Good on him, I say:
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German has the word āFremdschƤmenā (noun).
There isnāt really a translation, but it can be paraphrased as
āthe feeling of shame on someone elseās behalfā or āthe feeling of shame for someone else who has done something embarrassingā.
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German is great like thatā¦ it has fantastic words for states of being. Also, you can make super-mega-words by just smashing them together. Also, you sound really angry when you say āI love youā and āgood morningā, etc.
I dunno, the use of the word jab in Kevinās tweet does imply a fight. So his large fanbase went in expecting just that. Minor thing, but words matter, especially when you have only 140 characters and a broad audience.
Well, saying ānobodyās gonna missā his movie is an actual insult, if not to him directly then to his creation. Why not call it a jab?
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I love that videoā¦ Makes me laugh every time.
Kevin Smithās audience doesnāt strike me as the most, uh, erudite one out thereā¦ and he get so frigginā up in arms about the resulting misogyny. Iām a little shocked he canāt believe some elements of his relatively low-brow (and large) audience would pick a fight when he introduces the link with ājabā.
I also donāt agree that his movies are pillars of perfect treatment of all female characters, like he says.
I mean, I guess in some alternate reality all the Kevin Smith movie fans are all sitting in chaise lounges wearing their embroidered velvet robes and holding a snifter of brandy?
I like Smithās films quite a bit, actually, and I donāt think Iām a total dummy. 
Sure, stuff like Mallrats (āHe wants to have sex in an uncomfortable placeā¦ā āthe back of a volkswagen?ā - I actually really love Mallrats, to be honest), Jay and Bob Strike Back, and Zack and Miri are the definition of stoner rom-com and arenāt his best/funniest, but I really liked Clerks, Dogma, and Chasing Amy, and thought they were pretty smart little films that are more enjoyable than the vast majority of rom-coms or stoner films that are out there. I also liked Red State. I thought the scene in the church, with the preacher was pretty well-written and still managed that Smith-style-delivery. And of course John Goodman is in it, so anything with John Goodman is goldā¦
I really donāt understand all the hatinā on smith, to be honest. Heās not going to win an oscar or change film-making or change the world, but he never claimed to be out to change the worldāhe literally just wanted to make films with his friends, and sort of lucked out with the splash Clerks made. In fact, when they went to do Chasing Amy, Miramax promised him several million to make itāas long as he cast Drew Barrymore and Jon Stewart, and rewrote the script to take out the gay content and I think lots of the comic book stuff too. Instead he did it for like a quarter million with Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, and Jason Lee, and made the movie he wanted to makeāand itās en excellent little movie, I think.
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Yah.
Even though Affleck is the more successful director, Kevin is an auteur.
I think thatās why he feels the need to apologise for his fans, like he can direct them to be better people.
And maybe he can.
Edit: Upon further reading it really seems like heās apologising for putting up the Author of the critical articles Twitter handleā¦he does also specifically apologise for āany man who makes misogyny the manner with which he communicates his feelingsā.
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I regularly feel this emotion but strangely never seem to be inconvenienced by any form of embarrassment myself.
Wasnāt there some part of a Kevin Smith movie where one of the characters is putting his hand in his own ass and touching people?
Yeahhhh. Surprising that this audience would yell at women.
Mallratsā¦ Stink Palm! And it was just one guy he did it to ā and that guy was Merle Dixon and Henry from Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, for what thatās worth. Think of it as a tactical strike - a really gross tactical strike. To be fair, Jason Lee is supposed to be the dumbass best friend, much like Randall in clerks is the self-involved, dumbass best friendā¦
It was also the film where everyone kept saying ābrendaā to Shannen Doherty and where Silent Bob had a bat belt, because why notā¦
Edited to add: BTW - my only point was really to say that not all his fans are mouth-breathersā¦ at least I donāt think I am. And in fact the women in his movies tend to be smart, funny, and well-written characters, while many of the men are little more than man-childrenā¦ which I think is actually the point of many of lots of his films. Thatās how I read them anyway.
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Well, letās not tar the whole crowd with that brush. I like fart and turd jokes as much as anyone (and more than most), and though I wouldnāt call myself a Kevin Smith acolyte, I like most of the movies of his Iāve seen, and the more lowbrow the better. I flatter myself that Iām not about to spew misogyny on Twitter (or anywhere else) just because Iāve laughed at the antics of Jay and Silent Bob, any more than Iām about to go around passing people lit sticks of dynamite stuck into oversize cigars just because I laughed at Wile E. Coyote cartoons in my youth. Are we to believe that fans of Kubrick or Costa-Gavras will automatically be nicer people simply because their cinematic tastes are bare of references to āpoopy-trimā?
'Cause that hasnāt been my experience.
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I think one can appreciate some sophomoric toilet humor and not be a jerk to women.
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I agreeā¦ though I can see why @codinghorror can make the connection, because at times guys who like that sort of humor can be jerks to women. There is a contingent of Smithās fans who think themselves mini-Jays, Iām sure, though Smith has said time and again, Jay is not to be an admired, but something of a mocked figure. But I think thatās not what Smith intends. I think he intends that his male characters are more often than not cautionary, not to be emulatedā¦
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Heās said that the Jay character is essentially Jason Mewes as a young teenager. Smith tells a great story about seeing Jason come into the room at the Rec Center with all the arcade machines. Without even checking to see if there was an audience watching, he proceeded to fellate everything vaguely phallic in the room. Mostly joysticks. Then he came upon the trackball control on one of the machines, paused for a moment, shrugged, and started licking it.
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I donāt think Iād heard that oneā¦ though Iāve heard him say that about Mewes - that Jay is a teenaged version of him.
Poor kid is in and out of rehab, though. And I guess heās not a kid, but a grown up. It seems like Smith tries to take care of him.
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I havenāt listened to Jay and Silent Bob Get Old (the podcast they do) for a while, but I think heās back up to two years sober now. The first bunch of episodes of that podcast are awesome. Theyāre basically Smith getting a biography out of Mewes. They get into why he started taking drugs, tell a bunch of stories about what happened while he was using, then bring it up to the present day.
http://smodcast.com/channels/jay-silent-bob-get-old/page/17/
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Iāll have to check those out at some pointā¦ thanks!
