Supermeow!

Dear Mr. Hayter:

While I knew you were a scriptwriter, I have to say that I really became interested in your existence as a fan of Solid Snake. Like a lot of ladies out there, that is a voice that you’ll find some ladies (and perhaps some of the gents) rather like. Rather like a lot, in fact. And maybe, you know, sort of wish they knew someone whose regular speaking voice was like that. Maybe, tee hee, even nursing a goofy nerd-crush on your person. Anyhow, I enjoyed the X-Men movies you co-wrote, and I really enjoyed the Watchmen movie. I even watched Guyver: Dark Hero when it was on HBO a few months ago and you know, it wasn’t bad.

I found your open letter to the fans via a friend’s Livejournal today and read said letter. The reason she’d written about it was because she was saying that she wasn’t going to see the movie and give any money to “that creep.” I followed the link, and I will admit that I felt a little flutter in my chest when I saw your name. Confused, I read the letter. Twice, actually, because the first time around I couldn’t figure out what would merit the author being called a creep. Watchmen is something that everyone involved in the production should be extremely proud about. It is a pretty love letter to the source material, it’s visually exciting, it’s everything I come to expect from an action film and more. Really. It’s quite an achievement in cinema and I am not being sarcastic when I say that. I felt your letter was very sincere.

However, it gets tricky when the forces of allegory are deployed:

All this time, you’ve been waiting for a director who was going to hit you in the face with this story. To just crack you in the jaw, and then bend you over the pool table with this story. With its utterly raw view of the darkest sides of human nature, expressed through its masks of action and beauty and twisted good intentions. Like a fry-basket full of hot grease in the face. Like the Comedian on the Grassy Knoll. I know, I know…

You say you don’t like it. You say you’ve got issues. I get it.

And yet… You’ll be thinking about this film, down the road. It’ll nag at you. How it was rough and beautiful. How it went where it wanted to go, and you just hung on. How it was thoughtful and hateful and bleak and hilarious. And for Jackie Earle Haley.

Trust me. You’ll come back, eventually. Just like Sally.

Might as well make it count for something.

I am wont to believe you just made a really, really bad rhetorical misstep there because you, a dad and husband, surely aren’t meaning to suggest that women want to go back for more rape. I don’t believe that at all in the context of the rest of the letter.

Now, you seem like a fun guy based on the couple of interactions with you I’ve had via your YouTube account. Thanks again for watching those crappy videos of my parents’ cat! While you haven’t responded to all of the comments I will leave and questions I’ll ask (SIGH), I appreciate that you even bother talking to the people who enjoy your work. What’s more, I think you enjoy talking to those very people. I heard that you were late to your panels at AX because you wanted more face time with the fans who were waiting in line for your autograph. I heard you’d record lines for voice mail, sign stuff, take photos, listen to stories, and were really indulgent with your fans. That’s pretty awesome. No, you definitely seem like a good guy. I will even cop to having had a very nerdy and embarassing daydream about playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl with you (I won). I mean, you’re a nerd like the rest of us nerds. You talk about video games and comics and whatnot. Why the hell would you, a seemingly bright and witty guy, end what was otherwise a pretty compelling letter with a reference to your desire to come back around to this film something like going back to the person who once raped you?

Before I keep going, I think it’s important to point out that Watchmen is a work of fiction. It’s important to point that out because a real guy making a real statement about pretend people ends up blurring lines pretty badly. I know this because I am reading Things on the Internet from my friends, some of them survivors of sexual assault, are getting extremely upset and just that one statement is triggering all holy hell and get-go. I doubt that you honestly meant that people love getting raped so much that they’re eager to go back to the person who raped them for more, which is what ole’ Sally Jupiter did. I think that’s what you were thinking of, you were thinking about Sally. Not the women who read that letter, zeroed in on the comment about Sally, and were immediately put off. Without the context of the other things I’ve seen as a result of being a geeky fangirl, I can see how it’s real easy to peg you as a creep because of that letter. I know because I’ve been pegged as a creep on several ocasions because of my sense of humor and style of rhetoric. We smell our own. It’s the reason I am able to write this letter so calmly. I’d like to think that the few little windows you’ve opened up to your fanboys and fangirls shows a guy with a scathing sense of humor, but certainly not a creep, scumbag, jerk, or any of the other names people have given you in the past few hours.

Getting to  the point, I’d like to ask a favor on behalf of myself and the people like me who like to be reassured even when they’re about 99% sure that they know what’s going on.

Please explain what that second-to-last line in your open letter to fans was really about.

As previously stated, I believe that your letter and all expressed within was very sincere. I’d like to think that I got the point. I was hoping to go see the film again this weekend even without provocation. I’d still like to go. But please, make this right.

— Mara “Ladybot” K.