Jessica Lynch is a media creation. She's a cross between a radical feminist working class heroine and a Perils of Pauline chained-to-the-railroad-tracks victim. She's tailor-made for this media-drunk culture.
I don't want to take away from her ordeal, but I have wondered if the media like the woman-as-victim aspect of her story.
That's the amusing part of the whole thing. The media plays it both ways -- empowered young woman boldly defining herself in her own terms, and innocent victim of evil masculine oppression at the hands of her Iraqi captors. And through it all, they still haven't touched on yet another angle: that of the Iraqis as victims of American hegemony, thus making the US government culpable in little Jessica's ordeal.
Who knows what really happened? And more to the point, who cares? If it's on TV, it plays.
If this had not been real life, it could have been one of those Lifetime victim-of-the-week movies, starring Tori Spelling.
If this film isn't in production yet, it soon will be. Only Tori Spelling is too old to play Jessica (thank God). And she's not plucky enough, either.