Antiheroine
Written by: Alycia Ripley
This won't be easy to read. Not because it's complicated, but possibly strange. Uncomfortable. I'm not who most people want to root for. Rooting for the antihero(ine) is different than rooting for an underdog. Underdogs are the most adorable versions of most people. Antiheroines are complicated because you don't relate to us. We're an Other. In movie terms, Luke Skywalker is the underdog while Han Solo is an antihero. I fought against being one. But this Halloween, that changed. It was a foggy night. My mother was making cookies. My cat was wore a Silence of the Lambs t-shirt. But neither were with me when my mask dropped. He was. And that's where the story gets funny or strange, depending on perspective. I create for a living—books, films. I'm a professional storyteller. The minds of creative people work differently than most. Many children have imaginary friends but creative people, writers in particular, keep them around forever. Age means nothing; imaginary friends just keep on keeping on, being of service, loyal to the end.
I must have been around ten or eleven years old when I looked up at the chain link fence separating my yard from the next and there he was, staring at me. You know him as Michael Myers, killer of teenagers, mechanics, babysitters, the ghostly, slow-moving, stalker of Laurie Strode in Halloween, and menace to all of Haddonfield in the new sequel trilogy. My version of him, the one who stood there that day, is different. He doesn't hurt anyone. He actually saved my life. He notices the ways I let myself down and teaches me to be more like him. I deal badly with emotional pain. I've broken so many bones and torn various ligaments, fell down ravines, bled from the head, nose, mouth, etc. But the pain when someone hurts me, when a situation brings loss or ache, sinks me into either panic or numbness and it can be tough to wrestle away from. Michael brings me back. He stands next to me at windows, our profiles eclipsing each other's like moons. His white, rubbery mask and black eyeholes stare at me. Game recognizes game. Mirrors reflect. He carries much of my weight, many of my problems, all my sadness. Impressive feat for an imaginary man.
I knew he wasn't real but I saw him. I heard his footsteps. I feel his hand sometimes edge against mine. He's the bad man who keeps the other bad men from the door. The Michael who walks with me and instructs the most effective ways to behave, isn't literally there. He is because I believe in him. He's the me that makes people uncomfortable. Psychologists would argue he's my shadow self, the strong, sinister, non-people pleasing part of me, and his faceless mask is how I see myself. I am a terrifically lonely person. It doesn't matter what you see in photos. I've always had this void, a lonely hole in my heart, filled only when I like being with someone, when I feel seen, when my work connects with an audience. Michael chose me. This version of a fictional character that grew from the hole in my heart and grew tall and real and strong, chose to protect and push me forward. We both wore masks. You can't see mine, the same way you can't see him standing next to me. Authenticity is as much about putting a mask on as taking one off. I'm not sure who my Michael is, a guardian angel or my intuition looking for assurance but he was exactly what I needed from back then...to this past Halloween when I said goodbye and took down my mask, not for all of you, but for me.
Filmmaking has been my goal since I was five years old. When I say goal, I don't mean the way people say catching a certain-sized fish is a goal, or retiring with a specific nest egg, or spending New Year's in Paris. I first expressed this goal around the time of seeing E.T twelve times in the theater. I knew it was the job I was meant to have. The awareness was there, same way a protective version of Michael Myers from Halloween was there, standing in my room, walking through hallways, standing by my bed. He's deliberate, consistent, and certain. He doesn't fritter away energy. There isn't time. He's on a schedule. We're on a schedule. Our non-verbal pep talk happens each morning before I brush my teeth. Two halves of a coin, walking a tightrope. There's the nice person who speaks well, enjoys people, and tries to make them happy. Who things don't often work out for but still believes everything will work out in the end. And then the other angry part who doesn't understand why she's so unsuccessful in life. Who knows the only people who connect with her are those who follow her work and that's why she works so hard to give the best of her. The nice girl plus the monster equals...an antiheroine. Those two things living beneath my skin. The nice girl mask and the monster living below its surface.
We love Halloween, he and I. It's the day grownups struggle to take their masks down and become someone less put-upon, less neurotic. We laugh because our masks are only on to make you more comfortable. On Halloween, we fit in because you don't know what you're supposed to be looking for. You expect me to show up a certain way. Underneath his mask is less scary, underneath mine, much more so. It's what's underneath that lets me do this for a living and create the images, words, and people that bring a project come alive. I'm not sure what's more the 'It,' my mask, or the me underneath. You have stability. I have recognition. Those black eyeholes of the Michael that lives and walks with me, stress that my 'It' is unchangeable. I can try to eliminate it, but it only grows more pronounced.
Michael was looking out my patio doors. I grabbed his arm and led him outside.
'Come on,' I said, as he closed the door behind us. It was a mild night with lots of fog and scattered leaves. Sneakers on, hood up, we began down the steep driveway,
They claim he doesn't speak but this version does. He sometimes responds in one word answers but mostly utters the phrase.“Give it back.” It took until this Halloween to understand what he meant. Just as how Michael is supposedly a 6 year old boy with the strength of a man and the mind of an animal, I'm an adult with the spirit of a child and the soul of a monster who feels frustration in every step forward, two steps back.
Where before there was a plan and a path, suddenly, and out of nowhere, I began running out of time and found myself nowhere near where I'd hoped to be. Panic can push you into every direction. It's a game you only win through strategic behavior. Michael walks with long strides but slowly, deliberately. He taught me to never run somewhere to which you only needed to walk. My life was a curved, dotted line of trying to make the right decisions, and becoming what I wanted while juggling everyone else's balls and expectations in the air. (My tombstone should read, 'Still juggling your balls and expectations.') Tricky times called for crazy measures and imaginary friends.
We walked through my neighborhood, a twisty suburban road, the air punctuated with yelling and car engines. My friends elsewhere were probably wrapping up trick or treating, as evidenced by the photos they'd sent me. Does anyone really want to see 56,000 photos of kids dressed up, standing in bad lighting? No, but looking through them all felt like the supportive thing to do regardless of how it triggered me into the middle of the street on Halloween night, walking with an imaginary man in a rubber mask. There was the occasional group of middle schoolers shoving each other, making stupid jokes. A few girls in their early teens wearing short skirts, cowboy boots and hats, jackets dangling from bare shoulders. Various adults dressed in cow costumes and drinking White Claws. I stopped and asked what time the festivities went to and one father answered, “For as long as I can take it until I can throw them in bed, and party next door.” I continued on, hands in pockets, like a ghost meandering through town. I noticed the weather, the air, the kids' movements, the ways I'd describe or film them. Michael breathed heavy in his mask as we made our way around the lake. He'd look threateningly at people and I'd swear some saw him and moved out of our way.
The topic of children is a difficult one, accompanied by a cacophony of blame, confusion, and abstract thinking. Of believing I had enough time. But time was never on my side. That and luck. (A second tombstone option for me. 'Unlucky and out of time.') I felt like a one trick pony. I was adept at communicative and creative avenues: writing, storytelling, acting, visuals, but hopeless at much else. I was independent minded but each time I worked toward a goal, the steps to make it happen kept exploding in number, like in films with that weird visual effect where the person is walking but the end of the hall keeps getting farther away. I felt the walls closing in, constantly. My late twenties and early thirties were marked by despair. I'd come back from California because, although I made some work happen, I also stepped off the plane to move there the day of the biggest writers' strike since the 70s. To say I was unlucky would be missing the point. Things felt like a bad joke. I wanted to do right by everyone and needed to achieve certain things first or else I'd never earn that traction again. You can't travel with kids as much as I'd need to in this industry. I never had enough money. For years, I had next to no money, to be honest, and no one I knew was up for co-parenting. There was no way around the fact I couldn't write and direct in my thirties and forties while providing the consistency young children need. At this age you either prepare kids to become great or become great yourself. And I'd put enough energy into overgiving and nurturing. It was my time, now. He reminded me of that with a few words and a single glance. Again, not bad for an imaginary man. Sometimes I felt like an alien in my hometown. Everyone has children. Many seem miserable. It's painful that no one chose me to marry or have a family with but then again, I didn't realize personal lives don't just happen— there was work that went into manifesting them into families. In between my very limited financial status and moving from place to place for work, potential family life didn't rank as the task I should be focusing on. And time passed.
All I wanted was to make films, collaborate with creative people, and make a decent income. I do love helping children become their best selves. I did want to carry our family genetics forward. But my entire first half of life was for other people: teachers, schools, audiences, family, friends. I wanted my last half to mean something and to capitalize on my promise. I wanted to achieve. And I can't do all of that and begin motherhood. Not now, not at this age. I have limited family and even more limiting circumstances. I'm grateful, though, for the female acquaintances who love to tell unmarried girls my age, “Babies bring so much joy.” Thanks for reading the room. Always appreciated.
I walk through the Halloween evening with Michael at my side. Someone once said about him, he kills, he creeps, he goes home. Home is both a comfort and a terror. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching everyone through a window and they're together, doing something fun. Michael and I are both drawn to windows. People ask what he's looking at, in his movie, when he stands at sister Judith's window. Some say he's looking at the town. Others say he's staring at himself. I think he's looking toward those who let him down, just waiting to get back to his hometown to repeat the familiar, like a record that can't escape its groove. I am that vinyl record. I get stuck in all the grooves, never making it to the end of the album. Once stuck, I look to my work b/c writing and filmmaking take that discomfort away. If I can affect you, scare you, or make you laugh, I can evade what hurts me and ignore the types of success I don't have and concentrate instead on what I do. I feel less alone because Michael understands. His simplicity creates comfort. Even without talking, he reminds me to breathe, stay on track, ignore what doesn't matter. It's the only way I'll push past pain, loss, everything I never was or became along the way.
As we neared the end of our walk, a friend spotted me and waved. We walked to her front porch, one loaded with parents drinking wine and attempting to identify children running by in the dark. I made conversation, during which I answered 'No,' to the question 'Do you have kids?' at least six times. As they complained about saggy boobs, stretch marks, or cellulite that couldn't work with Halloween costumes, I thought, well, I don't have those so at least that's a positive, and then saw Michael standing to their right, eyes scanning the street, posture unmovable as a brick wall. I knew he felt the contrast between these people in reality and their social media presentations. I thought, who exactly's wearing the mask? Us or them? I said my goodbyes and thank yous and joined Michael in front of the porch.
As we headed toward home, one of P's friend's shouted, “You aren't walking off alone into the darkness on Halloween, are you?”
P answered, “I told her, you always do that.” I smiled, waved, and walked off with Michael. We do best in the shadows, he and I.
How exactly did he save me? By providing actionable instruction. Preaching economy of movement. Slow, steady, specific, determined, a head tilt rather than a twist around. Do as little as possible in order to get it done. Don't waste energy on the unworthy or ridiculous. Someone calls my name? No whipping around like a dog on a leash, only a diagonal head tilt to register the voice. Never run somewhere to which you could simply walk. Michael never runs. He walks and man, does he get there. He can even disappear if you take your eyes off him for one second. He taught me that no matter how quickly my friends found success, I'll arrive exactly where I should be at the time I'm supposed to get there. Underdogs are those you see yourself in, therefore you root for them to win. An antihero is more dangerous—too left of center, unsettling, perhaps. Intrinsically good but unafraid to be complicated or different. You may like us but you aren't like us. Ours can be a weirdly heavy load to carry. We're full of contradictions. You never know what we'll do but then again, we don't always know what we're about to do. We're stuck in a groove until it's finished or when pushed outside of it. We repeat patterns and actions, sometimes to our detriment, the anger building. My Michael wants me clear-minded and calm. I needed him throughout my life and he protects me, especially this Halloween when I was most angry, most confused, most disappointed, most lost.
Misplaced expectations and sacrifices flash through my mind as we avoid neighborhood piles of crunchy leaves. Kids don't always grow up to be close with their parents and siblings. It isn't a given these kids running around the lake will be there for their families. I watch women compromise so much and don't get me wrong, I love children. I love when my nephew visits. But they're a sacrifice I was terrified to make. I wasn't ready to risk all I'd worked for and children necessitate certain things happening with a specific window of time. I knew I couldn't give up that window and that's how I came to be walking in the dark with Michael beside me, reminding me there's nothing wrong with being different, with reaching toward heavy goals. And if I can't have the spouses and/or kids, then maybe I'll have people who love what I do and let it touch their lives like so many movies have touched mine. Where people have often let me down, movies never have. Michael sees what I'm doing right, what could be improved, and demands I fix what's holding me back, demands I let go of what you blame me for not having and to stop making excuses for how I feel. He taught me to walk taller, take up space, not worry about what people think. He's a grown man in a mask walking the streets who couldn't care less what anyone has to say. He taught me that the more you speak, the more you give away. Friends and associates are also like a vinyl record. There's those you can be vulnerable with, Side A. Those with whom you can't make up Side B. When I'm with Side A, Michael just watches out the window. With Side B, he stands close, black eyeholes reminding me that people can't ruin what they don't know. Halloween was a turning point in realizing I can do anything...but not everything. Nobody can. I hoped to have as few limitations as possible, to not allow baggage to hold me back. And so I made none. And sometimes not having baggage does make me feel alienated, strange, or unlike others. But that's just the mask talking. The monster knows my lack of baggage can help me soar. If I'm going to be alone, then I need to win, just once. I want people to be able to say, she did it.
In his movie, he caused no trouble at the sanitarium. He stared out the windows for years and took his chance, breaking out during the storm and the bus crash. I'm more conscious of time passing than my fictional brother. When I feel my mind frittering, he reminds me that I need to stay alert for when someone passes me the ball. If I'm worrying about what you're doing, what I don't have, I'm not concentrating. I'm not focused. I need to be ready for when opportunity arises and I won't be if I'm trying to be a third-rate version of those I don't understand. My mask is thinning. Give it back, he says.
Fearlessness and defiance make an antihero both attractive and difficult to get behind. In the 2021 movie scene when he walks out of that burning building toward the firefighters, there isn't even a thought that he can't handle them. There's isn't a care toward what they're planning because he knows he'll win. It's that unfailing belief, refusal to run, that lack of fear. He focuses on strengths: consistency, observance, acceptance of what is. It's that acceptance I struggle with and he tells me, Give back the uncertainty. Give it back.
You relate to an underdog because that person feels like you. Within the the antihero(ine) there's a monster who threatens comfortability. A hard worker but less familiar, a little dangerous. Less digestable, less wholesome. Antiheroines are expected to be everything at once, and that's impossible because we're outliers. We may have talents others don't and can do things others can't, but you often get behind us simply due to fear. That's why horror fans wear t-shirts with Michael's face. If they feel like they're on his team, there's no reason to fear him. If we commodify the monster, stick it into boxes we understand, all is well. If he or she is similar to us, we support. But if not, if he/she refuses the box, then you create narratives, make assumptions, push them away.
I've tried to be like everyone else. I tried to duplicate my friends' lives in every city, at every turn. The only thing that ever worked for me was the work. What stayed with me was Michael, always, since I was young. I'm an “It” who creates, who entertains, but when all is said and done, when I've entertained you with words and images, you forget that my mask covers up why I do this at all. You forget me.
I listen to peoples' life complaints and try to help. Antiheroes are supposed to save the day while cracking a joke, looking away from what pains them. There's something just uncertain enough about us that you'll ignore or deflect our possibilities. You'll assume you know all about what I do for work and answer my sentences, compartmentalizing me away. It makes me angry, quiet, and I adjust my mask again, breathing heavily from within. Michael is right by me, right by you, at these very times. Focus, he tells me. Give it back.
Maybe I'll always exist in the recesses of your minds. Maybe my characters will, too. They're born from my mind, and while that may not give me sags or stretch marks, it does take a toll. Michael and I both watch children with interest. He watches, intrigued, probably wishing he could go back in time because they are what he really is, underneath. And I too feel closer to where they are in life, to their potential. I was told not long ago by a child, “You're not a kid but you're not a grownup.” I was so interested to know how he knew, why my mask didn't deter him. I'd believed I'd have children just like anyone else, but in the abstract. I knew I could be a parent or assumed I could. That poor girl. A naive thinker with zero self awareness. No one was interested, timing wasn't good, neither was money. I was told a family wouldn't happen until certain ducks were in order but those ducks never showed up in my pond. I thought I'd have time, that it would just happen. But in the long run, it wasn't meant to.
In my junior year of college I learned about psychoanalysis and the shadow self. This resonated. It was also the first time I saw Halloween (1978) and I was shocked by how seen I felt when looking at MM. I have few practical skills. I'm a strong communicator and filmmaker. I am either too much or too little depending on the given circumstance. It is not difficult for me to feel a part of nothing. It's easy for me to feel alone.
When I'd stand at my window, I'd see not my driveway but the inside of a party, everyone I know having the best time and my standing outside in the cold without a password or invitation. I was angry at how I allowed life to happen to me versus my mowing it down. Michael walked beside me, his breathing vibrating the rubbery mask, and wanting my triggers to push me toward the right path and ignore what's not meant for me. To fill my future with what I'm here to do. To make something big. To be big. His rough hand brushed against mine, reminding me, We're in control of what we need to do.
I know a few things for sure. Creating for a living stems from something I was born with. You have things I most likely never will whether that's stability, money, children, or something else. I know that if I deliver on potential, if I move forward with filmmaking, if I can support myself because of that recognition, then the uncertainty, loneliness, instability, and sacrifice, will have been worth it. My mother comforted me once when I was worried about not having children. I remember Michael standing behind her. He tilted his head as if to say, Are you listening, did you hear? She said that more importantly for our family legacy, rather than my forcing having a child, was breaking a cycle. Both my mother and grandmother made choices that limited them. They spent years worrying about what men and children were doing and taking care of others, staying in a city neither particularly loved. Something in me really saw this as a child. I didn't want to worry about what men and children were doing. I had this urge to go do all I was good at, to not be constrained or limited. These women wanted more for me than what they had and did. They knew I couldn't live two lives. I'd have to choose which made me happiest. I wanted the freedoms they didn't have. I am appreciative of all that they did for me but what I took most was to do as they said, not as they did.
My heart felt broken on Halloween. Each direction triggered regret, confusion, and entrapment. I never felt more like my monster self as that evening, skulking around, hands in pockets, unafraid of shadows and fog. But then I remembered how at home in his mind he is, how unbeatable in resolve. He needs no one. There's comfort in that. Comfort in that he's always by me. We stare at children on Halloween because we are children. Underneath his hulking stature and my strawberry veil of bangs, we are completely tied to who were back then. He and I will always disappear into the night, right before your eyes.
We moved around the bend, his (my) head turning only to watch the remaining kids ring doorbells and the last few lit up houses. His (my) breathing was a husky muffle underneath his/my/our masks, his white, mine bare, a false face.
I felt horrible this Halloween. I wanted to BE horrible. I wanted to scare someone, I wanted to BE scary. Because I'm not invisible. And my story isn't over. Because I'm standing here and the mask is off, and it's your chance to see who I am. But as scary as I want to be, it won't be me that you see. That's Michael's job. And when he whispers, Give it back, I know what he's always meant. Give him the job...because it's him you never see coming. It's Michael who tells me when I need to adjust, stand straighter. He's the strength in my muscles, the resolve in my will, the compartmentalizer of my mind and heart. While everyone's running, he moves me within a steady walk. I'll get there because he knows what he's doing. He's right there, whispering in my ear. And he always wins.
I made my way home, a fictional man by my side. You can't see him but he's there just the same. The antiheroine is who you want for the excitement but without absorbing their sacrifice and consequences. I realized that I don't know how much longer I have. I'm young but my time is narrowing. Making films and connecting with people closes the hole in my heart. Movies have never let me down. Michael never has. My mother never has. But she and I will die. And since we won't die at the same time, I pray that when I go, he leaves with me. I hope he puts that rubbery mask close so that I can see his eyes as he says, let go. I want to see him when my eyes open again, somewhere, so that I know he isn't still here, wandering invisibly, without me. Since I don't know how long I've got, it's better to be who I really am than to force a mask that no longer fits. I am scary. I am the other. I'll never have what you have and I do things you can't. I will possibly always be alone. Except for him. Except for those who watch my films and read my books. A low buzz vibrated the pavement and as it picked up, so did the soles of his boots and the sneakers I bought twenty years ago in New York City. I can't change anything. I worked hard. I truly, deeply, tried. I went out that Halloween night to see what I was missing but never found it.
You would hear the party taking place across the street. You'd see the breeze pushing leaves past the mailboxes. And a girl in a windbreaker, hands in pockets, beginning the steep walk up her driveway. You wouldn't see the man next to her but yet we walked to my side door and looked back at the Halloween street. All the yelling and running was fading into the distance. The answer was there all along. Having a domestic life doesn't make you better than me. It doesn't make you more adult. It doesn't mean you've made it. It's simply that your limitations are different than mine.
I stopped to take it in, the last year I'd allow this dilemma. It would end on that doorstep. I knew what I was and was not. I was born with an empty hole that could only be filled by connection and communication on a large scale. My life is dotted by loss of things that will not be and people who have died. I need to share what I can do and become something larger than myself. I can't live two lifestyles. I can't be tethered and also fly. This was the last Halloween I'd drown in this conflict and the last year I'd allow others to make me feel less than. I'm the antiheroine of this story. I'm a reminder that you must accept your choices, the same as me. I am the one you root for, begrudgingly, because, in some way, if I win, you do, too. If I win at what I've wanted, if I sacrifice your lifestyle for mine, then you didn't have to. You can watch from where you are, within the safety of a home, family, routine, and Halloween. I want to be recognized for my work and leave that behind me.
My Michael saves me from feeling I'll never have a seat at the table. He reminds me of what I'm here to do. He knows what's going on in my head because he's from my head. He sees things in terms of where we need to be and how we need to get me there.
He held the door open and we locked eyes. The smell of cookies came from the kitchen. The television was on. Michael and I walked upstairs to my bedroom. He stood to my left, at my window, same as always. This time, I didn't look out and see you all. Didn't see what you were doing for Halloween, didn't see your Xmas cards, your New Years or summer plans, didn't feel my heart racing.
I looked out farther to the day I'd waited for, the one in which all this work would coalesce into success that connected my imagination and skill to audiences who felt it, who might watch, analyze, and discuss it in front of home televisions. I stare out my window and instead of worrying about what you all are doing, what I'm missing out on, I'll be looking to that particular day when this congeals, when people watch trailers for the film I make, study the poster for clues, come to the openings. We can make you laugh and cry and fear on a massive scale. We create worlds to escape into. Not everyone can walk this walk or carry the load. We may look at ease carrying it but that doesn't mean it isn't heavy. I am an entertainer, first and foremost. All I've ever wanted was to entertain you, to make you laugh, cry, think, wonder, and transform.
I looked out to that day when it all makes sense, when I make it to where I'm going.
“Don't leave me,” I whispered.
His mask swung slowly in my direction, back and forth, in a comforting “No.”
I'm the antiheroine of my story. And maybe of yours. I challenge the ordinary, the mediocre. I've never done things according to the usual plan. But as I stand in that room filled with photo books of wasted time and rejections, scrapbooks of unlucky circumstances, receipts of empty bank accounts and worry, I remember all the best people who understood me. I see all that I took and put into the published work you read, the films you watch, the mask you see in front of you. I glance at the version of Michael who stands to my left and then back at my reflection and wonder, through all of that loss and pain and rejection and emptiness, did we not entertain you, though?
When you looked at me, were you not entertained?
About the Author:
Alycia Ripley is the author of several published works, including three novels and one memoir, as well as a frequent contributor to notable national magazines. You can more about Alycia on Alyciaripley.com and on Insta @talentedmsripley.