s basically the movie.
I love this film on a deep, passionate level; honestly, I would probably list it in my top five films. When I watched it a few years ago I was worried its charms would have faded, but — some edgy 1990s humor aside — I found it still really hit me in the gut.
This isn’t to say that the movie is perfect: it is absolutely fair to say that Chasing Amy’s representation of its openly queer characters is flat verging on stereotypical; if you want a move about 1990s queer life, this is not the film for you. But as a film about how straight (or perhaps “straight”) men sabotage their own happiness because they can’t get over their sexual insecurities? As a film about the complicated dance that bisexuals, and bi women in particular, must do to navigate our identities? On that front, I think it’s a masterpiece.
Though I can’t recall the film ever using the word bi, there are three characters very clearly sliding somewhere on the bi spectrum: Alyssa, Banky, and Holden.
Alyssa is the most obvious, and also the most personal for me. As she ultimately admits to Holden, she spent her youth as a sexually curious young woman, someone who’d try pretty much anything just to see if it might feel good, if it might feel right, if it might give her some insight into who she was and what she wanted. At some point, she ultimately decides that men aren’t the path forward for her, and — like many bi women who opt against dating men — starts identifying as a lesbian. When she (surprise!) finds herself romantically drawn to a man again, it’s jarring and distressing; and even more so when that man cannot accept the good thing they have for what it is, and must pick a part her history, her past, in order to pick apart her.
In my early twenties, I feared that Alyssa’s fate was inevitably my own: that to be a bi woman was to inevitably find yourself having to defend your past, to wind up sandwiched between your love for someone and their expectations for you. Sadly, I wasn’t quite wrong. It is rough to be a bi woman, in a way that Chasing Amy deftly illustrates; I think it is to the film’s credit that it allows Alyssa to walk away with her dignity, sagely recognizing that Holden’s attempt to “even things out” will only poison the good thing that they have built, that attempting to sexually contort herself to soothe his bruised ego will only lead to more and more contortions. For all that Alyssa is put through over the course of the film, it’s clear that she is understood to be its moral center; it’s clear that the film recognizes her, not Holden, as the arbiter of what is right.
Then, of course, we have Banky and Holden. I have to admit that when I was 14 I didn’t really pick up on the homoeroticism to their plotline; when Holden noted during his threesome proposal that there was a sexual tension between them, I was slightly taken aback. In retrospect, though, I can see the way Smith seeded this theme throughout the film: Banky’s jealousy of Alyssa bordering on a possessive obsession with Holden, the dick jokes laced throughout the film — it’s subtle enough that you still could miss it, but once you recognize it, it feels fairly clear (even more so once you know that Smith, himself, exists under the bi+ umbrella). I don’t feel as qualified to talk about the accuracy of the Banky/Holden relationship, or whether they feel like a reasonable depiction of two male friends who maybe want more from each other but don't know how to navigate that possibility. But I do love that their relationship, that this tension, is a part of the film, however small and subtle it may be.
And as a bisexual, I have to admit that — despite some of the weird marketing, despite the ex-gay vibes inevitably fostered by the film’s synopsis — the poster itself makes me feel seen. “It’s not who you love. It’s how,” the tagline declares. And I mean, yes, absolutely. That’s exactly the point.
The B+ Squad is made possible through the support of Patreon backers. Want to keep this project going? Sign up now!
Entirely Agreed. I remember feeling very weird about the backlash at the time because I secretly loved the movie. Every part of it. The kinda in-love besties and the gay identified girl disturbed, then annoyed, then accepting of her fluid sexuality. A masterpiece, as you say. There hasn't been anything this subtle and earnest since, imho. Also, three billion cheers for your mention of The Wedding Banquet! Glad I wasn't the only teen who loved oddball queer rom coms best (see also: The Object of My Affection). I sometimes search for novels themed thus but rarely find them. If you happen to have reccs would be forever grateful for you to drop them!
Last year, the 25th anniversary of Chasing Amy, I pitched a retrospective essay about how it was ahead of its time but also how it was reflective of bi erasure at the time. I didn't start pitching early enough and after a few tries I abandoned it, but here was my pitch:
In many ways I think the film was ahead of its time in its frank discussion of queer sexuality, and unlike most commercial rom-coms, as an indie film, there wasn't any pressure for writer and director Kevin Smith to create a "happily ever after" ending. While I think the film holds up well, especially in terms of the thorny dynamics of the two primary relationships (Holden and Alyssa, and Holden and Banky), in 1997 there was still a very binary view of sexuality - as either gay or straight.
Despite the fact that Alyssa falls in love with a man, her identification as a lesbian doesn't seem to be affected. We also see the reaction by her friends to the news that she's dating a man: they roll their eyes and one says, "Another one bites the dust." There doesn't seem to be any explicit recognition of bisexuality or pansexuality, or the idea that people can fall in love with people of various gender identities. Alyssa seems to be recognizing this as she falls in love with Holden, but she can't seem to take that next step of seeing her own sexual identity as more fluid. We're left to assume this relationship was a blip in an otherwise lesbian existence—but there's also an implicit message that bisexuality doesn't exist.
Anyway, yes, I still think it's a really important and nuanced movie about sexuality!