Do we like them?

Do we like Kevin Smith?

Our score: 8 out of 10. No harmful words or company found, a real good deed on record, and one old film he's openly wrestled with.

Kevin Smith is the New Jersey filmmaker behind Clerks, Chasing Amy and Dogma, and he's basically a patron saint of the 90s indie scene. He's also a bloke who talks about himself for a living, so there's plenty on the record. Dogma, he told Fox News, was tied up in his childhood faith and his dad.

The big mark against him in queer circles is Chasing Amy. Critics have long argued it plays into the idea that queer women can be won over by the right man. Smith said it was made at a different time and that he can't exactly apologise for lacking education on the subject. He said it was partly a labour of love for his gay brother, who never saw himself on screen.

In 2017 he told a queer film festival an old story about Ben Affleck and the gay kiss in Chasing Amy. It went around as though Affleck had said it recently. Smith apologised on Facebook Live and said Affleck doesn't feel that way today, and that the comment had been made privately to him. It was a clumsy moment and he fronted up quickly.

After the allegations about Harvey Weinstein broke in 2017, Smith said Weinstein had financed the first 14 years of his career and that it made him feel ashamed. He then vowed to give all future residuals from his Weinstein-produced films to Women in Film. He also said he'd give $2,000 a month to the group for life. That's a real act with his own money, not just a statement.

On the harm side, I found nothing hateful from him and no run of dodgy collaborators. The one political thing he's said lately is a rant against political podcasting. He told Fox News he hates it, and that some podcasters figured out they could turn people against each other politically. He's said little I could find on Trump, vaccines or climate, so that's a gap rather than a pass on those.

Lately he's working on a Dogma sequel, and he told Fox that his outlook has changed since the original. He said returning to it gives him a second bite of the apple. There's nothing recent that's messy: no lawsuits against him, no allegations about how he treats people. I couldn't find any, but this was a lighter record than for some of the big names.