Dear WETA-TV (Channel 26),
I recognize that not all classic movies are exactly politically correct decades after they were made, and I understand that some fantastic elements go into making a thriller, but seriously, y'all picked one of the too-many "transgender person as psycho-killer" movies out there, Dressed to Kill to show as your Saturday-night movie (and I presume Sunday-afternoon repeat) the night before the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, when our community mourns the many transgender victims of violence? You picked a trans-person-as-monster thriller to show tonight?
At the risk of being so blunt as to invite the "tone argument"[1], that was a real dick move.
Psycho-killer trans people exist mainly, as far as I can tell, in movies like this one. Transgender murder victims on the other hand, we have far too many of. Encouraging yet more misunderstanding of us through monstrous caricature like this, a movie based on inaccurate portrayal of transsexualism, is enough of a problem to begin with (and Wikipedia tells me this movie caught flack from the LTGB community when it came out, so it's not even a case of "society moved on and left this movie behind"). Doing it tonight? That feels like a slap in the face.
You owe your viewership an apology for this choice, and should pick something else to show in the 11:30 - 13:00 time slot tomorrow.
Seriously, this was not cool.
Sincerely,
dGlenn
[In fact, the only reason I'd tuned in tonight was because zap2it.com had misdentified tonight's movie as the 1946 Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes movie with the same title. I watched the beginning anyhow because hey, the television was already on, but I tuned out (and sent a message similar to this entry via WETA's web site) once I got to the post-murder scene with the answering machine message and realized just what sort of movie it was going to be.]
[1] And to anyone who does take the bait and criticize my tone for using the phrase "dick move" or not being sufficiently obsequious or giving the station the benefit of the doubt with regard to this being an innocent mistake, fuck you. The 'tone argument' has been concluseively debunked (it turns out there is no tone sufficiently gentle to not trigger the tone argument ... and yeah, I really do think this was a mistake, not a deliberate slap in the face of the community, but I'm not willing to excuse that mistake. I mean, seriously, the night before TDoR??