How I learned to stop worrying and embrace Kevin Smith
I’m a Kevin Smith fan. Not necessarily of his recent films, but definitely a fan of the man.
A lot of you who follow me, frankly, are younger than me. You don’t have a personal frame of reference for this, especially now that everything we geeks loved has become aggressively mainstreamed to the point that it has to seem strange that so much of what we celebrate in film and pop culture today was SO MUCH NICHE in 1994. I really don’t think people know just how much — love of this stuff was still super nerdy. You can’t understand, when someone brought up STAR WARS or comic books in conversation, it was really only with close friends, so to see people talk about this stuff in free flowing conversation, it felt very liberating. Now it’s, honestly, something to avoid talking about, not because it’s kind of a social indicator but because so much negativity has been attached to it by jerks that it’s almost a warning flag. It’s like politics.
So when CLERKS came out in 1994, it was revelatory to know that not only were there people that thought as you did but that they were funny, shared a lot of real issues, and managed to make art from it. Kevin Smith was, for fans, very much a focus point. We fully expected him to break out of making charming little indie films to the big leagues. He was going to be the guy that brought legitimacy to all this nerdy geeky stuff that we’ve adored since we were kids. It’s like Kurt Cobain. Here’s a guy who was articulating exactly what we were feeling in 1991 — trapped, without a voice, screaming into the ether — and, foolishly on our part, we expected them to be the face of all of us.
And because of that, we put an awful lot of weight onto their shoulders. We projected ourselves (at least, as a white male, I sure did, I wouldn’t want to speak for others, but this was the feeling I had) onto them and said, by God, these were the ones to bring our neglected voices out into the world. You know what happened next, at least in the case of Cobain. And Kevin Smith, God bless him, didn’t go that route, but he has his own life and his own expectations to fulfill.
And so we go from CLERKS to MALLRATS to CHASING AMY to DOGMA, and if you want to assess those films critically, knock yourself out. But as placeholders for those of us who followed the man, putting so much of ourselves into his work, these films meant a lot. A kindred voice out there, obsessing over our weird shit, giving us a voice. And, at some point, the rocket became a fireworks explosion, sending thousands of pieces of light from one focal point. And Smith went his own way, we went ours, and somehow a lot of us resented him for that. I know I did — here’s the guy that is supposed to be my voice! How dare he want to explore other things?
But Kevin Smith is just a man with his own journey, and no one knows, no matter how successful you are, on where your path will go. He got married, had a child, and his perspective changed, as it does for every single one of us. We’re not kept in a time capsule. We change. We evolve. And life takes us to places we never saw ourselves going. We grow up. I was one of those people who hated what Kevin Smith had become because I hated the fact that I became what I became for a long time. I was supposed to be a famous writer, dammit. This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!
So now we come to the Kevin Smith of today — he makes films that some people really like, and some don’t. I’m not the biggest fan of his work post-DOGMA, but I adore his stand-up, I am really envious of his ability to self-promote (I wish I had a tenth of that, honestly), and I’ve come to realize that while we may not be on the same paths — we still are, kinda. It’s just that this path has branches, but they still generally go in the same direction. That we all have to navigate this world in our own way, and while people can be our guides, at some point we have to break from our guides and go uncharted into the wilderness because if you don’t, you’ll never really see anything new. You’re just living someone else’s life and that can’t be good, because it builds resentment and jealousy and all those negative emotions. When Smith had his health scare recently, it brought home to me that fact. He’s living his best life that he can, and to attach all our hopes and dreams, especially now that I’m older, on another vessel like that isn’t fair to that person and it’s not fair to yourself. All these comparisons to other people, when taking a long look at yourself, isn’t healthy. They can be guides. But eventually, you have to go off on your own and have your own journey.
I don’t make fun of Kevin Smith, because I had no idea in 1994 that I’d be where I’m at today. I had ambitions that were not fulfilled, but I’ve done things I never thought I’d do. The people you admire and respect are not going by your playbook. They have lives of their own. You can find something in those people to inspire you, yes, but your life is your own and not some template.
I have a tendency to hero-worship too much. I’ve had good guides and bad ones. I’ve had people in my life who I place much admiration, even when they fell and got up again. I’ve cut some people out entirely because while we had shared passions, life is more than that and those people eventually became poisonous to me. I’ve found faith and strength in my own words — I suffer from impostor syndrome pretty badly but I take comfort in knowing that the only ones who go off the cliff are the ones who are so sure that their road is the only way to go. Being unsure of yourself is healthy. It shouldn’t stop you, but at least you’ve considered every possibility and every angle.
So yesterday Kevin Smith posted a picture — he’s thin, older, disheveled, emotional as he talked about what CAPTAIN MARVEL meant to him, and I’m in admiration of the man all over again, but not for what he’s done. Instead, he’s unafraid to life the life he wants to live, and we should all be so brave. It’s okay to acknowledge what you’ve done, and to be proud of yourself. It may not be where you thought you’d be, but you’re still here, you’re still moving forward, and your path is opening up in front of you and while it took others to help guide you here, everything ahead is uncharted territory. Now get to exploring.