Kevin Smith and the View Askewniverse

Kevin Smith is one of my favorite screenwriters/directors. His films always skim the greasy layer of hypocrisy in the modern American social hierarchy. With his first film Clerks he introduced the world to what would eventually be called the View Askewniverse, named after his production company "View Askew Productions." This fictional universe is located among the towns of Leonardo, Highlands, and Red Bank all located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Smith has filmed 6 feature films that take place in the View Askewniverse and these are the films in chronological order; Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Clerks II. Most of these films received great reviews (Dogma faced controversy because of its satirical view on Catholicism) other than that though all of these films have been hysterical. They all focus on the "slackers" of the world, with the clerks Dante and Randal, the stoners and drug dealers Jay and Silent Bob, and the ability to do just enough to scrape through. What people fail to realize about Kevin Smith and his films though, is even though they are funny, they are still an art form and the best art draws you into its own world, so Kevin Smith created his own world.