Since, apparently, I didn't have enough to be angry about today.

[tzikeh]

mtgat posted a segment of An Open Letter From WATCHMEN Screenwriter David Hayter, in which he is asking the fans who saw it on opening weekend to see it again. He is astoundingly blind to the hatefully misogynistic language he is using. Likely, there will be spoilers in the comments (there's a very mild one in the quote).

"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. (I used the bold tag here, but what I really need is an incredulous-sarcasm-motherfucker-do-you-speak-it tag.)

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."

Later, when he tries to apologize, HE MAKES IT WORSE:

"...let me apologize for my metaphor. I am certainly not advocating violence against women of any kind. My sole intent was to reference... the nature of the relationship between Sally and the Comedian... in the spirit of speaking to those who are truly entwined with the heart of the story--[a] horrific act, that ends in a love story.

I sincerely apologize for any offense."

The fact that David Hayter is a vile, loathsome, abhorrent mass of human-shaped excrement doesn't necessarily mean I won't eventually see the movie. My sense is that he does not have a part of the profit-sharing; as he is a screenwriter, my bet is that his salary is paid already. But this is quite the public display of ingrained and unconscious misogyny, and I think that when people say things like this, it should be publicized as much as possible, and that the vilification and condemnation should be spread far and wide.

Comments

[suaine.livejournal.com]

So what he's saying is... that the movie tried to rape us and because it didn't get to penetrate, we should give it another chance to violate our souls? Yeah, wow, I really liked the movie for what it was and now I'm thinking just to spite David Hayter maybe I won't see it again.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Well, he's saying, though *probably* not even realizing he's saying, that, just like Sally Jupiter, we'll come back to our abuser, because we've been wanting to be cracked across the jaw and bent over a pool table.

The apology is even WORSE:

"...let me apologize for my metaphor. I am certainly not advocating violence against women of any kind. My sole intent was to reference... the nature of the relationship between Sally and the Comedian... in the spirit of speaking to those who are truly entwined with the heart of the story--A horrific act, that ends in a love story.

I sincerely apologize for any offense."

[suaine.livejournal.com]

...... in a love story? What the fucking hell?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Well, as far as he's concerned, Comedian and Jupiter are a love story.

As you see.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

Strange that. When I read the book and saw the movie, it didn't look like a love story to me. It looked like trauma, abuse, self-esteem issues, violence and everything that isn't love. Strange how I could have gotten that wrong. I am so glad Hayter is here to educate me.

[isagel.livejournal.com]

But, but, but...

WHAT NOVEL HAS HE BEEN READING?!

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

The one that can only be read with a male gaze.

[iko.livejournal.com]

I got the impression from the comic that Sally, in the end, fell in love (or, at least what she considers love) with Edward. I don't consider it a love story at all and I don't consider *that relationship* as "the heart" of the story.

I sense that Hayter is incapable at communicating the story to anyone outside already established Watchmen people. He is seeing the film and the world from an already established perspective and can't communicate outside of that perspective, speaking with in-context references to the material. He's blind to his language because he's being one of those fanboys who thinks he's clever and not realizing what he's actually saying. Not that it excuses it, but I see that as the reason for the display of stupidity.

[hubbit.livejournal.com]

Like a fry-basket full of hot grease in the face.

He certainly has a turn for inappropriate violent metaphor invoking abusive invasion, hasn't he? I'm thinking his surname seems quite apt at this point.

"A horrific act, that ends in a love story"....Good Flippin' God.