Whacks

I've had a longtime fascination with the story of Lizzie Borden, and not because I want to hack up my parents.  I think it's mostly because in the pictures I've seen of Lizzie, her expression is deeply impenetrable.  She's a Mona Lisa.  In my first book I dropped in a Lizzie Borden reference, and after my reading at the Brown bookstore, when I asked the audience of about eight, "Does anyone have any questions?" a girl in the back row wanted to know, "Are you from Fall River?"  When I told her no, she was disappointed.  "Oh, I thought because you knew about Lizzie Borden, you might be from Fall River.  That's where I'm from."  That was pretty much all she wanted to know about me or the book.  One bored, seven to go.  Lizzie Borden was also in my second book until I had to shorten it.

By far the weirdest thing I watched on TV last week was a TLC special on the Borden murders, and the reason the show was so weird was because it distinctly felt like an hour of Skinemax.   The special employed the standard crime scene reenaction techniques, but instead of aiming for a semblance of stodgy veracity, the creators decided to make the murders- well, seem hot.  I think even Lizzie would agree with me that she was no beauty.  She had a cabbage patch face with masculine overtones and the thick cranial and bodily bearing of a spinster.  The Irish maid, Bridget, also suspected in the murders?  Not too cute either, judging by photographs.  But in the TLC version of the murders, all of a sudden Lizzie and Bridget are pretty hot with shapely bodies, accentuated by their darted dresses and aprons.  They have high voices, and they're sort of gossipy.  I'm well aware that in true-crime TV reenactions, most everyone is better looking than the original, unless the original (e.g. Nicole Simpson) is impressively attractive to begin with, but part of the "charm" of the Borden murders is the mystery of Lizzie herself- that creepy half-smile, that bulky, asexual power.  By making her a nubile, flitty girl for the special, the recreated murders seemed to come off like nothing more than the capricious whim of a catalog model.

Of the special's posited theories, the favorite seemed to be that Lizzie was able to appear before the police without blood on her clothing because she committed the murders in the nude.  To take the viewer back in time, the show flashed many takes of the actress's naked legs and shoulders moving through the Borden mansion, set to "something is going to happen, be it sex or murder" music.  The shots lovingly dwelled on her ankles.   I guess maybe these ankles were supposed to be menacing in their pagan brazenness, but as I watched, I just thought, "I'm seeing a lot of ankle."  Less ankle, more skull, please.  The special also gripped onto the hypothesis that Lizzie had been having sexual relations with her father, giving her motive for the murder (killing her stepmother because she'd been passive about the relationship), and hinted at a vague lesbian alliance between Lizzie and Bridget, who might have covered each other's tracks.  In fact, the narrator suggested that some people believe that Bridget is the one who told Lizzie to go take off her clothes after the murder.  Later there was a loving shot of the metal basin in which Lizzie probably washed herself, and I half expected to see a reenaction of Bridget soaping her up.

What was particularly porny about the special, though, separate from the deliberately spiced up history, was the way that the interviewed "experts" spoke about the murders.  Two of them, detectives equipped with dollhouses and Luminol, spoke in such stilted, horrible dialogue that I could immediately tell they'd written themselves an Abbot and Costello script for the special.  So, in a sense, instead of just talking about the case, they were acting.  And acting poorly.  Acting in the vein of, "I got a call about a leak, miss.   I'm the plumber and I'm here to service your pipes."  I can't imagine that these detectives didn't get completely harrassed after their colleagues caught wind of their saucy TV debuts.   Then there was the manager of the Lizzie Borden B&B, as the mansion was turned into a hotel some years ago (I tried to talk my mom into going and visiting it while I was at school in Providence, but somehow she never agreed).  I get the feeling that this guy moved cross country just to be the manager of the B&B, because when he was talking about the Borden murders, he appeared to be in a state of ecstasy.  His eyes brightened and his bottom lip went wet sometimes.  He reminded me of nothing more than an adolescent boy who goes to his first strip bar, now sitting in front of his friends and relating all of the finer details. 

But, no matter how bizarre all these reenactions and sexy narrations and cheeky experts were, no one can beat the famous pictures of Lizzie.  It's impossible.

Those eyebrows, that chin.  That mouth.  The special conjectured that the bulk of the reason for Lizzie's acquittal was because the jury was all male, and they found it hard to believe that a woman could have enough force and anger to send an axe down through anyone's skull.  But when I look at pictures of Lizzie, I see someone who could do anything.

Comments

[gwenda]

I was researching Lizzie for a script once and took a trip to Fall River. There are some excellent texts, especially Edmund Pearson's stuff, because he's just a big superfreak. But really, this is just to say, if you ever make it to Fall River, eat at one of the Portuguese places. Best. Food. Ever.

[Brian]

I've been trying to get someone to stay at the Borden B&B with me for years. No luck. Of course, I may be too chicken to stay there by myself...but I'd never admit it to anyone. Not even on the internet.

[Sylvia]

That particularly documentary was THE worse of all those produced so far. Lizzie continues to be presented as a one-dimensional persona of an inaccurate quatrain. Maybe some day someone will get it right.

[Audrey]

Very nice... I like your style of writing! I am a member of the Lizzie Borden Society Forum, http://www.lizzieandrewborden.com and we all enjoy anything 'Lizzie'!