Television movies rarely win both high ratings and critical acclaim, but NBC's The Burning Bed managed to do so last week. Starring Farrah Fawcett, the gritty film was based on a 1977 case in which a battered Michigan housewife set her sleeping husband on fire but was acquitted of murder by a jury. During the program, some stations flashed telephone numbers of local shelters and hot lines for battered women. Thousands of viewers called in: abused wives seeking relief and, in some cases, battering husbands seeking counseling.
Unfortunately, a few reactions were horrifyingly different. Less than an hour after watching the...
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