The nineties were a weird time for us old white folks. Political correctness overtook the nation and all of our best jokes had to be retired. So many groups became off limits..foreigners, homos, women, atheists, vegetarians…the list goes on and on. But it was a list we had to learn if we still wanted a job. In an effort to understand this sensitive new world, I made Chasing Amy. I’m still not sure if I got it right. My kids tell me the movie is a blatant misinterpretation, but they’re all a bunch of retarded homo Mexicans.
So there are these two gay guys. They spend all day making comic books together because they are too gay to ever get hired by an actual employer. The boring one is called Holden because he’s really smart and sensitive and he likes to catch rye. The funny one is called Banky because his mother knew he’d never ever stop acting like a baby. One night they go out with their gay black friend, who alternates between militant and lispy depending on how much guilt he can elicit, and he introduces them to a gay girl named Amy. She’s only gay because no man can survive the sound of her voice. The further away from being a man you are, the more you can tolerate her talking. Because of this, she can’t even be with the actual Neil Young-looking dikes that might validate her gayness. Instead she has to muff-dive on girls who’s liberal use of eyeshadow is the only thing keeping them out of Playboy magazine.
Holden and Amy hit it off during a conversation about how mistreated Native Americans have been throughout American History. He’s amazed that he actually likes a girl, while she is shocked that she finally met a man who’s so gay he can survive hearing her voice. Banky is upset because he thought he had Holden all to himself. He begins to secretly investigate her past because he doesn’t think she’s as gay as she says, and also because her weird smile makes him suspicious that she may be in cahoots with The Joker.
What he finds out is that Amy will have sex with any willing partner on Earth. She’s not straight, she’s not gay, she’s BOTH. This is a new, sickening concept for him. He throws up and runs home to tell Holden. Shocked and disgusted, they throw up together like they used to do in their bulimic days. This takes their love to new heights.
Amy walks into a living room filled with puke and condoms and puts two and two together. She solves this new problem by yelling at Banky until an eardrum explodes, and he runs away screaming. As a punishment for Holden, she makes him start recycling.
This sets off a series of petty battles between Banky, who buys earmuffs, and Amy, who buys a megaphone. Holden spends this portion of the movie on the sidelines trying to figure out if having sex with a lesbian means he’s still gay. Amy doesn’t have this problem because she figures Holden is more of a women than anyone she’s ever met. Her lesbians friends refuse to believe this, so Amy shows them a videotape of Holden crying during sex and asking her to slow down and be more gentle. After that, they ALL have the hots for him.
Also, Holden still has trouble with the concept of Amy’s bisexuality. He has her explain it to him five or six times, but he just doesn’t get it. Finally, she drops the bomb: “You had sex with Banky, you had sex with me. YOU’RE a bisexual!” In horror, Holden jumps out his window, but is caught by Banky. Recoiling from his old lover, he tries to jump in front of a truck but the truck is being driven by his gay black friend, who stops just in time and calls Holden a honky. Still determined to off himself, Holden grabs a crowbar and hits himself in the head with it. But the crowbar turns out to be one of Amy’s dildos and the soft silicone doesn’t hurt at all. Frustrated beyond all sense, he screams to the sky “EVERYONE IS GAY BUT ME!” and passes out.
When he wakes up, things are very different. Banky and Amy have finally read the writing on the wall and hooked up with each other. “You should have a threesome with us,” Banky says, talking louder than he needs to because his ears are stuffed with caulk. “Bi is the new gay.” Holden refuses to accept this, so they start calling him a homophobic asshole. He thinks they’re kidding, but when he walks outside, he finds a world unfamiliar to him. Threesome couples are walking down the streets holding hands and pushing baby carriages. They’re all smiling, completely unaware of how wrong their chosen lifestyle is. He starts running into them, trying to break them up, telling them to be gay or straight, anything but BOTH! They all look at him in disgust. “HOMOPHOBE!” they call him. Pointing and chanting the evil word, they surround him in a circle of confusing sexual roles.
Before they point at him to death, he is rescued by two strangers. There’s a tubby one and a skinny one. They take him to a diner and the skinny one does lots of talking while the tubby one makes his eyes go wide every five or ten seconds. “We tryin to save yo ass, fling-flang-skaboosh! Bi-sex is right sex cause bi-sex is mo’ sex, ning-nang-nongoosh!” He elbows the tubby guy. “Shit! Look at him, Silent Wide-eye. Motherfucker still don’t get it. Banana-bana-fo-fanna.”
So Silent Wide-eye takes over. “I used to have a girlfriend named Chasing Amy and she…” blah blah blah. He tells this long story that I just re-watched and STILL can’t remember. All I know is it ends with him holding up his fist and saying the original title of the film: “Rock the Vote!”
Whatever it was he said, it has a real effect on Holden. He runs home to tell Banky and Amy that he finally understands bisexuality. “And I want in!” They look at him, their eyes filled with disappointed tears. “Holden,” Amy dramatically says. “We’re not going to be your whore.”
Holden is shocked and confused. “But that’s what you wanted!”
“Yeah, when it was our idea,” yells Banky. “Now that you want to do it, it’s actually kind of offensive. And abusive. And harassive.”
So Holden walks away. Not just from Banky and Amy, but from everyone and everything he ever cared about. As he lives his life, every threesome he sees reminds him of what could have been if only he’d been more culturally sensitive. Years later, he hears that Banky and Amy are having twins. The boy will be named Susan, and the girl will be named Frank. At one point he hears that no one is having threesomes anymore because the lack of symmetry inevitably leads to someone being shortchanged. Holden allows himself a happy moment, optimistic that the sexual world will return to normal. But the world moves on to foursomes instead.
Eventually, Earth cracks down the middle and breaks under the weight of all that sin. Holden is one of the twenty-five people allowed into heaven. It only takes about two weeks before they’re all humping each other in a massive twenty-foursome. Holden is not invited. Symmetry.