"Some details of the case make her eminently suitable to a melodrama that's been running since the 17th century -- the captivity saga," said Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University professor specializing in media and cultural studies.
"In the original, the story is about a woman captured by the Indians. It is a saga of innocence at risk and then saved. It's a very potent story."
The myth has been updated, to make Lynch a fighting woman -- reportedly firing her M-16 in a desperate struggle with the enemy in which she is stabbed and shot. But there's a catch. That aspect of the saga may not be true. (It was reported in April by the Washington Post, among others, quoting anonymous sources. In a subsequent story June 17, the Post said that many of the details remain unclear, and that its initial account had been based in part on Iraqi communications intercepted by the National Security Agency.)
No matter. Television thrives on drama, and pictures. Along with the toppling of Hussein's statue in Baghdad, the rescue of Lynch became part of the story line of a successful war.
And, Gitlin said, her story draws on three popular themes: She's on the side of the angels; she's tough; and she is aided by a sympathetic stranger from the other side -- an Iraqi lawyer.
Hollywood's enthusiasm has been somewhat tempered by saturation war coverage and the squishiness of the plot line. Still, NBC is rushing onto the fall schedule an unauthorized two-hour TV movie about Lynch.
NBC executives reportedly have had the story in rewrite since the BBC, in a report last month, called the original version of the Lynch story "one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived." The British network faulted the Pentagon and news media for reports that Lynch had stab and bullet wounds, and it cited witnesses who claimed the special operations troops who rescued her knew Iraqi troops had left.
The Pentagon dismissed the BBC piece as "void of all facts and absolutely ridiculous." Spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Pentagon "never released an account of what happened to Lynch because it didn't have an account. She never told us." Contrary to the BBC report, the Pentagon never claimed that Lynch was slapped in captivity, nor that there were firefights inside the hospital. As for "making a show" of it, Whitman said special operations did not use rubber bullets but did exercise "the right resources, sufficient to get the job done."
