Post by ScotKaren on Jun 21, 2006 9:25:59 GMT -5
'WHEN WOMEN KILL,' ON HBO
By JOHN CORRY
Published: September 7, 1983
''WHEN WOMEN KILL,'' a new documentary made for Home Box Office, could have been called, just as easily, and perhaps more properly, ''Why Women Kill.'' Women's victims, Lee Grant, the production's narrator, says, ''are almost always someone they once loved.'' By implication, the victims are males, most of whom, the documentary suggests, are responsible for their own deaths. In some cases, however, males persuade women to kill other people for them. The one-hour documentary will be seen at 8 o'clock tonight.
''When Women Kill'' argues that most of the 3,500 women now serving sentences in American prisons for murder or manslaughter do not belong there because they are not responsible for what they did. In a curious way, and certainly not in any intended way, the documentary is almost patronizing to women: they cannot help it when they kill; life has just programmed them that way.
Miss Grant, who also directed, interviews inmates at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, in Westchester County, and at the California Institution for Women in Chino, Calif. Her subjects are distraught, bewildered, angry and aggrieved, but scarcely repentant. Male murderers, for that matter, are often this way, too.
In Bedford Hills, for example, Miss Grant interviews Frannie, a musician, who killed her partner, another musician, in a drug deal. ''I took out the gun,'' Frannie says angrily. ''It just happened.'' It seems to be a bitter memory. In California, there is Judy. Her boyfriend, she says, was a burglar who persuaded her that ''it's fun to steal.'' Eventually, she quit her job and became his accomplice, even though he was ''physically abusive.''
In one burglary, the victim resisted. ''They got into a fight. The gun started going off,'' Judy says. She also says she is happy with the women in prison because of the difficulties she always has had with men. While Judy speaks, her mother sits by her side. Judy says she has admired her mother above all other people, adding, in what appears to be real distress, ''I didn't want to let her down.'' It is permissible to wonder if the murdered man had a mother who loved him, too.
On the other hand, the documentary also looks at cases in which, the suggestion is clear, the victims may have had it coming to them. In Bedford Hills, Miss Grant finds a former nurse, now serving 15 years to life for killing her husband, an airline pilot. Responding to Miss Grant's questions, the former nurse says her husband thought she was overweight, a sloppy housekeeper and a bad mother, and that he wanted a divorce. A friend is also interviewed. She says the husband had an uncontrollable temper and was ''insanely jealous.''
On the night the husband burst into her bedroom, the former nurse says, she used the gun on the bedside table because she didn't know what else to do. ''I know it happened and I know I'm responsible for it,'' she says, ''but I don't really feel I did this thing.''
And so it goes, reducing murder to a happenstance, trivializing a solemn ethical and social dilemma. The documentary finds only one woman who, it says, fits the pattern of ''a hard-core'' criminal - many crimes, many sentences - although even here there are mitigating circumstances. Her father was an alcoholic body-builder, who taught her to box. Presumably, this is what led her astray.
The truth is that the criminal-justice system is unsure itself about what to do about these women. In making its argument, the documentary indicates that no one is ever rehabilitated in prison and that the women don't need rehabilitation, anyway. Therefore, they shouldn't be imprisoned. Meanwhile, we see the women in therapy sessions, being comforted by a chaplain, taking part in a concert, and, in one instance, attending a philosophy class in California sponsored by Antioch College. The particular student is Leslie Van Houten of Charles Manson's murderous gang. The documentary shows us an old film clip of Mr. Manson, looking diabolical, to remind us that Miss Van Houten wasn't responsible for what she did either.
Nowhere does the documentary consider that the social contract demands that murder be followed by retribution. In its zeal to justify and to pardon, it doesn't seem even remotely aware of it. The final words in the documentary, meant as a summing up, are spoken by an angry prisoner. ''The line is so thin between them and us,'' she says, referring to the people outside prison, ''so there is no line.'' She is wrong; the documentary is wrong. If taking a life matters, there is still a line.
By JOHN CORRY
Published: September 7, 1983
''WHEN WOMEN KILL,'' a new documentary made for Home Box Office, could have been called, just as easily, and perhaps more properly, ''Why Women Kill.'' Women's victims, Lee Grant, the production's narrator, says, ''are almost always someone they once loved.'' By implication, the victims are males, most of whom, the documentary suggests, are responsible for their own deaths. In some cases, however, males persuade women to kill other people for them. The one-hour documentary will be seen at 8 o'clock tonight.
''When Women Kill'' argues that most of the 3,500 women now serving sentences in American prisons for murder or manslaughter do not belong there because they are not responsible for what they did. In a curious way, and certainly not in any intended way, the documentary is almost patronizing to women: they cannot help it when they kill; life has just programmed them that way.
Miss Grant, who also directed, interviews inmates at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, in Westchester County, and at the California Institution for Women in Chino, Calif. Her subjects are distraught, bewildered, angry and aggrieved, but scarcely repentant. Male murderers, for that matter, are often this way, too.
In Bedford Hills, for example, Miss Grant interviews Frannie, a musician, who killed her partner, another musician, in a drug deal. ''I took out the gun,'' Frannie says angrily. ''It just happened.'' It seems to be a bitter memory. In California, there is Judy. Her boyfriend, she says, was a burglar who persuaded her that ''it's fun to steal.'' Eventually, she quit her job and became his accomplice, even though he was ''physically abusive.''
In one burglary, the victim resisted. ''They got into a fight. The gun started going off,'' Judy says. She also says she is happy with the women in prison because of the difficulties she always has had with men. While Judy speaks, her mother sits by her side. Judy says she has admired her mother above all other people, adding, in what appears to be real distress, ''I didn't want to let her down.'' It is permissible to wonder if the murdered man had a mother who loved him, too.
On the other hand, the documentary also looks at cases in which, the suggestion is clear, the victims may have had it coming to them. In Bedford Hills, Miss Grant finds a former nurse, now serving 15 years to life for killing her husband, an airline pilot. Responding to Miss Grant's questions, the former nurse says her husband thought she was overweight, a sloppy housekeeper and a bad mother, and that he wanted a divorce. A friend is also interviewed. She says the husband had an uncontrollable temper and was ''insanely jealous.''
On the night the husband burst into her bedroom, the former nurse says, she used the gun on the bedside table because she didn't know what else to do. ''I know it happened and I know I'm responsible for it,'' she says, ''but I don't really feel I did this thing.''
And so it goes, reducing murder to a happenstance, trivializing a solemn ethical and social dilemma. The documentary finds only one woman who, it says, fits the pattern of ''a hard-core'' criminal - many crimes, many sentences - although even here there are mitigating circumstances. Her father was an alcoholic body-builder, who taught her to box. Presumably, this is what led her astray.
The truth is that the criminal-justice system is unsure itself about what to do about these women. In making its argument, the documentary indicates that no one is ever rehabilitated in prison and that the women don't need rehabilitation, anyway. Therefore, they shouldn't be imprisoned. Meanwhile, we see the women in therapy sessions, being comforted by a chaplain, taking part in a concert, and, in one instance, attending a philosophy class in California sponsored by Antioch College. The particular student is Leslie Van Houten of Charles Manson's murderous gang. The documentary shows us an old film clip of Mr. Manson, looking diabolical, to remind us that Miss Van Houten wasn't responsible for what she did either.
Nowhere does the documentary consider that the social contract demands that murder be followed by retribution. In its zeal to justify and to pardon, it doesn't seem even remotely aware of it. The final words in the documentary, meant as a summing up, are spoken by an angry prisoner. ''The line is so thin between them and us,'' she says, referring to the people outside prison, ''so there is no line.'' She is wrong; the documentary is wrong. If taking a life matters, there is still a line.