“This was a modern love story. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy marries girl. Girl cuts off boy’s penis,” says one of the characters in “Lorena.” The Amazon Prime Video docuseries tells the story of Lorena Bobbitt, who became a household name in 1993 when she cut off her then-husband’s penis with a kitchen knife while he slept. The televised court proceedings — and the nature of her crime — made her a news sensation. “I didn’t choose to be in the spotlight, but there’s no going back,” Bobbitt says in a new trailer for the project.
“Lorena” sees its titular character telling her side of the story. Sensationalized accounts of the case often ignored or minimized the fact that she claimed her husband, John Wayne, physically and sexually abused her. Witnesses corroborated her story. Still, sexist and racist stories in the media dismissed Bobbitt as a “jealous wife” and a “hot-blooded Latina.”
“There is a battle of the sexes,” says one of the doc’s interviewees. “What it meant in 1993 is not that different from what it means today.”
“Lorena” will examine what it means to be “entertained by someone’s suffering” and the years of abuse leading up to Bobbitt’s infamous act. The four-part series will make its world premiere at Sundance January 29 and drops on Amazon Prime Video February 15.
