Kidnapping Ends in Sentimental Anti-Climactic Cliché
Tense abduction falls apart with typical Hollywood resolution
SALT LAKE CITY P.D.
Mitchell and wife do for Mormons what Stephen King did for Plymouth Furys and St. Bernards.
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America breathed a collective, if bored, sigh of relief Wednesday when missing Utah teen-ager Elizabeth Smart was found alive and well after being abducted last June from her bedroom. Police are calling the recovery of the teen a rare happy outcome to a potential tragedy; critics, however, are calling the fairy-tale ending trite and manipulative.
The major breakthrough in the case came earlier this week after two separate witnesses contacted police with information that a suspect in the case had been spotted in Sandy, Utah. Police soon apprehended Brian David Mitchell, an unemployed shelterless self-proclaimed prophet with everlasting bedhead. Mitchell had previously worked as a handyman for the Smart family, under the bizarrely erotic pseudonym Emmanuel. Authorities were surprised to discover Elizabeth Smart in shoddy wig and sunglasses disguise with Mitchell at the time of arrest, as well as cartoon witch Broomhilda, whom police claimed was Mitchell’s wife Wanda Barzee.
Law enforcement and child safety advocates are applauding the teen-ager’s safe return, but the more thick-skinned media critics are less kind. The New York Times resident crime reviewer Durill Barry Fields even referred to the case’s conclusion as “claptrap.”
“This fascinating story of a family’s struggle to cope with loss—and even more intriguing, the absence of closure—came tumbling to a lifeless deadweight resolution Wednesday,” Fields wrote in the Times’ weekend section. “The little girl returns home, unharmed, and everybody’s happy—except those of us who watched this potentially disturbing and effective abduction story from day one. What a disappointment to spend nine months of considerable worry on a story whose ending would be rejected at Law & Order.”
The duration of the kidnapping bothered other critics as well. The San Diego Review magazine’s resident media sniper Hatley Wells took more issue with the time than the ending.
“It’s completely difficult to make an original abduction these days. Personally I’m not a fan of the genre,” wrote Hatley in Friday’s edition. “While I appreciate what Mitchell tried to do with this kidnapping, any good criminal should recognize when their crime has worn out its welcome. Walking down the street in broad daylight alongside his victim, many will no doubt say he wanted to be caught—it would have been a much better idea to want to be caught about seven months ago, before this whole thing blew its suspense factor.”
Even the usually easily-pleased media critics are reluctant to say much good about the crime. Early word has it that TV Guide is already leaking advanced press from next week’s issue, where they “jeer” the kidnapping. Though they compliment the creative “prophet for the homeless” angle and Ms. Smart’s “true-to-life” performance under pressure, they echo critics who slam the lackadaisical, violence-free capture of the terrorizing crazy abductors. The TV Guide review follows another Jeer to this year’s ho-hum Survivor and precedes a Cheer to a “warm and dazzling” Will & Grace that tactfully addresses the subject of coming out at work.
the commune news is made of up two parts vermouth and one part vodka. Ivana Folger-Balzac is the commune’s bitchy correspondent, which is not to say she covers submissive prisoner stories… but if she asks, that’s what we mean when we say it.
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