Farrah Fawcett’s “Burning Bed” legacy

Farrah Fawcett will mostly be remembered as a Charlie’s Angels chick and a pinup girl, but her performance in the Burning Bed was a durable, yet regrettable legacy. Sadly, the 1984 made-for-TV movie that portrayed premeditated murder as not only excusable, but heroic, won’t go with her.

Of course, Fawcett herself should not blamed for the establishment of a myth that propelled a skewed view of domestic violence into the forefront of public consciousness. She was, after all, only an actress playing a part, and playing it well.

The movie however, helped establish a framework for dozens of later theatrical and TV movies that depict men as dangerous, violent abusers and women as saintly victims with nowhere to turn for help. Even after 25 years, this story of a single extraordinary case, exaggerated for effect, has become omnipresent. The male character is generally accepted as typical, and murder is sanctioned if not openly encouraged as a solution to the problem. Later films such as Sleeping With the Enemy starring Julia Roberts, built on the myth and added the aspect of relentless stalking, also extraordinary in the real world. Other movies added more, and there is now a whole TV network devoted to almost nothing but the theme of awful, despicable men vs. glamorous female victims.

The book by Faith McNulty and the movie opened the door for feminist political ideology masquerading as scientific theory, fully applicable to all cases of intimate partner abuse. When Lenore Walker created the “Battered Woman Syndrome” around the same time as the release of the movie, it was accepted as gospel and formed the basis for public policies and laws that eventually would attempt to hold women blameless for a wide range of crimes, from shoplifting to 1st degree murder.

Also around the same time, give or take a few years, the Duluth Model for dealing with abusers, (exclusively male) was developed by a small group of previously-abused women who were attending feminist consciousness-raising sessions at a shelter founded by feminist lawyers. This model holds that abuse is a deliberate choice, and all men have to do is recognize what pigs they are and they will stop their incorrect behavior.

Ten years on, in 1994, the federal Violence Against Women Act codified into law the entire package of myth-making and storytelling relating to Battered Women Theory, and called it Domestic Violence. Holding men “accountable” for their repugnant actions through a system of legal sanctions depriving them of their human rights, homes, their children and often their livelihoods, VAWA allows women and feminist organizations to get revenge, and profit by it. As it is a law focused on the destruction of men, with single-pointed precision, the negative effects of the law on children and yes, even women go unconsidered.

One wonders what the next ten years will bring.

In 1984 cable TV was still new; the majority of households got off-the-air broadcast TV, and so viewers of any particular program would number in the tens of millions. Even if most people of the time saw it, certainly there were many more factors than a single movie involved in the evolution of the way society deals with intimate partner abuse today, but I have no doubt the Burning Bed was a catalyst.

A hundred years from now, perhaps historians will look back in wonder at the bizarre events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and speculate why it was that society turned on itself in this way.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-12866-Domestic-Violence-Examiner~y2009m6d27-Farrah-Fawcetts-Burning-Bed-legacy