According to patriarchal law, women who kill are seen as
"insane," "unnatural," and "aberrant."
For the female criminal to find justice, she must abide by
another law. In Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize winning play
Crimes of the Heart, the central character is a female
criminal with a male-appropriated name, Babe. Her justice
is radical because she aims to kill the source of her helplessness
or the very name that perpetuates her oppression.
Unlike her mother who committed suicide, Babe will not let
patriarchal law represent her and fulfill her destiny. She
undermines the power of the patriarchal structure by refusing
to be a participant in the patriarchal law that compresses
her into the same confining and deadly arrangement as her
mother. Therefore, Babe is not blind to what male law does
in the name of women, and her crime exemplifies the motives
of the female criminal tradition: she disassembles her female
identity by severing herself from her marriage and her reputation,
assuring that the patriarchal law will no longer wield a privileged
control over her womanhood.
In her play, Henley contrasts the motives behind Babe's criminality
to those behind Barnette's vendetta and demonstrates how female
justice has no law (of its own), but still wields power. Babe
simulates her female role(s) and eventually enacts "illogical"
or "unjustifiable" resistance to the power relationships
that create patriarchal structure, while Barnette's vendetta
uses logic within a structure that justifies a logical defense.
Babe's objectives or aims as a wife and a woman are only
defined in relation to male-dominating rules, while Babe's
new awakening as a female is unrestricted and allows her to
manipulate her own reality. According to Jean Baudrillard,
the postmodern critic, the "simulacrum" is "everywhere,
in whatever political, biological, psychological, media domain,
where the distinction between poles can no longer be maintained,"
and it becomes necessary to "[enter] into simulation,
and hence into absolute manipulation."
Until Babe points the gun at Zackery and fires, willingly
entering a territory that is no longer mapped out for her,
Babe perpetuates the predominance of rules that do not distinguish
her desires. By continuing to live with her husband and continuing
to live an adulterous life while her husband is unaware, she
is able to conjure her own assumptions of her role as a wife.
The "simulacrum" is where her underrepresented
surface consciousness reigns. For example, Babe ignores the
racial and age stratification of sexual relationships and
no longer maintains "the distinction between poles"
that Baudrillard describes, when she enters into an affair
with Willie Jay, a black teenage boy, and does not feel pangs
of regret. Babe states: "I was just lonely. . . . And
he was good. . . . I've never had it that good."
Baudrillard defines simulation as "to feign to have
what one hasn't," which "implies" an "absence."
In her relationship with Zackery, Babe simulates her role
as a woman because she feigns or assumes her own role (and
her desires) as a wife. When Zackery finds out about his wife's
adulterous behavior he "knocks [Willie Jay] once right
across the face and then shoves him down the porch steps"
and says, "Don't you ever come around here again, or
I'll have them cut your gizzard!"
In reaction to Zackery's violence, Babe simply assumes: "[Willie
Jay] is not doing anything." Therefore, after this scene
outside, Babe describes finding the burglar gun and pointing
it at herself, then quickly and innocently flipping it in
the direction of Zackery's head, because she really "wanted
to kill Zackery, not [herself]. Cause [she] - [she] wanted
Babe's "illogical" reaction demonstrate that a
woman's reality in patriarchal society is defined for her,
and, if she cannot continue to find a reliable definition
from the man who is supposed to protect her and provide her
with the acceptance she needs, her only recourse is a simulated
reality. In other words, she becomes submissive to a simulated
reality instead of being submissive to the men in her life.
Babe's name continues the tradition of female domination or
male control over her desires and her actions. Her crime is
committed out of a desire for recognition by her husband and
out of a desire for self-recognition within patriarchal society.
However, she explains her new awakening to Meg as a result
of her being "lonely" and rejects Meg's claim that
she is a "liberal." Her irony is her ability to
reverse stereotypes without political (liberal or feminist)
motives. If she is denied her female depth (i.e. sexual freedom,
maturity, wisdom, education needed to wield power-knowledge
according to patriarchal law), the tradition of female criminality
is her only alternative.
Henley develops the tension of the female criminal tradition
by justifying Babe's actions according to reversed stereotypes.
She describes Babe's reaction to her husband: Babe "hates
the sound" of her husband Zackery's voice, does "not
like his looks," and is not sexually satisfied. Babe's
reversed reality, however, leaves her without any sense of
self worth when her bullet penetrates Zackery's stomach. The
need for her husband to recognize her aberrant female desires
(or hold her accountable for her adultery instead of attacking
Willie Jay) demonstrates hopelessness rather than typical
male retribution (or revenge). Zackery is a violent man, and
Babe is motivated to stand up for herself as a female, but
she is still not safe from identifiable punishment because
she cannot use her hands and feet as equally powerful weapons
Babe's learned helplessness (or male defined submissiveness)
demonstrates her hopelessness and the completely hopeless
defense Barnette offers her. Babe becomes nameless even though
Barnette, Babe's lawyer, participates in the (equal) power-resistance
dynamic required of the male system. She states: "Why
do you (Meg) think I'm so worried about his (Willie) getting
public exposure? I don't want to ruin his reputation!"
In other words, saving Willie Jay's reputation as a man becomes
more important that saving her own reputation. Babe knows
she is nothing more than the woman who shot her husband, another
woman who committed a crime against men, another "crazy"
McGrath female. Unlike Willie Jay her role does depend upon
her being pure (or safe) and unspoiled. As a female criminal
who undermines the structure of male law that produced her
name, she is banished because the male system re-appropriates
a new name for her in order that she remain dominated. Therefore,
Barnette gives up his vendetta and the information slandering
Zackery because Babe is not interested in slandering Zackery;
she is not interested in playing by male rules because she
feels helpless against them, victimized in the name of them.
Her reputation is irretrievably ruined based on a double standard
and as long as no one finds out about Willie Jay, she believes
that he can still be a man, therefore, he is the only one
Babe's revenge is more akin to justice because it simply
refuses male control. According to Michel Foucault, "Major
dominations are the hegemonic effects that are sustained by
[power] confrontations." Furthermore, "there is
no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives.
But this does not mean that it results from the choice or
decision of an individual subject."
Henley allows the men to demonstrate to Babe that they are
more interested in preserving her unnatural role as a woman
than to accept any responsibility as men in order to redefine
it. While Willie Jay is not bound by the same expectations
or societal laws as Babe, Barnette's "deal" allows
the person that exercises the most power and poses a greater
threat to society the freedom to function in the male structure,
a privilege without punishment for his cynical power. Barnette
has to give up his information slandering Zackery, in order
to trade for the pictures of Willie Jay and Babe committing
adultery, yet it is likely that Zackery will remain a Senator,
and Babe will eventually go to jail. Therefore, Babe does
not make a conscious choice to develop a surface consciousness,
it is simply the result of her not disappearing altogether.
As a criminal, she is defined in relation to male law, which
considers her unnatural and insane, and continues to control
her. For example, Zackery "says he's gonna have [Babe]
classified insane and then send [her] on out to Witfield asylum."
In response to Babe's upset while disclosing Zackery's threat,
Meg replies: "Why, [Babe] you're just as perfectly sane
as anyone walking the streets of Hazlehurst, Mississippi."
Zackery's rules are as ambiguous and undefined as mental
illness itself, and Meg reasonably calculates Babe's sanity
as having nothing to do with interpreting the rules of the
law because only men have control of them in the first place.
Just as Meg committed herself to a mental hospital in Los
Angeles and is not really crazy because she recognizes that
she could be, Babe is not in a violent rage, and is not a
severe threat to society, but has simply lost herself in a
male dominated reality. For instance, Babe does not shoot
her husband even a second time, although she originally fired
with the intention of killing him. She shoots him once, makes
lemonade, and willingly goes to jail.
Henley illustrates that playing according to the logic of
the patriarchal structure and law does not prove any more
effective. Men cannot control either of them if they do not
play by the rules; therefore, Meg denies men judgment in her
life as well (i.e. grandfather and her singing career) as
Babe. According to Ann Jones, the tradition of female justice
is a "double-voiced discourse," containing a "dominant"
and "muted" story and depends upon men wielding
the power of knowledge. Therefore, Henley allows Babe's husband,
Zackery to symbolizes two male dominated power structures
in America: the family and the government. Babe learned to
feel powerless against both of these structures because she
felt powerless against her violent husband. For instance,
it is likely that Zackery's physical assaults sent her to
the hospital numerous times, yet Babe does not speak up about
Babe's story is "muted" and completely unprotected
because she lacks the choice (she did not learn she had one).
Babe denies any type of rational or justifiable discourse,
such as combing her grievances against Zackery with Barnette's,
because the logical male discourse is anything but justice
(i.e. the outcome of the "deal" Barnette feels obligated
to make with Zackery.)
Barnette fulfills the "dominant" discourse because
he provides the explanations for Babe's defense on the grounds
of his own knowledge - that Zackery is involved in "shady,
criminal dealings" and doesn't deserve to be re-elected
as the Senator of Copiah County. Therefore, Barnette makes
a "deal" to protect Babe, but only because her husband
no longer will, and he finds it necessary to make the "deal"
without consulting Babe's opinion. Just as the most sacred
bond between a man and a woman is dominated by men in patriarchal
structure, Babe's decision to defend her life against the
possibility of a death sentence is up to the men to make the
choice for her. Babe never married Zackery for love, but because
it made her grandfather proud. In other words, it was her
All of the representations in Babe's life are no more real
than her own death sentence. Her "day" is "really
bad," but so is her life, performing an unfulfilling
role that is meaningless. The security men provide her with
is not as essential as her unrecognized desires (i.e. desires
as life's context for meaning). Without the shared desires
or understanding of her sisters, she prefers her own absence,
a death sentence - the only reality that could possibly reverse
her submission into her own suicide.
The ability to interpret her own desires requires an encounter
with a shared, learned surface consciousness of womanhood
(or sisterhood). The sisters come together to realize they
can find protection (of their desires) by recognizing a shared
reality. Only then will they be safe in their performances
Barnette, the only man that can protect a woman who does
not deny her own murderous crime (and they do not expect Babe
to protect herself) states: "It seems to me that we can
get her off with a plea of self-defense, or possibly we could
go with innocent by reason of temporary insanity." Barnette's
recourses for defense are "that Zackery Botrelle brutalized
and tormented this poor woman to such an extent that she had
no recourse but to defend herself in the only way she knew
how!" His statement rings true, but his defense is logical
and justified, unlike Babe's struggle.
Babe cannot possibly understand life if there are no rules
she considers legitimate. She would rather sit in a jail cell
playing her saxophone because she believed she had to face
her struggle alone, shamefully in the eyes of society. What
Babe's actions require is that men also take off their blindfolds
and experience her simulated reality, the only reality that
undermines an ambiguous male power structure.
The female criminal tradition demonstrates that women need
to know how to fight back in order to unlearn their helplessness.
During a time when blindfolded men surrounded them at every
turn, the only recourse of strength in numbers was disappointing
because even the women were blindfolded. The differences in
physical and psychological training that give men an advantage
over women I believe has been addressed in present day society.
But before this critical transition took place (and in many
places maybe it still has not), the female criminal tradition
proved that men could no longer live safely with women when
women's only recourse was violence.
In the play, Barnette has to give up his own vendetta in
order to protect Babe and his choice to do this and resist
male law for Babe, only serves to save Willie Jay. Barnette
believes his personal vendetta would be aided by Babe's grievances
but even without her help he protects this unprotected woman
in any way he can. Did I mention that it was because she sold
him baked goods once, and because she is a woman who needs
protection from men to live in a male-dominated world?
In the mid 1980s, Henley adapted her bestselling and oft-performed
play into a screenplay. The filmic adaptation was released
in 1986 and starred Sissy Spacek (Babe), Diane Keaton (Lenny),
and Jessica Lange (Meg). It received a great deal of critical
attention including an Oscar nomination, the Golden Globe
for best actress in a comedy or a musical, and the New York
Film Critics award for Sissy Spacek and an Oscar nomination
for the writer herself. Clearly, audiences and critics alike
recognized some essential truths about the role of women in
1970s and 1980s American culture.