Essay originally written for ASU MCO 240: Media Issues in American Pop Culture. (Updated for 2025).
Kevin Smith is an inspirational force of nature that many aspiring filmmakers can continue to look up to. His debut film, Clerks (1994), has become an iconic staple of pop culture, birthed from Smith’s own love of pop culture and pop culture references. He sold his cherished comic book collection and maxed out several credit cards to make his dream come to life from screenplay to the big screen. Armed with a budget of $27,575, his actual workplace as the setting, and his very best friends, Smith would begin an incredible journey that would reflect and impact many aspects of pop culture to this day.
Clerks follows the story of Dante Hicks and his best friend Randall Graves through a foul-mouthed, hectic, and adventurous workday together and at each of their respective retail jobs. Randall is the free-spoken, unbothered, and reluctant manager of the second-rate RST Video, preferring to rent his own movies at Big Choice Video. Dante is the overworked and underappreciated, but always complaining employee of Quick Stop Grocery that is manipulated into working on his entire day off. “I’m not even supposed to be here today,” is Dante’s somber mantra for his workday, a line repeated so frequently throughout the film it became a part of pop culture itself.
Smith’s deep love and knowledge of the first Star Wars trilogy is acknowledged within the first thirty minutes of the film. After Dante helps a customer free their hand from a Pringles can, Randall enters the store and states that he is troubled about the ending of Return of the Jedi. He explains to Dante that this recent viewing of the film left him believing that there were many unnecessary casualties upon the destruction of the second Death Star with the death of the workers that were building the property. A customer overhears the conversation and explains a similar story that happened in his own line of work, insisting that any contractor that took the job knew of any risk involved.
This very conversation seemed to inspire moments that were featured in the current number one Star Wars show streaming on Disney Plus, “The Mandalorian, by comparison, reframes the Clerks conversation’s laid-back casualness into menacing taunt. During the opening scene, the Mandalorian and Cara Dune board an Imperial shuttle carrying cloning engineer Dr. Pershing, in hopes of using his ship to board Moff Gideon’s cruiser, banking partially on Pershing’s own established concern for Grogu’s safety.” (CBR).
Another important moment from the film is when Dante briefly closes the Quick Stop so he can play hockey on the roof, justifying that he told boss he originally had the day off to play. His teammates immediately begin raiding the store supply of Gatorade, insisting that they be free since Dante had closed the store for them to play the game. Dante reluctantly relents, and the team ends up taking the entire Gatorade supply. This cinematic theft later reflected a sales boost in the Gatorade sports drink for the actual Quick Stop Grocery Store in Leonardo, New Jersey, and continues to be a destination spot for any Kevin Smith fan. “As one of the Quick Stop owners shared with the filmmaker: ‘The amount of people that come every day, stand here, take pictures, come inside, and buy Gatorade, it’s mind-numbing. They’re from all over the world. And that’s been going on for like years and years and years’.” (Yahoo!).
Following the success of Clerks, Smith built an entire universe from these original characters, known lovingly by his fans as the “View Askewniverse”. The films in this cinematic world as of 2025 are:
Clerks (1994)
Mallrats (1995)
Chasing Amy (1997)
Dogma (1999)
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
Clerks II (2006)
Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie! (2013)
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)
Clerks III (2022)
Using some of the money he earned, he purchased his beloved comic book store (formerly known as Comicology) and transformed it into the wildly popular Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. The store served as a filming location for seven seasons of the AMC show Comic Book Men, which followed Smith and his friends. “The show was featured in a scene in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and plays host to many podcasts under the SmodCo, a multimedia production company owned by Smith, umbrella. Most notably, the shop serves as the frequent host of Tell ‘Em Steve Dave, a weekly podcast hosted by Walt Flanagan, the shop’s manager, Bryan Johnson, both of which are featured on Comic Book Men and Brian Quinn, part of truTV’s Impractical Jokers.” (ComicBook).
Kevin Smith’s career continues to enjoy the success and rewards built from his original, beloved classic. Clerks has become such a unique artifact of pop culture and will continue to inspire independent filmmakers for years to come. The comedic joy that he brings into his projects, combined with his altruistic nature in the industry, will always keep me as a loyal fan of Kevin Smith.
