Just Like Sally, or “Why I’m Not Going To Write About The Watchmen”
Posted by Jared | Posted in Dithering | Posted on 13-03-2009
I was going to talk about WATCHMEN, really I was. And now, I just can’t.
I was going to talk about how the film differs from the book, how both relate to my 10 Rules of Quality Super Hero Ficiton, and screenwriter David Hayter’s letter to fans, asking them to see the movie again this weekend. I had heard of Hayter’s letter second and third hand, but I hadn’t read it until I started writing my WATCHMEN post, and now I can’t finish writing it. You can read the whole thing at the link, but here’s the bit that stopped my blood cold:
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.
That’s right. On of the screenwriters of WATCHMEN, in an effort to get more people to see his work, just equated the act of seeing it to rape.
Let’s never talk about this film again, okay?
Okay, I’m going to have to call you out on this one, because you’re…well, wrong.
First things first, Sally Jupiter was not raped in WATCHMEN. Whether you’re talking about the original comic book mini-series or the movie doesn’t matter: The Comedian did not rape Sally Jupiter.
Did he attempt to rape her? Yes, he certainly did. Did he rape her? No.
Does the fact that he was foiled in his attempt make The Comedian a better person? Absolutely not. He was a vile bastard for trying to force himself upon Sally, but he didn’t rape her.
So, right there, Hayter is clearly not equating the act of seeing WATCHMEN to rape.
But David Hayter thinks that something about WATCHMEN will eventually bring you back to it.
Sally Jupiter forgave The Comedian. For whatever reason, she was able to get past the fact that the man had once attempted to have sex with her against her will. Not just enough to forgive him, but to ultimately give him what he once tried to take forcefully.
David Hayter suggests that you may have some issues with WATCHMEN—I highly doubt that the movie has attempted to rape anyone, but if you want to stick with that connection, go ahead—that you may not have liked it at first blush. He also suggests that there is something about the movie that will make you return to it, despite your initial misgivings, just as Sally returned to The Comedian.
So, don’t talk about WATCHMEN; that’s certainly your prerogative. But try to get your similes straight, okay?
Dude, if you want to say “attempted rape,” fine. Moore and Gibbons leave it ambiguous, but in the comic the Comedian’s fly was open and he was on top, so I calls ‘em as I see ‘em. If you wanna believe it didn’t happen, fine. Your reading of the comic.
But check out Hayter’s language. “You say you don’t like it…How it was rough and beautiful. How it went where it wanted to go, and you just hung on.” He has chosen those terms FOR A REASON. Yes, he thinks that something about WATCHMEN will eventually bring you back to it. No argument here. But he has structured that statement in language that could be used to describe a rape scenario. On purpose.
The Comedian is still fumbling with his belt when Hooded Justice comes into the room, so yeah, I see attempted rape. That’s my interpretation. Maybe it’s naive of me, but that’s the way I saw it on my first read and that’s the way I saw it when I looked at it just now (I’m doing a re-read).
You want to see a rape scenario when you read Hayter’s letter? Again, that’s your prerogative; your interpretation. I read it yesterday and I can tell you that I absolutely didn’t see it that way. If I had, I wouldn’t have linked to it myself. The bit you quoted also reads like a trip on a shaky wooden roller coaster at an amusement park. It’s my naivete talking again, I suppose, but the idea that Hayter might have been describing a rape didn’t enter my mind until you brought it up; it really didn’t.
Okay, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being completely naive about what happened in the comic book; I know that initial perception can be difficult to overcome. So I searched for Sally Jupiter on Wikipedia and found this: “She narrowly avoided being raped by The Comedian…”
I understand that Wikipedia isn’t the end-all, be-all information source, and that anything there is subject to change, but I’m apparently not alone in my interpretation of the scene.
I’m not going to scan in the panels, but here’s the progession: Sally’s down on the floor, Comedian’s fumbling with his belt. In the next panel, the camera focuses away from what’s going on, and we only get an off-panel word balloon of a tortured moan. The next panel has the Hooded Justice barging in, and the Comedian with his bare ass hanging out of his yellow pants. Now, you could read this as him still be in the process of lowering his pants (in which case, you have clearly had a far more difficult history with pants than I ever have), but when I see these three panels in sequence, I see a man pulling his pants UP because a huge guy has just caught him having sex against with a woman against her will.
But, I acknowledge your mileage (and pants) may vary. Moore and Gibbons take care to leave it up to the imagination.
As for you not seeing the malice and failed rape-humor in Hayter’s words, good for you. Honestly, I wish I didn’t see it either.
Alan Moore (through the pen of Hollis Mason) refers to the incident as “attempted sexual assault” in an excerpt from Under The Hood. In the movie (which is what Hayter is talking about, after all), The Comedian is definitely interrupted before he’s able to force himself onto Sally (at least, that’s what I saw).
Now, I didn’t see a rape in either the comic or the movie. You did. On that point you’re pretty much clear.
But the problem, really, is Hayter’s use of the line “Just like Sally”, isn’t it? Without that line, is the question of whether he’s making “rape-humor” even raised? I don’t think so. (I don’t even think he’s trying to be funny at all.)
But “…it went where it wanted to go, and you just hung on” isn’t “just like Sally”. She didn’t just hang on, she resisted; she fought back. Nor did she likely find the moment “rough and beautiful”. And again, that’s why I believe Hayter is referring not to the (attempted) rape, but to how people’s feelings about things—even things they found unsettling or downright unpleasant at first blush—can change. It’s not about Sally secretly liking what Eddie tried to do to her, it’s not about rape, it’s about Sally seeing Eddie differently years later, and about the audience seeing Watchmen differently after they’ve had time to think about it.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe your reading is exactly what Hayter intended. If it is, then I completely missed it. And I’m okay with that.
So if I changed the post to “One of the screenwriters of WATCHMEN, in an effort to get more people to see his work, just equated the act of seeing it to attempted rape.” you would no longer have a problem?
I’d still have a problem with it because whether or not the rape actually occurred is just the first thing I felt you got wrong in your assertion.
The second thing is whether Hayter was equating the act of seeing Watchmen to that specific event in the story, which I don’t think he was.
As I read it, Hayter wasn’t equating the act of seeing Watchmen to anything at all; he was equating how the audience will feel about Watchmen in the future to how Sally ultimately felt about Eddie: she did not like him initially, but she eventually found a reason to be with him. Whether what she didn’t like about Eddie is the fact that he attempted to sexually assault her or that she found out he was fond of torturing squirrels in his basement is, to me, irrelevant to Hayter’s assertion. Sally didn’t like Eddie; audiences may not initially have strong positive feelings about Watchmen. Sally, despite her feelings about Eddie, was drawn to him; audiences, despite their feelings about Watchmen, will find themselves drawn back to it.
I guess I’m having trouble understanding the clear outrage you seem to posses, this crusader mentality to convince me that I am somehow delusional in my view of a work of fiction and a piece of prose. I respect you as a person, Kris, but I don’t really need your validation on this issue. It’s good to hear other points of view though, and I appreciate it.
If there is “clear outrage” in anything I’ve written on the topic, then I apologize; I’m clearly not expressing myself well. If I’ve expounded upon my perpective to the point where you feel I have a “crusader mentality”, then again: I apologize.
To the extent “us” in the final sentence of your original post is you and I, your wish is hereby granted and we will never talk about this film again.
You know, regardless as to it being actual rape in that scene or not, the implication is that sally actually enjoyed it, whatever IT was that happened I.E. attempted rape or actual rape. after all, she did have a daughter with the Comedian later on, as if to say, she came back to him later…so I would say that Jared’s assessment of the remarks made by the film maker is accurate. I only wish I had had a chance to post m two cents earlier on the matter.