Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy: the condition whereby a person pretends someone close to them has an illness.
But given its news coverage recently, perhaps it should be renamed Gypsy Rose's Mother Syndrome. Gypsy Rose Blanchard, since being released from prison this past month after serving a 10-year sentence for murdering her abusive mother, has become an internet sensation, culturally ubiquitous in a way few things are anymore. "Fans" are creating bucket lists of things they want Gypsy Rose to do now that she's free, flooding her social media platforms en masse, and eagerly clicking on each The Daily Show interview she's invited to. The world can't get enough.
And me? Well, I just think it's pretty darn weird.
Ever since reading Notes on an Execution last year (read more on my thoughts here), I've been deeply disturbed by America's obsession with serial killers and tragic stories of violence inflicted on women. Why is it so fascinating to us to follow a little girl who murdered her own mother because she was being grossly abused? It feels exploitative in two ways -- against Gypsy and her mother.
But more, I've since come to realize the intersectionality that litters this issue. Incarceration is decidedly a people of color problem -- Black and Hispanic populations are thrown in jail at much higher rates (and face much more resistance when trying to find employment or housing as an ex-convict) than their white counterparts. Yet, the most notorious legal cases in the United States -- Ted Bundy, Gypsy Rose -- are focused on pretty young white women.
Which begs the question -- why is Gypsy able to make a career off of her incarceration, while most, upon release from a long prison sentence, lead lives of significant struggle? Are we forgiving her criminality (or, more accurately, not forming preemptive negative bias against her) solely because she's white and conventionally attractive? Her stories of 250 men visiting her prison cell attempting to ask her on a date might suggest so.
This is not my way of saying her abuse "wasn't that bad" or "could've been worse". But I will say that Gypsy Rose is far from the #GirlBoss story of a young girl standing up to her abuser. She faced years of abuse, committed matricide, served ten years in jail, and is now out. She likely has an intensely complicated relationship with her mother, her grief, and her identity, and frankly, we should have an equally complicated relationship to her moral grayness. Furthermore, she was released so recently; she is almost certainly jarred by how much has changed while she was imprisoned -- in 2013, Vine was the biggest social media platform. It was a different time. These are serious sources of trauma that will honestly take years (if not lifetimes) in therapy to unpack, but the internet is taking this whole ordeal so unseriously. Why is that?
It's because her situation, while complex, isn't uncomfortable. In this narrative, the hero and the villain are both white, so we don't have to sit with the systemic issues that might've led to this, the way we would if this were a woman of color. She's alive, so we don't have to wonder about the ethics of a justice system that allows such abuse to go unnoticed. She's engaged and outwardly happy, so we don't have to question whether her initial sentence was fair¹. There are clear enemies, with diagnosed mental health disorders, and so platforming, idolizing, and developing obsessive para-social relationships with her doesn't feel creepy (even though it is)².
Recently, I read an article about carceral feminism, the movement that tied the prison system to (white) women's idea of gender justice. A series of landmark court cases in the 1970s and 80s made rape, domestic violence, and intimate partner abuse all crimes punishable by law. And this sounds great, but in practice it created a false justification for over-policing and under-supporting communities of color; ironically, the same communities women were already struggling to keep together.
For example, a woman calling the police on her violent husband in a predominantly black neighborhood suddenly created an "reason" for cop cars to flood the streets. A neighbor could now call 911 on another neighbor, and the law enforcement officials were legally required to make an arrest; this quickly devolved into an insidious form of segregation. Women were vilified for staying with abusive partners, because the system supports you, so what's the issue? without realizing that economic insecurity and a household double burden often accompanied the abuse, so single parenthood was usually just as precarious a situation³. And just like that, the prison-industrial complex became akin to feminism.
Even so, it's hard to criticize carceral feminism while the abuser and rapist in our mind's eye is a man. Regardless of the systemic issues surrounding these laws, it's unfathomable to suggest that rape and violence should meet any fate but a prison sentence -- and a long one at that.
Think of it this way -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as the defense attorney on Moritz v. Commissioner, where she argued that a Moritz, a man looking after his ailing wife, should not be denied tax benefits on the basis of his sex. It was the first time a gender discrimination case had 'merit' in the eyes of the court, because for the first time, the victim was a man. While stereotypes about women's inherent inferiority could make any gender equality case immediately 'trivial', these arguments failed for men. Similarly, carceral feminism, while the abuser is a stereotypical man, is easy to uphold. But with Gypsy Rose, her abuser was a woman, and she (a woman herself) was the inflictor of violence. This pokes necessary holes in the fundamental thread that carceral feminism established between violence, prison, and justice.
That is, even looking beyond race, why do we willingly contextualize her violence? Because she's not a man. Why do we recognize her victimhood? Perhaps the public subliminally knows that even if Gypsy had managed to call the police on her mother, this biased system may not have been able to recognize a woman as an abuser. Why is her imprisonment wrong? Because we can recognize the horrendous prison conditions only when a young girl is forced to brave it alone. So, her release is celebrated like she's a Hollywood A-Lister winning an Oscar.
Even another in her shoes could only ever be a dangerous jailbird. Even though a more apt comparison (for both) would be a war veteran.
EDIT (1/16/2024): This situation also reminds me of the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial. The way it was meme-ified, made into an internet phenomenon, and dissected ad nauseum for our personal viewing pleasure was objectively strange. Sure, Depp and Heard are entertainers; but when they're not on the job, why do we still treat their lives as a show? Gypsy Rose's story isn't fictional, but the flippancy with which the general media is treating it sure would have you fooled.
¹ An interesting parallel is Kohlberg's Scale of Moral Reasoning. Commonly, to test one's ethical disposition, a dilemma is posed: if a man desperately needs medicine for his wife, but can only procure this medicine by stealing, what should he do? Ethically competent people usually respond with he should steal medicine but accept his arrest as punishment. Gypsy Rose is the real-life test of these ethics: if a girl is being abused by her mother, and can only escape once her mother is dead, what should she do? The justice system responded by punishing her for matricide; society seems to see her as the haloed victim who did no wrong. Is there a middle ground here? Should there be?
² And not in a creepy, I-can-fix-him, sexualized way like Ted Bundy was, but by rational, detached, and critical people.
³ Clarification: this is not my way of suggesting that rape and intimate partner violence can be justified given appropriate context. I'm actually against society's view of Gypsy Rose -- I think her contributing to her mother's murder was wrong, just like I think men hitting their wives is wrong. But it is also true that throwing Gypsy in jail wasn't necessarily a solution, just like rounding up abusive men isn't always a solution, either. Often, the outside world looking in feels a sense of righteousness, knowing they did the right thing and put the bad guy away. We don't want to think about how we could preempt the violence and prevent the murder and abuse from ever happening at all, nor do we want to think about the damage we may be leaving in our oh-so-heroic wake. Gypsy Rose is the first time I've seen the justice system (and not just individuals) seemingly make this point.
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