‘I Killed My Lesbian Wife’: The one movie Ben Affleck calls “atrocious”
Hindsight is always 20/20, and there aren’t many A-listers in Hollywood to have embraced that sentiment quite like Ben Affleck, which is fair enough considering the ups and downs he’s endured throughout his career.
Winning an Academy Award alongside best friend Matt Damon as the co-writers of Good Will Hunting shot them both to mainstream prominence, and they’ve maintained those positions for the last quarter of a century. It hasn’t been without its setbacks, in fairness, with Affleck in particular having cultivated a reputation for trashing his own back catalogue long after the fact.
Whether it’s explaining why he hates Daredevil “so much,” speaking out on his nightmarish experience on Justice League when Joss Whedon replaced Zack Snyder as director, or criticising every aspect of Michael Bay’s Armageddon in a legendary audio commentary track to name but three, the two-time Oscar winner and 12-time Golden Raspberry nominee knows when to own up to his mistakes.
Affleck isn’t above blasting his own directorial efforts, either, despite his reinvention as an acclaimed filmmaker. That being said, it isn’t one of the theatrically-released features that he called “atrocious” to Entertainment Weekly, but a bizarre short film titled I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney.
The title is apt without being entirely accurate, as it tracks a violent and misogynistic director feeling betrayed by his wife’s homosexuality before murdering her with an axe, although the Mouse House doesn’t come calling. Unsurprisingly, the short’s very existence fills Affleck with regret: “It’s horrible,” he said. “It’s atrocious. I knew I wanted to be a director, and I did a couple of short films, and this is the only one that haunts me.”
Almost a decade and a half before Gone Baby Gone cemented him as a remarkably accomplished first-time feature filmmaker, I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney stands out for the wrong reasons: “I’m not proud of it. It looks like it was made by someone who has no prospects, no promise.”
That didn’t prove to be an entirely true summation given what he would go on to achieve after catching his big break, with Affleck having racked up plenty of acclaim as a writer, actor, and director in amongst the occasional misstep. Everybody has to start somewhere, and for the person who would eventually helm ‘Best Picture’ winner Argo, a tasteless hybrid of exploitation flick and industry satire was his maiden port of call.
No matter how hard he disowns or disavows it, though, I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney will always exist as the first project that Affleck ever directed.
