Cultural Impact
The Bobbitt case was one of the first cases that brought public attention to the subject of marital rape. The case also brought attention to the issue of domestic violence and the realization that men as well as women can be the victims of such violence. Within days of the incident, domestic violence and feminist groups rallied around Lorena, citing the alleged continuous abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband that caused her to attack him, albeit in an unusual and violent manner.
Media attention surrounding the case resulted in national debate and also sparked a flurry of jokes, limericks, T-shirt slogans, advertising gimmicks, and an urban legend that Lorena had later been killed in a car accident because "some prick cut her off". The incident was quickly adapted/parodied as a low-budget feature film called Attack of the 5'2" Women starring Julie Brown as "Lenora Babbitt" along with an adaptation of the Tonya Harding case. In the film Fight Club, the character Tyler Durden comments that although the main character's house has been blown up, "You know man...it could be worse, a woman could cut off your penis while you're sleeping and toss it out the window of a moving car", referencing the Bobbitt case. The incident is also mentioned in the "Weird Al" Yankovic single "Headline News".
Shortly after the incident, episodes of "Bobbittmania", or copycat crimes, were reported. The name Lorena Bobbitt eventually became synonymous with penis removal. The terms "Bobbittised punishment" and "Bobbitt Procedure" gained social recognition.
"Mayhem", a season 4 episode of Law & Order, was partially inspired by this case.
Read more about this topic: John And Lorena Bobbitt
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“Quite apart from any conscious program, the great cultural historians have always been historical morphologists: seekers after the forms of life, thought, custom, knowledge, art.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)