FILM / Clerks, Cruises, and Capitalism / Hannah Cohen
Image © Viewed Askew Productions
In the Jay and Silent Bob Cruise Askew Facebook community chat, I jokingly messaged, “I’m not even supposed to be here today,” having returned to my job the Tuesday after the 3-day cruise vacation. Hours later, I was suddenly terminated from my place of employment. My life was now not far removed from a Kevin Smith movie punchline. Something, something, life imitates art.
A few days before the cruise, I sat on my friend Stevie’s couch as we made beaded bracelets for the cruise's fan-run swag swap. Surrounded by countless craft materials and Domino’s pizza boxes, we were more than prepared for the night’s movie run: Clerks, then Mallrats. My friend had never seen the movies before, and I was excited to introduce the View Askewniverse (for the uninitiated: this is the name of Kevin Smith’s cinematic universe) to my Gen Z bestie. It was my duty to educate Stevie on where the source of timeless phrases such as “snoochie boochies” and “37 dicks” originated from.
Admittedly, it had been years since I had watched either movie. I’m not a die-hard Kevin Smith fan by any means, but when I had the opportunity to go on a cruise where not only Jay and Silent Bob themselves (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) would appear, but a whole cast of View Askewniverse actors, comedians, and musical acts, I caved to the peer pressure and purchased my cruise ticket a month before the inaugural cruise left the Miami port.
I could easily spend 2,000 words talking about how amazing it was to personally meet talented actors like Jason Lee and Brian O’Halloran, discovering new music from bands like Telethon and Rebuilder, or all the late afternoon chats with cool people in the saltwater pool. I took so many goddamn pictures of me and Stevie in our cute ‘fits. I had a great time, I really did. But this essay isn’t about the good things. It’s about capitalism (it’s always about capitalism).
I now understand why people spend lots of money to escape land for weeks at a time. No worries about transportation, about what to do, what and where to eat. Everything is laid out before you. All you need to do is relax and enjoy the wide variety of succulent offerings. Where else on earth would I spend $12 on a quickly mixed piña colada beverage, or $200 on a salt scrub massage, or $60 bucks for a bottle of massage gel? You’re on a boat - you can’t really go far without accidentally swiping your keycard for $100 bucks. Hell, I ended up charging an embarrassing amount of money to my credit card for all the incidentals, duty-free gift shop purchases, souvenirs, a bottle of wine, and God knows what else. But as I basked on the cruise pool deck with a fruity drink and a quirky pirate adventure novel, I couldn’t escape the Millennial guilt gnawing at the back of my mind: I don’t deserve this. I didn’t work hard enough. I’m contributing to the earth’s decay. People are dying thousands of miles away, and I’m here in a bikini taking 200 pictures of a fricken sunset.
I never thought I would be unemployed, but I guess the English major stereotype comes for us all. Each week, I must convince an overworked government department that I am still a card-carrying member of the Poor Person Club™, despite sending out countless job applications into the unforgiving void that is the current job market. I apply, and apply, and apply, only to be ghosted in final round interviews by universities and major companies with more money than I’ll ever see in my lifetime. I have personalized cover letters, stellar references from distinguished people, and yet I worry about somehow missing one checkbox on the weekly claim filing and being accused of unemployment fraud. If it weren’t for my supportive boyfriend paying most of the bills, I would essentially be, as a Kevin Smith character might say, “fucked so hard in the motherfucking ass right now.”
I thought I was doing okay in life. Despite my student loan debt from two private liberal arts colleges, I was able to cobble together a career in fundraising. I had survived toxic work environments and believed myself better for it. For a while, I was happy.
Until I got screwed over. I’ve come to realize that mission-based organizations aren’t exempt from inflated egos and savior complexes that plague virtually every workplace. That February afternoon, I was the one leaving my job in rage-induced tears, hyperventilating in my car as the world shattered around me. Maybe Randal Graves was right. Like Dante Hicks, I built up a delusion thinking that I was better than what I was, and it bit me in the ass. Nobody twisted my arm into working my hardest for a place that ultimately spat me out.
Rewatching Clerks as a burnt-out Millennial, that film pulled no punches about how shitty and surreal any type of employment is. You can’t escape customer service, no matter how nice your job is. As a fundraising professional, my proximity to the wealthy by virtue of my job was, in many ways, akin to being on an all-inclusive cruise vacation: I had a taste of what an easy life could be, but the fantasy ends and I’m back on solid ground, struggling to make ends meet.
As with anything being a product of its time, there are moments in Clerks and other earlier Kevin Smith movies that haven’t aged well. I definitely cringed at certain slurs, plotlines, and questionable sexual content (not to mention Harvey Weinstein’s distribution company tying up Dogma in a state of no-man’s distribution land). Yet, there’s something charming about the crude language, the foul-mouthed humor, and extremely messed-up scenarios Smith’s protagonists find themselves in. I still cackle every time Randal and Dante hurriedly exit the funeral home after Randall knocks over their dead classmate’s casket, or when the topless fortune teller in Mallrats peels off her fake third nipple and eats it. You can’t have high brow art without lowering your eyebrows. It’s refreshing to just laugh at stupid shit sometimes. Life, after all, is a series of stupid shit that happens.
As someone looking down the long barrel of one’s identity tied to late-stage capitalism, it’s unsurprising that a movie made 30 years ago still speaks to me as a recently unemployed and overeducated loser baby. Having now listened to Kevin Smith talk about his inner demons, health struggles, and his approach to art, I’m more than impressed by his balance between gross humor and genuine meditations on the human experience. I’m not sure what that says about our modern Society™ that jobs still suck, especially as we edge towards an AI-littered algorithm and loss of critical thinking skills. As Randal Graves wisely says in Clerks, “Well, if we're so fucking advanced, what are we doing working here?”
One thing is certain: I know I will absolutely be on the second Jay and Silent Bob Cruise Askew vacation in 2026, sipping a fruity drink with my bestie and my boyfriend as we enjoy the live script reading of a future Kevin Smith movie, laughing and crying our asses off.
Hannah Cohen received her MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Hannah is the author of two poetry chapbooks from Glass Poetry Press: YEAR OF THE SCAPEGOAT (2022) and BAD ANATOMY (2018). Hannah is one of the founding editors of the online literary journal Cotton Xenomorph. Publications include the University of Arizona's Poetry Center blog 1508, Michigan Quarterly Review, Booth, Hey Alma, Pidgeonholes, Qu Lit Mag, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cherry Tree, Drunk Monkeys, and others. She was a Best of the Net 2018 finalist and a Pushcart Prize nominee.