Sav Rodgers dishes on ‘Chasing Chasing Amy,’ superhero rom-coms & his drag king dreams
so much that you built your entire personality around it?Then chances are you’ll relate deeply to filmmaker Sav Rodgers’ thought-provoking documentary, Chasing Chasing Amy.As the title might suggest, the object of Rodgers’ pre-pubescent cinematic obsession was Chasing Amy, the 1997 Kevin Smith film he would go on to watch hundreds of times.
You know, the one where a comic book artist (Ben Affleck) meets a lesbian writer (Joey Lauren Adams) and is convinced he can turn her straight?Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.Though a groundbreaking moment for LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream movies, Chasing Amy has received its fair share of criticisms over the years for leaning into unhealthy stereotypes and has been frequently labeled “problematic.” But that didn’t matter to a young Rodgers, who was grappling with his understanding of his own gender and sexuality at the time—he just saw a movie that dared to talk about queerness in a way few others could.As Rodgers grew up, he began to understand why Kevin Smith’s film was so controversial, but that didn’t change what it meant to him.
So, one day he picked up a camera and began to make a movie of his own, one that would unpack Chasing Amy‘s thorny legacy within the queer canon.Six years in the making, Chasing Chasing Amy is both a deep dive into the ’97 film’s complicated significance for queer audiences and a chronicling of Rodgers’ own journey coming out as a trans man.
You literally watch him grow up and step into his power on screen, all while he explores what his favorite movie has meant to thousands of others—and to the people who made it.
