Do we like Kevin Smith?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent on both tests, with no harmful words found; one old film still draws fair criticism and the record on politics is thin.
Kevin Smith is the Clerks bloke from New Jersey who became a director, actor and one of the early podcasters. These days he is as much a professional fan-whisperer as a filmmaker, forever touring, talking and selling the View Askew universe back to the people who love it.
The best story in recent years is how he got Dogma back to cinemas. Harvey Weinstein kept control of the film for years, and Smith says his offers of up to $1 million were rejected. When a new group bought a batch of Weinstein's films, they wouldn't sell Dogma to him but let him do what he liked with it, and a 2025 theatrical tour followed. Smith's own summary: “I could not get Dogma back.”
Chasing Amy is the one that gets him in trouble with the LGBTQ+ audience. In 2024 he recounted the backlash, including Ellen DeGeneres reportedly walking out of a screening, said the film was “made at a different time” and that he is receptive to criticism from the LGBTQ+ community. In 2017 he apologised after telling a story at an LGBT film festival about Ben Affleck's discomfort with filming a kiss, saying the remark was private: “It was something he said to me.”
The Weinstein chapter shows his better side. After the 2017 New York Times exposé, Smith said he was ashamed of having profited while others were in pain, and pledged to give residuals from his Weinstein-linked films to the non-profit Women in Film. Reports at the time differed on exactly which films were covered, and I found no follow-up confirming the payments, so call it a pledge rather than a proven total.
On the harm check, honestly, there isn't much to chew on. No anti-trans campaigning, no conspiracy rabbit holes, no vaccine or climate nonsense and no Trump-era grievance routine turned up in what I read. On politics, his main recent comment I found was that podcasting lost its soul when it became political, which is about the medium, not any group of people. I couldn't find an on-record statement from him about trans issues, so that gap is real.
The recent thing is a bit of a confession. In January 2026 he said he is no longer the believer who made the first Dogma, telling Fox News Digital “I don't carry that cross.” That, he says, is the lens for the follow-up. A new Jay and Silent Bob film, Store Wars, was reported as set to shoot in 2026, though I found no confirmed cast.