MovieChat Forums > Crazy Love (2007) Discussion > Women and emancipation, would this story...

Women and emancipation, would this story happen now and other things

posted 14 years ago by star_power
3 replies | jump to latest

Just my opinion.

From what I saw Burt and Linda are kind of manipulative in their own different ways for their own differing reasons. And I suspect very strongly that they are being misleading about how wonderful their current love affair and their marriage is. I doubt Burt dotes on Linda to the extent he wants to leave us thinking he does. I mean for one thing he must have had SOME time off from being at her beck and call 24hours a day to have the affair I would have to think. Linda doesn't want to be wrong either. She'll brag about how well taken care of she is by Burt and how much he loves her..I think she's insecure. If she has to admit that he maybe doesn't have some all perfect if bizarre love for her it somehow makes her less. I mean she's like "okay he has affairs but he didn't stalk her the way he stalked me"..like the stalking is a reflection of her worth.."I was worth stalking..I am special because he was so obsessed with me all those years".

Also it was and is important to her to still have men look at her and see her beauty and her beauty is her power in her mind. She reminds us that he looks at her and still sees her as beautiful. I do not doubt this. But juxtaposed against this is that he must find other women attractive and beautiful as well seeing as he runs around having affairs on her.

Linda has never had this obsessed man to herself. Not when he was married to someone else and two timing his wife and stringing her along about the divorce..and not now that she's the wife and he has nefarious affairs with other women. I'm not so sure if she cares as much really because it is never hidden that Linda craves financial and material security very strongly. She likes affluence or at the very least the appearance of being affluent. It is all important to her. When she was young, and probably much much more now after all the years of financial hardtimes she has had being an average woman without a trust fund in a low or moderately paying job without the high powered career or anything surviving on her own before it was common or heard of for women to be educated, independent, in good paying jobs with the levels of success to be affluent on their own. The only way to be stable or well off was to marry..which she eventually did later..to the guy who blinded her..so he'd financially take care of her. And I think there are odd psychological things going on too that have her marrying her attacker..quite probably.

This story is so sad. They are both nuts. Him criminally so. He's worse because he is evil and thinks nothing of injuring a person to have whatever he has to have or they are acting outside of his control or failing to respect his presumed authority or superiority. He wants what he wants when he wants it..and saying no will cost them dearly and he isn't afraid to threaten them..he will put fear into someone to have them submit..he admitted this thought process he has when he was describing his intent and thoughts during his escalating threatening behavior and ultimate violence toward Linda. What did he say at one point..he wanted her beaten up because then she would be scared and would go back to him for comfort and as he himself said "because she wouldn't want it to happen again". Usually you expect to hear the sinister laugh at the end but he thinks this is coming off as totally sympathetic to his presentation of himself as not being all that bad. Scary stuff.

I don't see her leaving him. It's an arrangement that works for them mutually and gets them the attention they both crave. They do have that in common in spades that is for sure. As proof this fascinating "love" (oh dear) story got me watching this movie..it is a tale that does draw a person in for it's dysfuntional freakshow qualities..and doesn't disappoint in that regard.

[–] hodie 14 years ago

From my viewing of this doc, I got the impression that Linda evaluated her options, and figured this bastard OWED her. They didn't seem really lovey-dovey to me, but I guess that only people who know what goes on in any marriage are the spouses themselves.

I first heard about this case in my Torts course in law school. The case we were studying arose out of Pugach's attack on Riss; the issue was whether the NYPD had owed Riss a duty to take steps to prevent the attack when she had notified them about his threats. (It didn't, the court held, because so holding would mean the City owed *everyone* in NYC the exact same duty).

I just couldn't believe that she had married the SOB! But I think she wanted to make some kind of a life out of whatever was left.

Honour thy parents. They were hip to the groove too once you know.

[–] star_power 14 years ago

I think she was so beaten down by being disfigured, having zero real self-confidence after all the rejections when any guy who would see her horrible, ugly disfigurement would make their excuses and run off, and losing her job (her lifeline, her independence) when as a result of the attack she finally totally lost her sight fully and was too disabled to continue. She was not just physically damaged but psychologically scarred. And it's all fine to say it's all in her head but it was the truth. Noone wanted her, and she wasn't going to be able to take care of herself now that she was totally blind..she'd been struggling by independently all the while for as long as she was at all able with her partial sight and she would have continued to do so I believe if she hadn't gradually been getting blinder then totally blind..and she had no family, they were all dead.

Things that we take for granted now as the realistic opportunities and choices one has she either didn't or was so affected by being a hideously disfigured woman in a society where a woman is evaluated firstly and foremostly on her looks and her worth diminished if she gets rejected by men or can't seem to "hold on to a man" so she fell into a state of mind where she naturally thought she didn't have any choice but to go to the man who would stick by her and not reject her for her own survival - the man who attacked her. I think she was and still is so low she truly believes or knows there is noone else on earth (she plucked up the courage and tried and they each and every one rejected her the minute they saw her face) and being alone is not an alternative option due to being dependent from the blindness. She went into some sort of diminished survival mode.

Not saying she isn't somehow insane and possibly in need of help to undo the years that have affected her thinking in this way but it is a very interesting study in the way the human mind works in a life changing adversity and what society's atmosphere/attitude was like in the 1950s to 1970s for women like her. She probably went into just the beaten down psychological state that dear old Burt was banking on achieving in her when he plotted to have her attacked and permanently "damaged". It seems the woman had a very sad life and just thought 'Well it can't get any more unfortunate or miserable than what I have been in, now I just need ~stability~ from whichever source can provide it, and the ONLY source seems to be him. I have no other choice. None.' Just the way Burt fixed for it to be.

[–] CheruthCutestory 9 years ago

First off, I bet Linda was more than happy to have him sleeping with other women. I am sure she didn't want to sleep with him much. I read in one of the stories about this that she claimed she couldn't have sex with him since 1990 because of heart problems (she had been hospitalized and in the ICU in 1990). The affair thing blew up in '97. I'm sure on some level she didn't enjoy sex with this man.

I think this case was unique to their personalities not just the times.

She DID work. She did have a job and went to it on her own despite her disability. She never relied on anyone else or even a cane to do it (she took the bus). And continued to work after she married him. Until she was fired (he claims for marrying him but probably because of her decreasing vision capabilities). When she married him he was just out of prison and didn't have a dime (he makes this point on one of the talk shows). So, the idea that she did it so he'd "financially take care of her" is silly. She had more money than him, at first. And they got some income from selling their story, I believe.

He worked as a paralegal after. It isn't as though he was set for life.

I think it was more of a companionship problem. If she's telling the truth about her virginity (and I don't have any reason to doubt her) this is a woman who always wanted and never had personal intimacy. This is a woman who didn't have much in the way of family to start with and then had her mom go to a home. She didn't have anyone and increasingly she was more and more in the dark, literally.

And then there was this man who remembered how beautiful she was. And who would be there for her and not run away. After 14 years (!) alone and blind and struggling she probably wanted that more than anything.

It is true that she had put a lot of emphasis on her looks but it seems like that's all she was ever praised for. So, naturally. And it's clear she was still trying to maintain herself. But, at the same time, when this horrible difiguring event happened she moved on with her life. She went to work, she went to Europe, she learned to paint. She didn't let losing her looks destroy her.

Guess who has two thumbs, speaks limited French, and hasn't cried once today? This moi.