A Letter to 3D Swindlers

Dear 3D Swindlers,

Make no mistake. I love 3d. The first time I ever saw anything in 3d was when I was 7 years old. The image had an area of 10 feet. 17 years later I walked into a theater to see Beowulf, and I sat amazed as 3d spears threatened to stab out my bespectacled eyes. The exorbitant price to see such a foul movie was worth it, just for the 3d.

Or it would have been if I hadn't been cursed with something called nearsightedness.

This alien term means I cannot see clearly images that are far away. It means I wear glasses. My fellow farsighted friends are the same. Now imagine how we feel when we see a movie that is offered only in 3d in our local theaters, and we are forced to wear these 3d shades, which by no means can fit over our eyeglasses. We are forced to tilt our heads at an odd angle to keep them in place, adjusting them with our hands every few minutes lest they slip and fall off. This is all because you Swindlers didn't bother to put a lip or a ledge on the 3d frames so they might hook onto our eyeglasses.

Now I've heard several counter-complaints to this, and never have I heard such close-minded views. The first? Contacts. Why not wear contacts? Well, my good Swindlers, think of it this way. Would you wear itchy socks if more comfortable ones were available? Exactly not. Some of us actually like our glasses, or feel uncomfortable shoving things around our eyeballs. Our eyes are sensitive things, if you hadn't noticed.

The other is fashion.

Ha, ha. We glasses-wearing folk would look foolish wearing 3d glasses to hook over our eyeglasses. Well I'll tell you what. We still look stupid wearing glasses not made this way. And here's the thing - do you look around trying to pick out who looks like an idiot in a theater, or are you focused on the movie? Quite. You got it.

Now here's another thing. There are a few unfortunate folk out there who have something called lazy eye. It means when we focus on a picture, we see only with one eye. We literally cannot see out the other. We lose our depth perception. We see exactly what you see when you close one eye when looking through a telescope or aiming with a gun. And our loss of depth perception prevents us from seeing the glory of your fancy 3d movies. And we are still expected to pay the insane prices and wear your ill-fitting glasses to see a movie that probably isn't even that good to begin with.

Not everyone is born with perfect eyesight. We are willing to put up with a lot if you'd only make some goddamn shades to hook on our glasses so our necks don't stiffen during a showing of Saw 3d, which uses 3d for about 3 instances. We don't care if we look like idiots in the darkness of a theater or the privacy of our own homes, which you are planning to invade with your 3d technology. Quit fussing over how well your new 3d shades curve or how many diamonds to put on the frames, and make us something we four-eyed people can wear.

Thank you. Swindlers.