Welcome to the Cracked newsletter!

This issue is about ‘Chasing Amy,’ Tony Hinchcliffe, ‘Simpsons’ trivia, horror movies, and much more.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

This Queer Filmmaker Wants to Figure Out Just How ‘Problematic’ ‘Chasing Amy’ Is

In the spring of 1997, Chasing Amy hit theaters, serving as a comeback for writer-director Kevin Smith. Earlier in the decade, the New Jersey filmmaker had launched onto the scene with Clerks, a low-budget comedy about some foul-mouthed buddies who worked at a convenience store, earning rave reviews and announcing Smith as a promising new indie talent. But he tarnished that reputation with his follow-up, Mallrats, which was a commercial bomb and critically derided. It’s no exaggeration to say that Smith’s career was hanging in the balance when he released Chasing Amy, a bittersweet love story about a comic-book artist, Holden (Ben Affleck), who falls in love with a fellow artist, Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams). They seem to click, but there’s a problem: She’s gay, thinking of him only as a friend. But the more time they spend together, the more she starts to develop romantic feelings for him.

The film was hailed as a sign of Smith’s creative maturation. The raunchy jokes and pop-culture references from his previous work were still in evidence, but they were supplemented by a sensitive look at modern love and sexual fluidity. Based partly on Smith’s real-life romance with Adams — who is straight — and his observations about his friend (and producer) Scott Mosier, a straight man who was very close to gay filmmaker Guinevere Turner, Chasing Amy was a sincere heteronormative examination of the LGBTQ+ community. The film felt frank, risky and empathetic at a time when mainstream indie films were barely touching stories about gay characters. It seemed groundbreaking.

Fox News Wanted to Play Simpsons ‘Treehouse of Horror’ Episodes in Court to Justify Spreading Misinformation

It’s not uncommon for The Simpsons’ annual “Treehouse of Horror” episodes to get political. Usually, this is due to the show’s frequent proximity to U.S. presidential elections, hence why we once got an episode in which Bob Dole and Bill Clinton get stripped naked and shot into the cold vacuum of space.

While you might not expect these episodes to be taken seriously in a court of law, several “Treehouse of Horror” episodes were nearly part of a billion dollar defamation trial involving allegations of electoral fraud.

TWEET OF THE DAY

ARTICLES | PICTOFACTS | VIDEOS