Jordan Peele sheds light on the infuriating injustice of the Lorena Bobbitt story
TV Lists What's On Tonight
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Friday, February 15 and Saturday, February 16. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
Lorena (Amazon Prime Video, Friday): What isn’t Jordan Peele working on these days? From upcoming horror film Us to new sci-fi satire Weird City, the comedian and director has a rather full plate. We’re very happy that the comedian and director has chosen to take the time to produce this particular project: a four-part docuseries reinvestigating the 1993 case of Lorena Bobbitt, who—after enduring years of rape, assault, and domestic abuse at the hands of her husband—cut off his penis. At the time, rather than evaluating the case’s implications about domestic and sexual assault, the male-dominated press opted to instead sensationalize the story, making Lorena the butt of a national joke. The series reexamines the case, calling attention to what we should have taken away from it when it happened. Katie Rife will offer her thoughts.
The Umbrella Academy (Netflix, Friday): It’s a normal day for 43 women across the globe until each of them suddenly and unexpectedly gives birth—despite not being in the least bit pregnant. Good guy billionaire Reginald Hargreeves jumps in to lighten their burden, adopting six of the babies and forming his own little dysfunctional family. Through his “Umbrella Academy,” he homeschools the kids X-men-style with courses designed to help them become successful super-human adults and, eventually, save the world. Now that they’re grown, that time has finally come. Based on the popular comic books of the same name, the series stars Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, Emmy Raver-Lampman, David Castañeda, Aidan Gallagher, Mary J. Blige, Robert Sheehan, and Cameron Britton. In his review, our own Sam Barsanti called The Umbrella Academy a stylish and “extremely entertaining show.”
Regular coverage
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars (VH1, Friday, 8 p.m.)
Saturday Night Live (NBC, Saturday, 11:30 p.m.)
Wild card
Larry Charles’ Dangerous World Of Comedy (Netflix, Friday): Comedy has long existed as a tool to examine political and societal issues and to provide audience members with some sense of relief in the face of them. This docuseries hosted by Bruno and Borat director Larry Charles explores how comedy grows out of the unlikeliest places—including Iraq, Russia, Nigeria, Somalia, and Saudia Arabia—in an attempt “to unearth just how dangerous and how meaningful the world of comedy can be.”
213 Comments
Politics Corner – Riddle Edition. When is a ‘national emergency’ not a national emergency? When it is by any objective standard not a national emergency! Illegal border crossings are down by 75% since W Bush (Thanks, Obama!), every reputable study shows immigrants including undocumented commit crimes at a significantly lower rate than native born citizens, and if this was a national emergency, why did it take him two years to declare it?In theory, Trump can try to use money from emergency relief and the defense budget to build that wall. On the other hand, Article 1 of the constitution explicitly says Congess has the power of the purse, and Congress just finished saying ‘No Wall For You!’But I’m not a legal expert, and the actual experts are saying this is unprecedented, so there’s no way to tell how it will play out. It’s unprecedented because nobody has ever tried to thwart congress before by declaring a fake national emergency after getting smacked down. And I’m not sure how it will pan out because Roberts is the new swing vote.The wall is unpopular (and dumb), the national emergency is even LESS popular, and I’m a little worried about saying that checks and balances don’t matter anymore. There are Dems saying ‘wait till we win the next Presidential election!’ But I’m kind of worried about the whole ‘unlimited executive branch power because of a fake national emergency’ thing. If you can do that, who says there will even be a next election? THERE’S AN EMERGENCY HAPPENING! YOU CAN’T VOTE DURING AN EMERGENCY! THE PRESIDENT SAID SO!
The national emergency is going to get tied up in the courts so long that Trump will never see a single foot of his wall. Eminent domain lawsuits alone should carry it well past the next election.
We need to stop pretending as though we’re playing by the previously agreed-upon rules.
Meanwhile taxpayers foot the bill for all the time every politician, judge, public defender and/or state/federal attorney spends either supporting or fighting against. Fantastic.
Yes, but what about the other powers a “national emergency” grants Trump?
You’d think so, but Trump did just spend the last two years (and especially the last month or so) loading up federal courts with Republican judges.
Which is exactly what he’s banking on. He knows he lost, but being the arrogant high-school-esq bully that he is, he won’t admit defeat. Doing this, he saves face with his base (which is only his base because they were the largest group of people he could get to like him by doing the least amount of work) by saying “See, I tried to get the wall built, but the evil monster people that you all hate, because we told you to hate them, took it away from us!”
Preach.
You know the worst part about this fucking thing.This was exactly this assholes plan back at the end of December. All Trumps “brilliant negotiation skills” did was cause hardship for thousands of government employees, some of which may never get paid(because fuck contractors…I guess) His base won’t see it that way. They will blame “the libtards”. He will also spin the court injunctions that the “National Emergency” will get locked down by as Democrats not wanting the country to be safe and it’s not his fault the wall(or slats or fences or whatever) was never built. This country does have a National Emergency going on and it’s name Donald. I pray everyday Mueller finds the smoking gun he is clearly waiting for to shut this asshole down
I seriously hope he’s assassinated.
I don’t want that. I don’t like wishing murder even on someone so terrible but honestly it’s more that it would make him a martyr for the alt-right. I think it will be far more damaging for him and his base if he ended up going to jail for any of the number of crimes I am sure he has committed. Barring that, if his Tax returns came out and showed he wasn’t worth nearly as much as he says he is, that would be just a nice touch. Especially since you know he would say something stupid about how “Taxes are not really a measure of someone’s net worth and how he has other investments not shown”. Which would lead to more investigation and possibly more jail for tax evasion
He would for sure become a martyr and practically be placed on the flag for the KKK and uneducated low class republican supporters who are too dumb to think for themselves. But I am ok with this. He’s already such a lowly piece of shit, him being a martyr for the types of people would make absolutely no difference to their already moronic view or self victimizing themselves over the truly oppressed. I’d rather just see them cry and laugh at them over his death.
It takes both sides not negotiating for there to be a shutdown.
Yeah but in this case one side is wrong. Do you really think that this county couldn’t use 5 BILLION dollars on something else.
You’re just a dumbass.
No, it takes 50 votes in the Senate.
Until the press – all of it – rise up and, across the board, condemn this orange asshole, he’ll continue to be the greatest gaslighter our world has ever seen.
I’d say the actual worst part is that there is a divided country with two vocal groups of people each thinking that everyone on the other side is sub-human.The corrupt media conglomerates refuse to admit that people can get along and continue to push everyone away from each other.Pretty much why the only news I give a shit about these days is car news. Reading about mid-engine corvettes makes me happy, the depression fest elsewhere does not.
Then maybe go back to reading car news. The big kids want to discuss things that actual matter
What a strange, adversarial response. No idea why you chose to make an age related insult towards me while ignoring the context of my post. Indeed, I neither attacked you, nor even criticized your content. But you do you, “big kid.”
I’m not alone in being weirded out that McConnell has already said he would back that approach. It’s the antithesis of his job as a Senator to imply that a president is a king, but here we are, seeing the creation of, in essence, a monarchy.Im also a little surprised that Paul Ryan wasn’t somehow involved directly in this, but that has to do with years of watching his smug face smirk as the middle class gets squeezed by his policies while he pretends everything is getting better for waitresses and hairdressers.
Mitch McConnell. I almost feel bad for him. Here is a guy who’s worked his entire life with one goal in mind — to be Senate Majority Leader. He’s never once suggested a run at president or any higher office. His idol isn’t Washington, Jefferson or Lincoln. It’s Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser. Mitch McConnell wanted to be Senate Majority Leader so he could be a leader in the mold of Henry Clay, and in 2015 it finally happened for him.
Shortly after the beginning of his tenure as Senate Majority Leader, McConnell is handed legacy-making crisis. The people have been bamboozled by ego and Russians seeking more influence on the world stage into putting a severely unqualified and disinterested lout in the White House. Unfortunately for us all, Mitch has been far from a steady hand at the wheel, floundering at nearly every turn. His near-equally abysmal standing amongt both the Trump base and the left attests to that fact. It becomes ever more glaringly obvious with each passing day that he lacks the courage and the intelligence of his idol, and that’s kind of sad.
It’s Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser. Mitch McConnell wanted to be Senate Majority Leader so he could be a leader in the mold of Henry Clay, and in 2015 it finally happened for him. Mitch McConnell only has wanted power. At no point did he ever wanted to make compromises. He said his only goal was to make Obama a one-term President. How is that a compromise? He broke with centuries of tradition and protocol when he stole Merrick Garland away. How is that a compromise? He helped increase the amount of filibuster use in the Senate to an extreme degree while Senate minority leader. How did that lead to compromises? Where in his entire background and in his career as Senate Majority Leader has he ever gone out of his way to compromise and not be partisan?
I’m not making up that Mitch McConnell idolizes Henry Clay. This is something he’s talked about.And tl;you didn’t read, the point being made is that McConnell fails miserably in achieving his stated goal of leading like Henry Clay.Go away now.
Fuck that Quisling’s feelings.
How did Putin annex Crimea? Create a crisis, become the solution to the crisis.
This is the US. We don’t need a crisis to invade anybody. Raiding appropriated funds to build a wall is, itself, a crisis.
“I’m not alone in being weirded out that McConnell has already said he would back that approach.”
McConnell is and always has been an abject coward whose only goal is the glorification and triumph of the GOP over anything and everything else. If there’s a bigger GOP taint for him to lick clean, by God he’ll get right in there and start licking.
So what are we going to do? This is the Reichstag fire.
Paul Ryan is no longer there. He didn’t even run for office.
It’s a little weird that some random Grey that I won’t promote thinks I don’t know that Paul Ryan retired.I know. My original post acknowledges that he has nothing to do with the current situation. His tenure in the House just had the same stink.
That’s just it. Ask anybody on the street what an “emergency” is and they will tell you it is a very serious situation that if not taken care of immediately will cause great harm. Even just looking at this budget negotiation, it has been months and the only “harm” he can show doesn’t really exist. He had an opportunity to convince Congress that there was an “emergency” or at least a need, and they looked at all his evidence (his version – screaming things loudly and hoping people believe them) and they did not agree there was a need, much less an emergency.But this is going to be a legal matter, not a matter of facts. So instead of convincing the courts that he is right and a majority of Congress and the American people are wrong, he just needs to convince a judge that what he says goes and who knows what will happen there?Also, fuck Mitch McConnell with the Washington Monument. In backing this ploy he is essentially giving away his own power which is bad enough, but also saying that we have an elected Dictatorship, not a Republic. It is so God Damned short sighted. Does he think that his party will be in power forever? If this works then the next Democratic president can just say “I know you are designating no money for healthcare, infrastructure, the environment, and assistance to the poor but…NATIONAL EMERGENCY FUCKERS! The DoD gets zilch and I’m giving it all to NASA to fund a manned mission to Pluto (which is a planet again – NATIONAL EMERGENCY!) except for a couple billion to create a cornfield maze of Ariana Grande that covers all of Kansas because I love her last album!”
Also, fuck Mitch McConnell with the Washington Monument.This is amazing.
If we’re defunding the DOD then, I’m all for your hypothetical tbh
You are making the same mistake Mitch is.
McConnell doesn’t care about what happens after he leaves government. He’s old enough that the consequences of whatever does won’t effect him, and has enough money that his kids will avoid the worst effects.
I’m of the mind that this is what’s going to lead to either the US abandoning all pretense of being anything other than a dictatorship (the parallels between Trump and Octavian are hard to miss) or for “blue states” and “red states” to admit the blatantly obvious, that we no longer see each other as countrymen but as enemies in a civil cold war.The South may secede again. We may see “Calexit”. And I think the overarching political will is going to be “let them go.”
“The wall is unpopular (and dumb), the national emergency is even LESS popular, and I’m a little worried about saying that checks and balances don’t matter anymore. There are Dems saying ‘wait till we win the next Presidential election!’”I hate that particular line of argument, myself. We should be fighting for our democratic principles first and foremost.
It truly is banana republic territory.
They’ll go to court over it. The wall won’t be funded. Judge will see that it’s not an emergency when they ask Trumps team to show definitive proof that there’s an emergency. The dems won’t even have to show up to court. But they will. With their own proof that there’s no emergency.
If I had to guess, they won’t argue that it is an emergency. Just that the President has the right to declare it as such. That allows the court to rule on a point of constitutional law rather than the specific situation.But I’m not a lawyer so who knows?
Regarding the emergency means no voting thing. You guys have an amendment that always gets taken out of context. The right to bear arms. It’s the right for the people to take down the government if they see it isn’t fit to be in power. Trump has created such a strong divisive split between the sides, that a mutiny against the government could very well happen if he pushed his luck. I don’t think he’d try. He’s a coward. As soon as the airlines were going to be shut down because of the shutdown, Trump flipped the next day because his rich “friends” probably threatened him if he didn’t stop it from happening. If there was even a small inclining that the people were going to go screw up his “friends” bottom lines, they’d be on him so fast that he’d impeach himself at that point.
No, no, no, no, no. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with taking arms against the government. That is the most false narrative among many false narratives the Ammosexuals have dreamed up.
this is why i’m so beyond annoyed with liberals saying “ok so what we’ll declare national emergency for all the stuff we want to do hahaha gotcha there” hey folks instead of thinking the war was the most important thing to learn about the Nazis, I’d go back to the Weimar republic and bone up on how they actually got power. spoiler alert its through a phony “national emergency”(although climate change is a for real worldwide emergency)
It’s a wall. Chill.
Its only 5 billion dollars, geesh
and a road is just a road. until you need to design and build it.this wall is a federal and multi-state infrastructure project that will cost billions more than 5.7 to complete. do you even understand what is entailed in building anything for 2000 miles? it’s not just slapping a wall in place and calling it a day. in most areas, they’re going to have to build roads just to get construction crews access to build a wall. so now we’re designing a wall and a roadway. what about the environment that we’re putting the wall in? State and Federal DEPs aren’t going to let the government just throw a wall up without investigating what it’s going to do to the environment around it. What about all the land needed? eminent domain, while effective, is not a short process. even the normal right of way process for the state i live in takes approx 18 months to get property. eminent domain takes longer. What about all the impervious area you’re now putting on the ground? where does all the water flow to? now we need drainage. does the wall need power? now we need electrical. and who is designing all of this and how quickly will it be designed? most infrastructure projects in the state i work in take years to design. by the time all this is done, it will be 15 years down the road and 5.7 billion will be laughable.tldr; there is a lot more to building a wall than what people realize.
It’s 2019 and our government’s space agency has landed several vehicles on another planet and you think “a wall” is any type of defense? JFC…
Republicans are also very much in doubt about this over reach for fear of the precedent it may set for the next president (a likely democrat)
Did you hear the QandA after that? He claimed he has secret statistics from Homeland Security that prove their other stats are wrong
It’s unprecedented because nobody has ever tried to thwart congress before by declaring a fake national emergency after getting smacked down.I love that we live in a country where the purported opposition party only agreeing to partially fund the president’s racist project – along with happily suggesting and agreeing to fund more technologically advanced ways to enforce the racist project – is considered a smack down.
And where are all the “Strict Constitutionalists” that the Republican Party is supposedly made of? All the Senators that Gnashed their teeth over Obama’s Executive Overrreach?
A more interesting question: for a man who ALWAYS breaks his promise, what of the wall that made him wanted so much to keep it? There must be something for him personally to gain from it being made. Nothing else would drive him to make sure it is built. If there’s nothing to gain, he would have just shrug his shoulder, point his stubby finger at someone to blame and left the project altogether. But why did he still insist on it being build? Keeping a promise? Hah!
Cool story, NPC. That’s some of the best programming I’ve seen yet.
The first episode of Doom Patrol is out tomorrow, too, and my god, it looks amazing.
I will admit that I am trying out the DC Universe service exactly because I was curious as to how this will turn out. The teasers and trailers I’ve seen for it have been an interesting mish-mash of tones, which could work in its favor or not. It does look cheap—all the DC Universe Original live-action shows so far do—but that isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker for me.As for the service as a whole, I’m not quite sold on it yet. I would much have a deeper catalog of comics (like Marvel Unlimited has) than a limited selection and a smattering of TV and movies. YMMV.
How was the Teen Titan show. I saw a trailer but couldn’t get past how weird Starfire looked to me.
It’s carried on Netflix for the UK so I watched it. It was…hit and miss. There were some interesting parts and some pretty bad parts. I thought the Raven-Grayson storyline was pretty good. I thought the Starfire stuff was pretty bad. I really liked how they started with only 4 and slowly added Hawk, Dove, and Donna Troy. Sets up a bigger caste for another season. As much of a dick Jason Todd was, I thought he was pretty funny.That said, how they ended the season was awful.
And don’t ask me why I typed caste instead of cast.
Don’t worry. It won’t bring you bad karma.
Jason Todd was perfectly cast. He has that right amount of charm and smugness that makes you want to punch him in his pretty face.
I went into it with very low expectations based on the trailer and was frankly blown away.
I won’t sit here and tell you its the best TV series I’ve ever watched, or the best season of a super hero show (the flash season 1) but in the end I enjoyed pretty much every episode and while tonally its darker than I would have expected a Titans show to be it was damn good.
Titans started out slow, but it ended up being my favorite superhero show. I thought it was better than anything on the CW, ABC and FOX. The trailer didn’t do the show justice.
You referring to Titans on Netflix? Or Teen Titans the cartoon? I liked the live action Netflix show – it’s great fun.
The live action show. Its not on Netflix in the US. Its on DC’s own service here. Which is why most of us USA folks have ignored it.
Don’t blame you. I don’t mind competition, but I’m certainly not going to pay a subscription to multiple streaming services. 😛
I will more or less second what ThirdAmendmentMan has put down here. Titans is on Netflix in Canada, so I checked it out, despite initial misgivings. It’s shaky and uneven, and the dialogue can get pretty stilted, but I generally enjoyed it. There’s a lot of room for improvement (and when their version of the Doom Patrol was on the screen, it became 100% more fun), but it wasn’t trash, like I thought it would be.I didn’t mind Starfire, or her costume, even though it sets her apart visually from everyone else in the show. Raven’s storyline, and the antagonists it produces, were initially fun, but like TAM states, it does feel a bit of a letdown at the end of the season.Hopefully, a season 2 will offer some course corrections.
As someone who went into Titans assuming it would be shit, and ended up enjoying the hell out of it, I’m really looking forward to Doom Patrol.
I’m not getting how Jordan Peele would find the Bobbit story (or its handling) “outrageous”. I hope to god he (or anyone else) isn’t going to defend her actions. Killing your abusive spouse is one thing. Maiming him in the most disfiguring (and disturbing) way possible is never “self-defense.” The fact that people found humor in what happened is equally disturbing.
A) Lorena was a victim of long-term abuse from her husband. Abuse has been clearly been shown to mentally affect victims. Listening to the description of how she was found, which is not just coming from her but multiple places, it should be pretty damn clear that her mental state was clearly not sound.B) Given the description of what police found, it is entirely possible that she did intend to kill him and given the fact that she’d just been raped (although of course in 1993, marital rape was seen as a lesser version of rape in many states), it would’ve likely seemed like poetic justice to her in that state.For far too long, this case has been either a joke or about him (who by the way has sexual crime charges pressed against him following this whole thing, showing that he almost certainly had done so against Lorena). And if she is mentioned at all, she gets painted as a psycho. If nothing else, this docuseries finally gives her the chance to speak and be heard.
This still doesn’t change his point. No amount of emotional, physical, sexual abuse justifies intentionally killing or maiming someone. If she had outright killed him, she’d probably be still in prison today, and he would’ve been exonerated.She should’ve gone to the police/authorities, or simply just left him. Not take matters into her own hands.
Yeah right, I bet somebody couldn’t even get in your face and talk shit without you retaliating in some way, much less years of being raped and abused for years. You really think it’s that easy? Fuck off with that bullshit. If somebody raped you, I bet you wouldn’t hesitate to disfigure them in any way you could. I’m starting to think the people defending John in this situation are just trying to justify their own abusive nature, or are completely clueless about what this type of abuse does to a person mentally and emotionally.My aunt stuck with an abusive husband and always refused to press charges against him after taking abuse because she was scared of what might happen. He’d spend the night in jail and then come home and beat the ever living shit out of her for it.
Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is for a woman TODAY to get help in abuse situation? And how dangerous it is for women who have left abusive situations? I mean often the single most dangerous time for women in abusive situation is when they leave. There are women who have been murdered by abusive exes even after this point. Not even taking into account the serious mental toll that abuse causes, the reason why some abuse victims kill their abusers is because it is literally the only way they can for sure that they will never be harmed by the abuser ever again. And guess what, those women receive some of the harshest punishments in the justice system.
Sooooo, what you are seriously arguing is that because it’s supposedly so difficult to find help, its aokay to brutally injure or murder them instead? Hokay then.Thank goodness the millions of women nationwide who are in abusive relationships aren’t violent and murderous like you and do actually go seek and get the help they need, restraining orders, leave their spouses etc, etc.
Are you really unable to make a distinction between “it’s ok” and “it is tragic and sad and fucked up but understandable and her actions should be taken in the context of what she had gone through for years.” Nobody is arguing that what she did should be free of consequence, and yet you keep tilting at that straw man. You are also very callously dismissing her plight as something that she could have resolved by going to the police.
I’m glad someone here is defending rapists and abusers and attacking their victims. Thank you for your tireless efforts.
You must be a fucking troll
Not even taking into account the serious mental toll that abuse causes, the reason why some abuse victims kill their abusers is because it is literally the only way they can for sure that they will never be harmed by the abuser ever again.And again and again and again, what I’m seeing from you is that because the system is supposedly effed up, its okay for someone to injure and kill someone in response to abuse.You and your fellow woke trolls and keyboard warriors can keep posting and posting. Nothing changes the fact that you people are just totally warped in the head. Again, thank goodness most people in the real world don’t actually take this seriously and do go seek help from the proper authorities.
I’m sorry that castration anxiety is making you feel emasculated, but I strongly recommend talking to a therapist about this rather than putting your neuroses on full display in front of random internet strangers.
Or they do seek help and then are killed by their partners anyway.
You okay there, John Wayne?
So you don’t believe in self-defense. Got it. Nobody should ever fight for their lives when someone is actively hurting them. Got it.Where do you live?
Those structurally patriarchal “authorities” fail women as a matter of course, yet you say trust them. You have some biases and blind spots to work on.
You’re that person who thinks that people who rape and molest and abuse deserve to be treated like regular folks who DON’T commit acts of atrocity against others for their own sick pleasure. Sorry, they get no sympathy from me. They know it’s wrong and they don’t seek help before doing it, and many of them repeatedly do it, even after they get out of prison after being caught. So no, I don’t think they deserve to be treated as human because they gave up their humanity.
I’m glad KinjaPlaya is here to defend rapists and abusers and to attack victims. His tireless misogynist efforts are a gift to us all.
You’re delusional if you think justice exists in the system. It’s even less so for women and minorities.
actually yeah it definitely justifies it, crybaby flower child.
Damn, I did not know this. I was a teen in the 90s so it was a purile joke to many of us. And as a kid in a religious household I was fairly sheltered from the details.
And she was found not guilty due to all those reasons. It’s ok to say, yes she was driven to desperation and also that cutting mens dicks off is a bad thing! John Wayne Bobbitt was _not_ a sympathetic figure at the time.
But she was a psycho. People who cut off digits and members are, that’s just the way it works. If a man cut off a woman’s tits, what would you call him?
I’m glad conservative shitheads like you continue to demonstrate you’re too dumb to ever understand things like “context” or “false equivalencies”.
I’m not a conservative. Please explain how that is a false equivalence. Psycho’s are psycho’s. Not saying the guy didn’t necessarily deserve it, but people who do those types of thing to other people aren’t right in the head. Man or woman. So nice try at dismissing my opinion, but keep defending the violence. It’s totally working.
You are definitely a conservative. Good to see we’re describing abused and tortured women as “psychos”. Like I said, it’s a false equivalency. You’re trying to compare some caricature of a serial killer to a battered woman. You should fuck off and die.
Definitely not a conservative, but if it makes you feel better to paint someone that way so you can demonize them, go ahead. Thats your own problem and mental deficiency. You can be a psycho and still be abused. You seem intent on giving a pass to bad behavior and then you tell me to die. Guess you are a psycho too. There’s no equivalency here, cutting off people’s body parts is inexcusable. As is rape and abuse. There’s no asterisk or foot note there. You’re just an idiot who’s spitting flecks of hot pocket at a computer monitor as you try and shout people down while justifying violence.
You’re a fucking tool.
Lemme know when women do as much damage to men with their tits as men have done to women with their dicks.
Depends on whether the owner of those tits was regularly abusing and raping him before it happened.
“her mental state was clearly not sound” is probably the reason “she gets painted as a psycho” … maiming someone permanently is an inexcusable offense that many would put in the category of “psycho.” The abuse she suffered is also inexcusable. People in extreme circumstances will do extreme things, but that doesn’t make those things right. I’d agree the story is much more complex than the news headlines make it out to be. However, I find that to be the case for almost every sensational media story on every topic ever.
Do you think its unreasonable to characterize someone who methodically cuts off another person’s reproductive organs as a psycho?
I. don’t. care. if. she. was. a. victim, fucking period. I was in my 20s when this happened and I, like many others, didn’t care whether the abuse was real or not. Her actions made her no different, no less cruel, no less morally bankrupt than her husband. It was my opinion at the time (and it remains so) that both of them are fucking disturbed.
Well, yeah. How about you get repeatedly raped and repeatedly anally raped, by someone who’s supposed to love and protect you, and see if it doesn’t “disturb” you. Jesus. Have some empathy.
Domestic abuse is treated differently (better) now than it was then. There are many more options for abused women and they’re taken seriously. The norms of society change and sometimes it’s good to go back and re-examine those changes.
Go watch Nanette or see what’s happening with Ryan Adams in music. David Bowie, Steven Tyler, Jimmy Page and many more rock stars allegedly slept with underaged fans. Or Bill Clinton in politics. Things change.We didn’t hear the whole story because it got turned into a late night monologue joke.
While I was fairly young when this happened, I still remember it and the only thing I could’ve told you for years was what she did. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered her side of the story. I suspect even now lots of people don’t know it because as you point out it became just a late night monologue joke.
I was about 10 and I was aware of her side of events. Maybe they didn’t go into much detail on the local news and saved it for the later national broadcast. But it was definitely out there at the time.
Part of the reason why I probably didn’t know is partially the fact that my parents pretty much kept the case out of the house and so I only knew the barest of outlines. I’d actually be very curious to go and ask people on the street what they remember of the case because I suspect it would mostly be what became the headline.
Probably so. I was unusual in actually wanting to watch and read the news at a young age. I vividly remember being made to sit in the hallway while my class watched Clinton’s first inauguration. I wouldn’t stop asking why we had to watch this instead of learn when this was a parade or pageant and would only be news, or ‘history’ as they kept saying, if someone tried to assassinate the man. I may have also accused my teacher of laziness. I was an odd child.
Yeah, I distinctly remember, even at such a young age, her abuse being part of the story.
It was always there, which was why she was acquitted. The current amnesia is really confusing.
“I was aware of her side of events.”Generally aware maybe.
I remember it too. It was not hidden she was abused, but I also remember people not feeling sympathy for JWB either.On a side note, I was in high school working in a video store when he put out his porn video. We had one copy, and it was constantly checked out. To this day I don’t know how I feel about that.
I was 8 when this happened. This is the first I’m hearing that she was abused at all. Every memory I have of this being covered was ‘lol crazy lady cuts off peen’.
Because at 8 years old, that was your perspective at the time and ‘peen’ was a funny word to you. I’m not calling you out; as an 8 year old kid, it’s a totally reasonable take on things.I was 31 at the time and I remember hearing coverage of both sides of the story and sympathy extended to Lorena while John became the joke. While his life afterwards did little to redeem him in anyone’s eyes the idea of genital mutilation being somehow justified in ANY case for ANY gender disgusts me. As did the attitude of many women at the time who not only championed her act, but used it for quite some time as an offhand threat to any male – and not for the gruesome acts that Lorena endured, but for anything. It was a joke to them.
I’m in 100% the same boat, I was as the internet says, today years old when I learned she didn’t chop off his dong for late night giggles.
I was a young adult when this happened. Sure it was a joke, I mean it wasn’t as though that happened often. I thought she should have been prosecuted but there was also the subtext of he did something to her to get that kind of action on him. Bobbit was never held up as a hero at least not in my mind. He was just a freak show.
“David Bowie, Steven Tyler, Jimmy Page and many more rock stars allegedly slept with underaged fans.”You can add Peter Yarrow to that list (aka Peter from “Peter, Paul, and Mary”)
We didn’t hear the whole story because it got turned into a late night monologue joke.The rape allegations were always known. People focused on the genital mutilation because it is a crazy outlier among violent crimes.
Oh, we heard the whole story. Some of us actually read it (her accounts, etc.). I still maintain that her action, to maim someone in the most disturbing way possible, is not an act one does when in imminent fear of one’s life. It wasn’t self-defense. It was a calculated act of barbarity. She belonged in jail. Did he? I don’t know, but a jury acquitted him.
Well, what you “maintain” is not what a jury of her peers found to be the truth of the situation. She was acquitted. Juries make mistakes. He was also acquitted and then he went on to continue abusing woman. How many other penises has she cut off?
I think her actions are understandable given years of domestic abuse and rape. Defendable? Not in the sense that it’s o.k. and no big deal. But definitely sympathetic all things considered and, yes, defensible. It is not a stretch to say she was probably not thinking logically and rationally about it, and John was lucky she didn’t just kill him (like that would be better somehow). So in that sense, yes, it’s defensible that somebody enduring years of that sort of abuse would act out against the perpetrator in a manner where her anger focused on the main tool of abuse. Under the circumstances, while not self-defense, it was still something done after being raped and years of abuse.
As for the humor, that seemed to at least somewhat (I would argue largely) because of the bizarre nature. It was so awkward and weird that humor was a defense mechanism. I was a kid in middle school at the time and to me (not speaking for anybody else), it was shocking. That shock gave way to awkward humor, which to me felt and still feels largely like a coping mechanism, and the horror and sympathy came later once we learned more about what John was guilty of. But initially, all we heard from what I recall was a woman cut off her husband’s penis. First impressions matter, and for most of us I think our first impression was one of shock at how bizarre and borderline unbelievable it all was. But given everything that we know now, Lorena is much more sympathetic than John ever will be and most of the dry humor to me seems to be aimed at John. I have nothing but sympathy for Lorena, FWIW.
“The fact that people found humor in what happened is equally disturbing.”Well the Stone Temple Pilots song “Creep,” with its chorus “I’m half the man I used to be” just happened to be a single at the time, so as far as jokes that one was right there.
Fuck him. Rapists and abusers deserve that shit and worse. Fuck them all into the ground.
Better to remove them from society, I think. Personally I find revenge abhorrent. One of the reasons I also think the death penalty is gross.
I love the double standard when it comes to violence. It’s never okay for a man to raise a hand to a woman, but if he does (even allegedly), it’s okay to resort to barbarity. Remember, a jury acquitted him. She had no defense.And I want you to seriously think about your position. “Fuck him?” Can I slice off your genitals? Fucked up. And by the way, even if he were a serial rapist and you surgically removed his penis, that wouldn’t stop a serial offender from offending. They’d simply use a foreign object on their victim.Let’s all back off the idea that what she didn’t isn’t one of the most disturbing things a human can do to another.
She was acquitted. Why are you still persecuting her? And lying that she didn’t have a defense?
Look you are absolutely missing the forest for the trees here. Given all of what transpired Lorena did the same damn thing that so many “masculine power fantasy” authors have done.Target the part that is the abusing. How many times have seen emasculation of sexual offenders floated/or discussed as a way of “solving it”?I am not saying what she did was right but if her husband had been beating and raping her than I don’t understand how you can try to “ITS WORSE THEN DEATH” Because well nothing is worse than death… you have to be some kind of child to think that because everything else can be ended by death. Death has no alternative escape.
It’s the same double standard that you see in the people who condemn female genital mutilation in Africa as an example of oppression while at the same time defending male circumcision here in America as a simple cultural difference.
Between this and that sci-fi anthology series that’s apparently a misfire, Jordan Peele sure has his name attached to some crap this week.
Let me guess, you are the person who thinks an abuse victim can just walk away?
Yes, because I’m against horrific mutilation, I must be completely ignorant of the agony of abuse, right? Any other bullshit strawman arguments you care to vomit on us?
Are you against horrific mutilation? Because it seems you are only against it when it’s perpetrated on a man. That man repeatedly raped his wife. That man repeatedly anally raped her. That man bragged to friends about how he enjoyed violent “sex.”
Murder him? That’s all well and good, totally understandable. Cut his dick off? WELL NOW YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR, MISSY! Get the fuck out of here.
My point (since it clearly sailed over your head) is had she killed him (not by exsanguinating from the blood loss of having one’s penis cut off), she could have had a defense. However, in able to cut his penis off (or anyone’s for that matter), the man would have to be unaware the danger (see: sharp knife) was approaching (meaning, he was asleep or had his back to her), which makes it CALCULATED, planned; not immediate.
She was acquitted. Why are you still persecuting her?
In my opinion she was too benevolent in protecting herself. She let him live. Truthfully, she should have killed him before he killed her.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
What I find disturbing are the number of people defending a person who cut off a man’s penis.
Imma go with nah. Fuck that guy with his disfigured dick.
“Maiming him in the most disfiguring (and disturbing) way possible”
Interesting. Do go on.
Seriously? You’re commenting on something you haven’t seen and obviously know nothing about? And I’m still in the grays?
I think you have to remember this was 1993, effectively pre-Internet/blogosphere. So the influx of stories and opinions just wasn’t at the level as it was today. And cutting off someone’s dick. I get you don’t think that’s a sane response. But Living under the purported umbrella of abuse and terror for four years, you’re going to do some insane things.
I wish my computer could provide pop-up notifications like “Oh boy, another dipshit just commented on the AV Club.” Then I would have never had to read this.
Cutting off a guy’s dick is worse than killing him? O.o Ok, then.Anyhoo, losing his dick is exactly the type of justice a rapist deserves.
Regardless of the jokes, sensationalism and misogyny it seems like the Bobbitt case came down to the fact that her crimes against him were far easier to prove than his crimes against her and provable evidence is about the only thing courts recognize. I’d say the takeaway is that for the best security you should record every moment of your life, especially personal interactions. That was near impossible in ’93 but nowadays it wouldn’t even be that expensive. Just remember to turn it off when you’re about to commit a crime, learn from the police’s mistakes.
In the first episode, they talk to two jurors on the case that was brought against him for the rape and it’s really stark because one of the people is all “well what’s been presented is all that we can go on” and the other person is very much “putting together what’s been presented and intangible things that can’t be presented, he was clearly guilty.” I kind of wanted to smack the first person because as my attorney mother points: emptily following the letter of the law and not paying attention to nuance is not the way to act as a juror, which she brings up from a case that she sat on the jury of.And of course I just can’t help but think of the here and now when men who are clearly guilty and have multiple witnesses to the fact get slaps on the wrist. We’ve moved so little in the past 25 years.
“emptily following the letter of the law and not paying attention to nuance is not the way to act as a juror”Ignore the law and go with your feelings. You might end up a Supreme Court Justice someday!
Your Mom sounds like a person whoIs dangerously contemptuous of basic principles of law, justice and even reason
That’s a slippery slope. History is replete with cops making sure that suspects who were “clearly guilty” got what was coming to them. You have to obey the rules of what is and is not presented as admissible evidence in the courtroom, up to and including disregarding pieces of evidence deemed inadmissible even though they would otherwise have appeared to settle the case.
correction umbrella academy is 7 kids. not six
“Katie Rife will offer her thoughts.”So she’ll uncritically praise it because it offers a more sympathetic take on Lorena’s actions?
Maybe it was different with adults at the time, but as a kid in 1993, I can assure that no one was making fun of Lorena or making her the butt of any jokes. Every single one of us were mocking John relentlessly for being the dumbass who got his penis chopped off.
Was 10 at the time, can confirm. Kids named John were plagued with “Bobbitt jokes” for years.
It wasn’t different with adults. The person writing this article just wants to distort the truth a little to emphasize Lorena’s victimhood, even though it’s never been in doubt.
All evidence is, she was a jealous psycho who got away with a crime which should have sent her to prison for a long time.
As an adult at the time, can confirm on all counts.
That’s how I remember it too. That John was the idiot, fuckup, and loser. Lorena just got dismissed as crazy and ignored.
Even Weird Al had a bad take on it.
I was 16 at the time, and yes, this is how I remember it. The jokes were on him, not her.
This, exactly. She wasn’t the butt of the jokes, he was. I recall the feeling among teenagers I knew at the time being that he deserved it.
I just left a similar comment.
Same and yes Lorena was very much the butt of jokes. They both were. She, additionally was depicted as crazy. I also recall the big hubbub with him getting it stitched back on or some shit and doing a porn or dating a porn star… it’s a hazy memory but there was some gossip about that as well. Then a woman he dated after accused him of assault. He also did the woe is me tour for a minute.
Bobbitt did two porn movies. First was named ‘John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut’ iirc.
Fun fact about “John Bobbit Uncut:” Lemmy Kilmister has a cameo as the guy who found the penis. (Also, Bobbit couldn’t fuck his way out of a wet paper bag…)
Lemmy Kilmister has a cameo as the guy who found the penis….I kind of want to see this now.
Ah yes, thank you for confirming that. I haven’t thought about the Bobbit’s in years so my memory is a little off.
I’ll never understand why someone getting maimed should be humorous, even if they are awful.
I was an adult at the time, and no, I don’t remember Lorena being the butt of jokes. I mean, the situation itself, yes, was endless comedy fodder, but not Lorena in particular. People were mostly sympathetic towards her, or even considered her a bit of a folk hero for giving John what he so obviously deserved. Though in fairness, she was definitely viewed as mentally ill, I think most people considered her actions justified if a tad extreme.
We probably grew up in different areas. I’m from rural Kansas and there were no jokes about poor, poor John but plenty about that evil whore who was a typical middle-aged nagging fishwife who was probably cheating on him anyway. I had no idea she was abused until this tv show started showing ads. I thought she was just crazy/mean and they got in a fight. I vaguely remember she threw the member out a car window? Or maybe that was the Jay Leno joke. So I always thought she chopped it off while driving and having an argument.
From what I recall, she cut his dick off while he was sleeping. I believe did throw it out of her car window after.
I went to Long Beach High School and we backronymed its abbreviation into Lorena Bobbit’s Hotdog Stand.So yeah. She was the butt of a lot of dumb-kid jokes, unfortunately.
I grew up a half hour from Manassas in Northern VA. It was all over local news. This is exactly how I remember it.
I was 20 and can assure you that people knew he was an abusive asshole
Have to agree. 90% of the mocking was directed towards John Bobbitt. Sure, she was the “enraged person who cut off his package”, but that paled to John as “the freak show fascination” of an idiot who got his package cut off and “what must he look like, tee-hee” titillation coverage.
No, I was a kid through it as well and you were either in a very unusual environment or you’re just remembering things wrong. Lorena was portrayed as a villain and a crazy person in the media and in casual jokes told by regular people throughout the entire ordeal. John was an afterthought. He was the dude who lost his dick, but all people talked about was what Lorena did, not why she did it.
shh! you’re going against the victimhood narrative!
I don’t know who to say was the ‘butt’, but I thought it was obvious the tenor of all the jokes was “check out what this crazy bitch did to this poor dumb bastard.”
So the moral of the story is, even though the media isn’t nearly as “male-dominated” as it was back in the 90s, they still sensationalize the nonsensical BS, and largely ignore the facts behind any given current event.
Lets just be clear, abuse for abuse is NOT okay. Had she been beating him for years and he lacerated her vagina this would not even be a thing today.
“…sensationalize the story, making Lorena the butt of a national joke…”You know, I was alive at the time, making jokes about this with my other elementary school friends. Lorena was NOT the butt of the jokes.
Today on Netflix: Behind the Curve, get an inside look at the growing group of people so bad at science that they believe the earth is flat. It even has a couple of awkward moments (for them) where they do ACTUAL science experiments and the results aren’t what they were expecting.
Is there a reason Lorena didn’t leave? Violence + Violence is still Violence. If he had her locked in the basement, that’s a different story, but if they divorced, she gets the house, at least half his money, and alimony… So…?I mean if it happened to Brandon Fraiser, paying his ex $75k a month, with no rumors of abuse…
She attacked, sexually mutilated and tried to kill a man while he was sleeping. Let’s see any of these sites defend a male victim of domestic abuse who does something similar.
I remember being younger and thinking what Lorena did was super fucked…but I was wrong I suppose. She was raped, and she removed the instrument of rape.
If a dude was repeatedly sexually assaulted by his wife or other woman and he mutilated her with a hot curling iron in her vagina, I suppose that would be okay too, since retaliatory genital mutilation in the case of rape is okay?
I recommend the Howard Stern version of the story:
this was fucking stupid. no one cares about your boner.
I’m old enough to remember when the Bobbit story was going on, and this is the first time I’ve seen anyone try to suggest “she was the butt of the joke”. The jokes have always been aimed at her husband for getting his penis cut off.
“At the time, rather than evaluating the case’s implications about domestic and sexual assault, the male-dominated press opted to instead sensationalize the story, making Lorena the butt of a national joke.”It’s hard not to feel sorry for the poor woman who had suffered years of abuse but there is no way that even today, 25 years after the event and in the #MeToo era, the coverage would be any different. The medias are as sensationalist today as they ever been and Internet and the social medias makes matters much, much worse. The NY Post would make a stupid pun on its headline, Sean Hannity would rail against feminists, Bill Maher joke about the story in a monologue, a hashtag would be created on Twitter and she would be harassed on social medias. Nothing is better.
New documentary shows he wasn’t the victim as early 90’s media portrayed him to be. Putting him on talk shows and glamorizing his plight. She was the victim and he deserved to get his penis cut off.
Gross. Try, “he deserved to get thrown in prison.”
No one deserves to get their penis cut off, you weird fuck.
The guy definitely deserved appropriate punishment for any crimes he committed, having his penis cut off doesn’t fall under the umbrella of “appropriate punishment”.
What he did was cheat on her. The claims of rape only came out later. But, if he deserved it, did her mother, who she beat up, also deserve it?
You don’t know the whole story.
I was 12 when the Bobbitt thing went down. I’m embarrassed to say my memory of the story was entirely based on the sensational aspects – basically “this crazy lady cut this guy’s dick off!” It wasn’t until last year that I learned she’d been a victim of rape and chronic abuse. If I was even aware of any abuse aspects to the story at the time, it was probably a really sheltered 12 year old’s image – that he’d been mean to her, maybe called her names or something. I probably didn’t know what abuse was at the time. Nothing could explain what happened to John Bobbitt, other than the fact that she was some kind of man-hating psycho.Now I think it’s a shame they were able to reattach the thing.
So if a bitch abuses you emotionally for years and you don’t leave you can cut her tits off and throw them out a window, right?
If all this bad stuff they said Mr Bobbitt did was true, still doesn’t justify removing body parts, but it does increase my empathy for Ms Bobbitt. However, my experience with some crazy dames leads me to think there’s also the possibility that he was an asshole and she may have overreacted and made those accusations as a justification for HER actions. I look forward to this documentary so it can hopefully provide more insight and provide a better platform for establishing an informed opinion.
“I look forward to this documentary so it can hopefully provide more insight and provide a better platform for establishing an informed opinion.”
Which, holy shit, you seem to very very very much need.
This person admits to wanting to know more for the sake of being informed of Lorena Bobbit’s plight and you still insult him.😶
Fair point, until you notice this sentence: “However, my experience with some crazy dames leads me to think there’s also the possibility that he was an asshole and she may have overreacted and made those accusations as a justification for HER actions.”
I am old enough to remember this. She TOLD THE COPS SHE CUT HIS COCK OFF BECAUSE HE CHEATED ON HER. Is that clear enough for you?The claims he raped her came out after she got arrested. They were made only after this nutcase realized she was in trouble and needed an excuse
Yes, “possibility”.
Well it is entirely possible I’ve had a girl try and stab me for no reason, humans are crazy if you haven’t noticed yet.
Can we get one about why crack was a crime problem, but opioids are a public health problem, Peele?
You wouldn’t even need 4 minutes to explain that one, let alone 4 episodes
I want it to run 24-7 on every news channel to remind white people that their strung-out kids are the same as the “crackheads” they demonized and criminalized
Do you know how speed freaks act? Cocaine psychosis is very aimilar to amphetamine pstchosis. They are dangerous people. Add in the much greater rate of black crime generally, about ten times the rate of whites, and the crackheads, particularly black crackheads are a much greater threat to innocent people. If you object, go look up some stats
Do you know how speed freaks act? Cocaine psychosis is very aimilar to amphetamine pstchosis. They are dangerous people. Add in the much greater rate of black crime generally, about ten times the rate of whites, and the crackheads, particularly black crackheads are a much greater threat to innocent people. If you object, go look up some stats
For much the same reason that possession of crack cocaine is punished more severely than possession of powder cocaine, despite the fact that they’re the exact same thing.
I don’t know about you, but I always thought of John Bobbit as the joke of the story. I mean, what a piece of shit and then, karmic justice. The he goes on to make a further joke out of himself by cameos and porn. What a loser.
Why didn’t you warn me the Kim Possible movie is on tonight?
[At the time, rather than evaluating the case’s implications about
domestic and sexual assault, the male-dominated press opted to instead
sensationalize the story, making Lorena the butt of a national joke.]Odd. I remember domestic violence being discussed extensively at the time as a result of this case, and I remember it being a central part of Lorena’s successful defense. I also remember John being the butt of many jokes.And I remember basically no one I spoke to having sympathy for him. I sure as fuck didn’t.One wonders if there’s a drive here to make things seem even worse in retrospect than they were at the time. Why the Hell we’d do that I don’t know. Shit’s bad enough without doing that.
-An Anonymous Nerd
Lorena Bobbitt did not claim rape or violence at first. She said she did it as revenge for him cheating on her, and she added in he was an inconsiderate lover. The claims of rape, never substantiated, came as her defense got organized. If Peele does not make that clear in the documentary – and it sounds like he has not – he has not made a documentary, he has made propaganda.
Of course, leave it to the feminist blogger to try and cry how Lorena is the victim here. Here’s a novel idea for you woke media, cunts, they were both wrong. Both people involved should have gone to jail. I can’t wait for Gizmodo to lay all of you off. Perhaps you can learn to code.
> the male-dominated press opted to instead sensationalize the story, making Lorena the butt of a national joke.
(Narrows eyes.)
In what way was *Lorena* the butt of the national jokes? The situation, maybe. Her husband, maybe. The pair of them, maybe. But her in isolation? I don’t think so.
It didn’t reflect well on anybody. He was clearly a total asshole, with his prior brutality underplayed, and what she did was pretty horrendous but treated as a source of hilarity, as sexual violence against men tends to be.
Soooo…Let’s ignore the justice system & castrate those whom have done us wrong.I’m not defending rape, but I’m also not gonna defend extrajudicial punishment by a vigilante housewife.Spend five minutes thinking about the implications of what you write, versus the sensationalism you can cash in on to get more views that pay you to further push your flawed agenda.