Neil BakerBad Hostage is awaiting a UK-wide release date.
For anyone who has undergone intensive hostage and negotiation training, two phrases stand out and lodge in your mind: “Stay calm and do whatever the hostage taker wants you to do” and “You will be rescued, but it may take some time.” There is an emphasis on the victim staying silent and doing whatever it takes before the cavalry arrives to save them, and there remains a theory that women are far more vulnerable than men in any hostage situation. In many cases, this is, of course, due to the fear of sexual violence by men, but history also shows us that there are other factors at play.
Nowadays, apart from prisons, war zones and terrorism, hostage-taking is largely unheard of in domestic settings. Still, for those who have gone through these highly pressurised, scary and uncertain experiences in the past, the event lives with them forever. In her fascinating documentary Bad Hostage, director Mimi Wilcox explores the ongoing impact of hostage situations on three women and their families while reframing those experiences and the police response.
Wilcox talks to her grandmother, who was held hostage by two men “Doug” and “Dave” alongside her five kids in March 1973 in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, USA, while also exploring the experiences of Patty Hearst in 1974, who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army and Kristin Enmark, one of the bank tellers held in the infamous Norrmalmstorg robbery in Stockholm by Jan-Erik Olsson and Clark Olofsson; an event that would give birth to the loose psychological theory of Stockholm Syndrome.
All three cases are unique, but Wilcox quickly identifies the main thread between them. In each case, the female victims remained calm and logical in how they dealt with the situation and the men who turned their lives upside down in a moment. They attempted to understand the men invading their workplaces, lives, and homes and showed compassion in trying to resolve the situation safely. They took control of their well-being despite the risks, and in doing so, they came into conflict with the police sent in to rescue them. In all three cases, police believed women should be silent and grateful to the men storming the barricades to save them. At the same time, the state thought women were incapable of defending themselves and likely to be seduced by the men in their presence.
Through fascinating interviews with her grandmother and family, recorded interviews, and news items relating to Patty Hearst and Kristin Enmark, Bad Hostage dissects the sexism at the heart of 1970s policing, media, and state and urgently challenges Nils Bejerot’s psychological theory of Stockholm Syndrome, which continues to be used when discussing hostage situations today.
Berjerot’s theory had no clear evidence and no diagnosis path, and yet the media and police quickly adopted it as a way of sexualising the hostage-taker and victim relationship. It is fair to say that Berjerot never expected Stockholm Syndrome to gain the traction it did, nor did he ever expect it to become a widely used psychological theory. But whether he meant it to happen or not, Stockholm Syndrome became a way of silencing courageous women who compassionately attempted to resolve hostage situations without the need for male violence.
Fifty years after her own family experiences in Sebastopol, Wilcox’s Bad Hostage asks us why the state and the police were afraid of women rationally taking control of the situation they found themselves in and why those brave women faced the wrath of the police and media afterwards, despite being the victims. It asks us whether things have changed since the 1970s or whether authorities and media still hold a view of women as needing to be saved from violent men who could allegedly seduce them at any moment. Things have undeniably improved since the 1970s in many areas of policing, but when considering whether misogyny still sits at the heart of our police, media and state, I am left with one thought: You bet it does!
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