The world changes, society changes, views change and evolve, and standards are different.

While the '90s were clearly a more enlightened than the eighties, a decade that produced Porky’s for goodness sake, or the '70s, where the list would be hundreds of pages long, it doesn’t mean the problematic movies from the '90s get a pass either. It’s all very frustrating especially coming from someone who should be more enlightened. Kevin Smith, who wrote and directed Chasing Amy, did not do any of this maliciously and he tried in some ways to use this story as a way explore and accept sex and sexuality, but some moments come across as the writer mansplaining how lesbianism works… to lesbians. It’s all treated as though everything Alyssa has done in the past is wrong and Holden, played by Ben Affleck, is there to be her knight in shining armor, to save her from herself. But that isn’t the end of it, there is also an explicit scene when Alyssa has her sexual past used against her when she is slut-shamed for a threesome she had in high school. The entire premise of the movie is that a lesbian would 'go' straight if she just met the right man. Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy has one fundamental, incredibly insulting flaw. As a society we haven’t evolved past football as a sport, but we have evolved past celebrating serious brain injuries caused by the most brutal tackles. CTE, which is thought to be caused by concussions, is a serious illness that has caused tremendous problems for former players and their families. Watching a football player get knocked out with a brutal tackle is no longer something that a huge group of people – including some football fans – want to celebrate anymore. Since 1996 when Jerry Maguire came out, sports in general and football in particular have been heavily re-examined by doctors, scientists, and society.

What makes Jerry Maguire uncomfortable today is the final scene in the movie, when Cuba Gooding, Jr’s character Rod Tidwell catches the game-winning pass in the end zone as he gets knocked unconscious by a vicious hit, only to jump up and celebrate like nothing went wrong. Does he use his position of authority at some point to coerce her into a compromising decision? Nope, nothing like that. Right now you are scrolling through that mental rolodex trying to remember where Tom Cruise treats Renee Zellweger poorly in Jerry Maguire.

Tom and jerry movies 1990s