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Crazy? Or rational?

zuzu

I posted about this a bit in the roundup post below, but I wanted to put it into its own post.

Here’s what I wrote a few days ago about this movie, and about Burt and Linda Pugach:

****Finally, we’re getting some really bizarrely chirpy PR emails about a new film, Crazy Love. I mean, check this out:

Hi there,
Crazy Love has been released in selected cities, starting today! To celebrate, I have selected a particularly juicy clip from the film, in which Burt goes off the deep end when Linda breaks up with him. His crazy eyes haunt me in my dreams!

Do you know who Burt and Linda are? Burt Pugach was a married man in 1959 when he pursued the young Linda Riss. When she got fed up with his unfulfilled promises to leave his wife, she broke up with him.

The going off the deep end bit? He hired a couple of thugs to throw lye in her face, blinding her. He spent fourteen years in prison for the crime, during which time he wrote Linda long letters which largely went unanswered. Nevertheless, he was the only man who wanted her now that she was blind and her world was shrinking, and she ended up marrying him when he got out of prison.

From reviews, it sounds like the film makes her out to be just as nuts as he was. But was she? She was from a time when a woman was nothing without a man; was it an unreasonable choice for her to agree to marry the man who’d blinded her if no other man would have her?

Manola Darghis made a good point in her review, which I think needs to be highlighted here:

When reporters have written about what happened between these two, they sometimes have used the phrase crime of passion, one of those slyly misleading idioms, like collateral damage, employed to paper over ugly reality. Crimes of passion have often been viewed as categorically different from other crimes because they supposedly originate in lust and desire, an argument that has been used historically and even legally to rationalize violence against women, including rape. What is odious about the notion of so-called crimes of passion is how the phrase necessarily implicates victims, because it is the very desirability of the victims, after all, that provokes their assailants to madness (passion). All of which makes the image of Mrs. Pugach standing by her man squirmingly uncomfortable.

It’s the chirpy PR people and their “juicy” talk that are nauseating.****

I haven’t seen the film, but the clips on YouTube are pretty interesting. She’s not all sappy about him, she doesn’t seem to sugarcoat what he did to her, and she doesn’t admit that she loves him. But she does say that she is now damaged goods, and he’s a good husband to her. Even her friends and family members, who were horrified that she married him when he got out of prison, grudgingly admit that he treats her well.

It seems to me that she made a rational choice, given the options she had available — and even though his acid attack limited those options for her. That’s not to say that what he did was not reprehensible, or that her decision is above reproach. But who can honestly say what they would do in her shoes?

Thoughts?

36 thoughts on Crazy? Or rational?

  1. My friend read the synopsis to me and showed me the preview when we were looking for movies to see, and I reacted with, ‘WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? If it’s between this and some slasher films, we’re staying home.’

    I haven’t seen the movie, obviously, but the preview made me think it was going to be like, ‘well yeah he blinded her in one eye, but awwww look how he kept going after her and after awhile! she realized that SHE LOVED HIM TOO! how adooooorable!’ which… uh… yeah.

  3. Is their song Every Breath You Take? Because I’ve not even seen the film and the whole thing makes me so deeply uncomfortable that I can’t even articulate it.

    Part of me thinks that culturally we have a tendency to romanticize obsession, particularly the romantic kind. When Darghis talks about “crimes of passion”, I think there’s a connection between that and the intensely blurred line between pursuit and stalking.

  4. Yeah, I haven’t seen the movie and I have no desire to subject myself to more nightmares.

    I think she did it to keep an eye on him and to stay alive rather then having to fear for the rest of her life if he would kill her. Rational when thought in that line.

  5. What Loosely Twisted said. And I’d bet the poor woman was encouraged to come to this decision by friends and/or family. “Oh, c’mon, sweetie…he said he was sorry! And really, guys aren’t beating down the door for you now…at least this way, you’ll have a man.”

  6. I think she did it to keep an eye on him

    Unfortunate phrasing, there.
    I am going to be obnoxious here and insist on another term than “acid attack” for this, seeing as he used lye.

  7. This is so disturbingly…normal. I think on some subconscious level she feels a sense of self-hatred, something alone the lines of, “Well, I did lead him on after all…” How could anyone honestly believe she wasn’t so traumatized by this that she could make a rational, healthy decision?

    I wish for every one of these stories, there’d be, at least, dozens of stories on how women and girls are terrorized every year by stalkers. We are so damn glib about what stalking does to a person or (usually) blame her for his heterosexuality (Isn’t that the “normal” one?), as if it was cruel to be female. Instead, we sympathize with the stalker (a persistent love-struck fellow)…and the rapist (victim of a tease or a liar), and the batterer (she keeps on frustrating the poor man), and the serial killer who targets women and girls (These are our favorites! Jack the Ripper is celebrated as a hero.).

  8. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast has Crazy Hate, I mean Crazy Love, totally beat. It glamorizes this pathology to young girls. (I sure watched it as a kid w/ my friends). How lovely: we learn to blame females for male emotions and actions, w/ a healthy dose of, “If you just love him enough he’ll change…” Truly, a tale as old as time.

  9. Check out the Washington Post’s write-up yesterday. She says that she’s a “ball breaker”. She also testified for him when he was charged with harrassing ANOTHER woman he was having an affair with (yes, during this marriage). I think they’re both nuts.

  10. Check out the Washington Post’s write-up yesterday. She says that she’s a “ball breaker”. She also testified for him when he was charged with harrassing ANOTHER woman he was having an affair with (yes, during this marriage). I think they’re both nuts.

  12. I also recommend the Post writeup. I wish they’d put the stuff about his philandering ways and her acceptance of it much higher. And she blamed the victim the next time he harassed a woman!
    She refused to talk about love, which I thought was telling.
    It sounded from the Post article that she thought no one else would have her.

  13. Burt Pugach is a living symbol of the iron fist beneath the velvet glove in the insidious “chivalrous” manifestations of patriarchy. I would pay good money to watch him pan-fried alive in a forty foot skillet.

  14. I believe he not only “harassed” the victim but “sexually abused” her, which I think is code for raped.

  15. The moral of Beauty and the Beast – on a third grade level, of course – is that you should lvoe someone because of the person they are instead of what they look like, as the movie contrasts the ‘studmuffin’ gaston with the Beast. Naturally, it undermines this by making Beast an asshole 99% of the time, And is full of other flaws.

    My point, I think, is that this formula is never regenedered – men taught that beauty is irrelevant in women. WIth the possible exception of Shrek, and if that’s a subversive film, than I don’t know what that says about America.

  16. Re: Beauty and the Beast,

    The beast held her hostage (I believe that qualifies above “asshole”). This was in exchange for her sick father, who had been imprisoned. The overwhelming lesson was not about physical v. internal beauty: Belle had already spurned Gaston and was not superficial, and she hated the beast b/c he was a tyrant who had abused her father. The lesson was clear: Girls, your love will “cure” even the most ruthless of men so be more “understanding” of him and he’ll change.

    But you are right on the gender dynamics of physical beauty. Just consider Knocked Up…or any random film or TV sitcom.

  17. Not only is “crime of passion” an odious term, but it’s not even applicable in this case. A crime of passion is supposed to be a crime committed in the heat of the moment, when some event (typically a revelation of infidelity) causes the perpetrator to lose control. Hiring thugs to commit an assault for you is not exactly a “heat of the moment” thing.

  18. But you are right on the gender dynamics of physical beauty. Just consider Knocked Up…or any random film or TV sitcom.

    But what about that sensitive contribution to gender equality and size acceptance – “Shallow Hal?”

    (set your sarcas-o-meter on high)

  19. i think mahnola dargis in the new york times was the only reviewer who pointed out the violence in this story. i only wish that Linda Pugach had taken off her glasses and shown the world what he did to her. but if she had, no one would have wanted to see the movie. we like our ‘reality’ sugar-coated and ironic. we’re not good at facing the truth.

  20. Everyone should note how the male reviewers respond to the film: they make sure to note that what he did was “bad,” but look at how it all worked out in the end. This is quite surprising considering their gender is supposed to loathe “romance.”

    I want to make sure I mention: if you are being stalked take this very seriously. Once stalking is underway it’s best option you document everything and cut off all contact w/ him. Don’t respond at all to his repeated attempts to see or talk to you. Make sure you get a new phone line and instruct your loved ones to never address him–ever. Restraining orders rarely, if ever, work and, usually, are counter-productive b/c they allow him to maintain a “relationship” w/ you.

    Read Gavin de Becker’s book, “The Gift of Fear,” where he states the ultimate strategy is prevention by telling the man, “No” clearly (do away w/ politeness). A friend of mine was stalked by a man who became convinced they were in love. She never even dated him, but worked as a volunteer where he sought assistance and she tried to help him. She lived in terror from this violent man for well over a year. The cops thought she was “hysterical,” w/ one even suggesting to “Give him a chance.” Needless to say they didn’t take her restraining order seriously (big mistake; his violence jumped after it was granted). Not until he found another target for his obsession (an actual girlfriend) did he move on. He was arrested for nearly killing her by driving her over w/ his car. She had tried leaving him.

  21. I think this is typical battered woman stuff. She ends up thinking that his “bad” behavior is her fault, if she just didn’t do all of those things that set him off things would be fine. After all, he must really really love her to go to such extremes to keep her.

    A neighbor of mine was recently killed when he tried to help a pregnant woman whose boyfriend was trying to run her over with his truck when she was walking down the road trying to leave him. The guy ran over the neighbor instead. Less than a week later, they applied for a marriage license while he was still in jail. The judge denied the application – wow! I think this starts with how we raise our daughters (can’t be happy unless you have a man in your life) to society’s reaction that the guy’s violence is the woman’s fault. Some in our society try, but we’ve barely scrached the surface on solving this problem.

    What kind of life would Linda R have had without Burt P? Maybe great. I also don’t like the phrase “the only man who wanted her now”. Like she’s damaged goods because she’s blind. Lots of blind people have wonderful relationships – being blind doesn’t prevent that. Not a rational choice.

  22. I also don’t like the phrase “the only man who wanted her now”. Like she’s damaged goods because she’s blind. Lots of blind people have wonderful relationships – being blind doesn’t prevent that.

    Thank you for saying this, swillie, so that I didn’t have to.

  23. What this says to stalkerish men is, “She wants to be with you but just doesn’t know it yet. Keep going! She might give in! Splash some lye in her face and then she’ll have no choice!” It’s fucked.

  24. Hollywood loves the “unconventional” love story–usually two fucked-up individuals unleashing their deplorable dysfunctions on one another and then learning to accept each other’s reprehensible flaws in the end. (Re: Leaving Las Vegas, The Woodsman, etc.) Usually, I appreciate these films or even grow to love them and their message. Love is about accepting one another’s flaws but…accepting someone’s maniacal violence is never ever “quirky and romantic” or “love”.

  27. I also don’t like the phrase “the only man who wanted her now”. Like she’s damaged goods because she’s blind. Lots of blind people have wonderful relationships – being blind doesn’t prevent that.

    Those are quotes from her.

  28. I also don’t like the phrase “the only man who wanted her now”. Like she’s damaged goods because she’s blind. Lots of blind people have wonderful relationships – being blind doesn’t prevent that.–swillie

    Those are quotes from her. –zuzu

    I think that emphasizes swillie’s point even more, which was (as I understand it) that, while we may not want to say that Linda is crazy, we might want to say that her view of the world has been shifted to a serious degree to a myopic view (which often happens–learned helplessness and all of that). I thought swillie made this clear by saying:

    I think this is typical battered woman stuff. She ends up thinking that his “bad” behavior is her fault, if she just didn’t do all of those things that set him off things would be fine.

    It’s good to know that those were her words, of course, because I missed that in the original post. Maybe others did too.

  29. Why does this have to be about metanarratives and all that other nonsense?

    If you ask me, the were pretty screwed up before she broke it off and he ordered a base attack upon her. She was young, single, and reasonably pretty, he was ugly and married. There is your dysfunction – maybe they were both into some strange scatplay or peeing or something unheard of back then and figured that no one else would ever be able to get either one off.

    And maybe y’all should take your feminist hats of for a minute because your truly (a man) does not come away from seeing the clips thinking that disfiguring and blinding the object of my desire is the way to go – as a matter of fact, in my experience, the stalkerish types are the ones more disposed to accepting and regurgitating feminist frames. They don’t feel comfortable initiating contact and/or sex, and think that they can “win” a woman by becoming what he thinks she wants via anonymous information gathering. When this doesn’t work, they try harder, until they become frustrated and feel betrayed because the object of desire doesn’t respond they way he thinks she ought to. Then, unfortunately, he hurts her when he accepts that he cannot have her.

    Also, as above, women in professions or jobs it is typical to help people get inordinate attention from stalkers – they mistake a friendly, helpful disposition for a genuine interest in their affairs. My mother had several stalkers when I was a child, leading to my life-long interest in firearms.

  31. Exactly. This all happened in the 50’s, right? Women in those days were raised to become wives. Their status was defined by the status of their husband. She ended up in as the “other woman” and eventually made the move to leave him, which I think shows strength of character. But of course then she ends up disabled. Yes, by his hand, but still disabled. In those days, there were not a lot of options for women or people with disabilities to support themselves, and certainly for a woman with disabilities it was probably almost impossible. It was almost a fact of life in those days that if you were in abusive relationship you kept your mouth shut because he was providing for you.

    And she blamed the victim the next time he harassed a woman!

    Of course she did. Because if she had to face up to the fact that he was a monster, she would have to come to terms with the fact that she was married to the man who so horribly disfigured her. That’s a hard thing to face up to. Women in abusive relationships compartmentalize and justify as a coping mechanism. They get very good at it. And, all around her, other women in her life who were enduring varying degrees of abuse from their husband. They all have to keep quiet or they all have to face up to it. It becomes a culture of secrets. Its can be hard to help a woman in a problematic relationship for this reason–first, she has to come to terms with it. Sometimes they can’t.

    When I told my mother that I was going to leave my husband of 7 years, I was surprised that she did not give me her support. In fact, she was downright catty about the whole thing. I was very, very hurt until I realized that her reaction was because she envied me the option I had to leave him. She had endured an emotionally abusive marriage for decades and was only free from it when my father died. She did not have the option to leave, and even once the kids flew the coop and she was more financially independent, she couldn’t bring herself to …. because that was not done. So instead, she turned on me and my choices. I think it helped her come to terms with the fact that she never felt empowered to leave him and take charge of her own life, and envied me for that. Sad, really.

    Also, for good or bad you tend to seek out the same environment in your adult life that you had as a child… so those from abusive homes tend to gravitate to abusive partners. Its what you know. She was already involved with a married man, clearly she wasn’t seeking out healthy relationships even from a young age. And, at one point in the video, a family member mentions that she thrived on the attention she got after the attack. Celebrity is a heady thing, and when one does not get positive attention, then negative attention becomes a ready substitute.

  32. This movie is part of what’s available at this year’s Seattle International FIlm Festival. The more I read about it, the more disturbed it left me.

    I have a real problem with folks that make money off of making public the suffering and periodic foolishness of others.

  33. I agree with the comments about her being a product of her times. Also, a number of articles have mentioned she was from a working class background. Which would’ve made a difference in things like the quality of occupational therapy/disability training she was able to afford (private care out one’s own pocket tends to be better than what’s provided by the government or insurance). It can make a college degree harder to obtain. The combination (female in an era where women were trained for marriage, rather than careers, lack of educational prospects and the loss of sight) probably made her financial future pretty bleak. Also, her fiance (the man she started dating after she ended things with Pugach because she found out he was married) broke up with her after the attack because of the scarring. I can’t even imagine what that would do to someone psychologically on top of everything else.

    I don’t know how much the movie focuses in on it, but apparently Linda Riss sought the protection of the police BEFORE the attack. They refused to assist her. And a policewoman assigned to guard her after the attack urged her to marry Pugach:

    I have trouble with links sometimes, so here’s the plain URL to the article in case the link doesn’t go through:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/movies/23love.html?ex=1327208400&en=9b8c3cbbee7f80cd&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

    I think when faced with a series of insane circumstances, she made the sanest choice she was capable of making. As for her testifying on his behalf in the later trial, fear & self preservation certainly played a role. Consider this quote from the director/interviewer in the article:

    Mr. Klores interviewed Linda Pugach for hours at a time in the couple’s dilapidated Queens apartment without her husband present. “She didn’t want him there,” Mr. Klores said. “She wanted to talk. The only thing she wouldn’t do was take off her glasses.” Getting Mr. Pugach to stay away from the interview proved difficult, however.

    “I told Burt not to come back for seven hours,” Mr. Klores recalled. “And every hour, his key would be in the lock, and he’d be coming in, and I’d tell him to go away.”

    To me, that sounds very controlling. I think there’s more than a good chance he’s still manipulating her with threats. And in her experience, he’s followed through in the past and the people who were supposed to protect her, the NYPD, didn’t. The follow through of that threat devastated her life. Though I don’t like the tone of this Washington Post article (titled, “Blind to His Faults”) it has more about the threat & police response:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/05/AR2007060502824.html

    What Burt failed to mention was that he was married and the father of a severely retarded 3-year-old girl. When Linda found out, he showed her bogus divorce papers. She wielded leverage of her own, refusing sex until after their march down the aisle. Nearly a year after they met, she tired of waiting and fell for another man, Larry Schwartz, more the Rock Hudson type, but without the money or law degree.

    Burt was devastated. His law practice was the target of an investigation for illegal fee-splitting, and now he was losing his girl. “If I can’t have you, no one else will,” he warned her, before giving her three choices, the first two being marriage or sex with him. The third was being blinded. She complained to the police, who told her they were powerless.

    It also includes quotes from her on potential boyfriend’s responses to her physical scarring:

    Larry Schwartz had broken up with her after the attack. But she still dated, though anything serious typically ended once she lifted her sunglasses to reveal that she was “damaged merchandise,” as she describes herself. By her mid-30s, her friends worried that she’d end up poor and alone.

  34. Also, if you Google “Linda Riss” & police, you come up with quite a few 2nd amendment sites. Putting aside the politics of gun control, they gave the cite to the case, 22 NY 2d 897. Another Google search brings up the full text of it:

    http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~zuckerpr/cases/riss.htm

    From the decision:

    Linda Riss, an attractive young woman, was for more than six months terrorized by a rejected suitor well known to the courts of this State, one Burton Pugach. This miscreant, masquerading as a respectable attorney, repeatedly threatened to have Linda killed or maimed if she did not yield to him: ‘If I can’t have you, no one else will have you, and when I get through with you, no one else will want you’. In fear for her life, she went to those charged by law with the duty of preserving and safeguarding the lives of the citizens and residents of this State. Linda’s repeated and almost pathetic pleas for aid were received with little more than indifference. Whatever help she was given was not commensurate with the identifiable danger. On June 14, 1959 Linda became engaged to another man. At a party held to celebrate the event, she received a phone call warning her that it was her ‘last chance’. Completely distraught, she called the police, begging for help, but was refused. The next day Pugach carried out his dire threats in the very manner he had foretold by having a hired thug throw lye in Linda’s face. Linda was blinded in one eye, lost a good portion of her vision in the other, and her face was permanently scarred. After the assault the authorities concluded that there was some basis for Linda’s fears, and for the next three and one-half years, she was given around-the-clock protection.]

    So it wasn’t just a one off threat. It was a campaign of harassment. Which the police failed to address in any meaningful way. Yet 7 judges ruled she wasn’t entitled to protection. One did dissent.

  36. What kind of life would Linda R have had without Burt P?

    Burt made it very apparent Linda was not going to have life without Burt. Do you really believe a sadistic criminal like Burton Pugach would allow his victim to live after he attacked her and served 14 years and she still refused to be with him? Certainly she could have no faith/hope/reasonable expectation, that ‘the system’ would protect her.
    Any choice this woman had was a false choice.

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