112 Popular Culture Review
was , as he put it , “ on tour .” He added ambiguously , “ It gives her something to draw on so the horror of the experience will be balanced .” 5
Hollywood producers contacted the parents of both victims , asking to buy the rights to the story . All three major networks , ABC , CBS , and NBC , competed for the rights to interview the girls , who at first wanted to go on all of them . They were finally convinced by NBC to appear exclusively on The Today Show with Katie Couric ( a staffer admitted buying one girl an $ 80 pair of pants , explaining that she “ felt bad ” about what Tamara and Jackie had gone through ). 6 For her part , Tamara said she found Couric “ really cool and sweet .” 7
As long as everyone involved , including the parents , managed to convince the public ( and themselves ) that transforming the brutal rape of Tamara and Jackie into a media event was good for the girls , few raised objections about possible ulterior motives . At the end of the day , and in the mish-mash of values attending the case almost from the beginning , a bottom line was hard to find . After her appearance on TV , and a month or so following the abduction and rape , a cheerful Tamara told reporters that she was enjoying the ongoing media attention . “ It ’ s fine ,” she said . “ I guess you could say I ’ m like a celebrity .” 8 At least no one could say that these innocent kids ’ fifteen minutes of national TV exposure hadn ’ t been hard-won . Still , just two weeks after their appearance on “ The Today Show ,” the media had lost interest in Tamara and Jackie . No word yet as to whether a made-for-TV movie deal might be in the offing .
Of course Tamara and Jackie were legitimate victims who were lucky to escape with their lives . The problem is that , as a culture , we ’ ve lost perspective on just what a victim is , or is perceived to be . 9 We also refuse to admit that at the heart of the postmodern cult of victimhood is yet another form of ( thinly disguised ) narcissism .
As innocent teen-agers turned media celebrities , Tamara and Jackie had narcissism thrust upon them , so to say . The same can hardly be said of the untold millions of American victim-wannabes hooked on countless therapy protocols designed to appeal to what Robert Hughes calls “ the [ mythical ] prelapsarian inhabitant ” within . Hughes elaborates :
The cult of the abused Inner Child has a very important use in modem America : it tells you that personal grievance transcends political utterance , and that the upward production curve of maudlin narcissism need not intersect with the descending spiral of cultural triviality . Thus the pursuit of the Inner Child has taken over just at the moment when Americans ought to be figuring out where their Inner Adult is , and how that disregarded oldster got buried under the rubble of pop psychology and specious short-term gratification . We imagine a Tahiti inside ourselves ...