Patty vs. Tania
Aug 27th, 2008 at 10:17 pm by Susie
Lance has a good piece about Patty Hearst, whose story always fascinated me - enough that my newspaper column, and then this blog, was named in tribute to the ultimate survivor. (When she was arrested, the cop booking her was filling out the paperwork and asked her occupation. “Urban guerilla,” she replied, raising her handcuffed fists.)
I never understood why people insisted she wasn’t brainwashed. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, she was 18 years old when this happened - a child, really. They broke her like a toy.
Anyway, go read it.
As little as I think of Tom Petty (whom I, indecently, share high school alumni status), a talentless boob who has long been in the right place at the right time, Refugee was an anthem of our generation.
It’s rather akin, isn’t it, to people who don’t believe the realities of domestic abuse, how women can remain loyal to men who beat them, mentally and physically. They don’t understand the fear of what will happen if they run - not even when, all too often, those fears prove true when the ex comes back and kills them.
At the time I was skeptical of Hearst’s defense - rich kid wanting to get away with playing radical, I suspected, though I didn’t altogether reject that her explanation could be true. I’ve learned more since, thank heavens, and I really admire her for the way she’s pulled her life together.
Yes, but a valid question has to ask if she would have had that opportunity to pull it together, if she didn’t have all that wealth and her name.
Gug