At seventeen, Darrow Farr was captivated by Every Secret Thing, Patricia Hearst’s memoir recounting her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and subsequent radicalization. Hearst’s ordeal, which saw her on the run, participating in bank robberies and a violent store attack before her arrest and trial, left a lasting impression on the young reader.
Recalling that summer day on his parents’ porch, Farr admits his teenage perspective romanticized Hearst’s trauma as an exciting adventure—a reaction born of youthful detachment and naivety. His fascination eventually led him to filmmaker John Waters, who directed Hearst in five films and shared a public obsession with her story.
Waters, known for his cult cinema style, attended Hearst’s trial and later created Cecil B. Demented (2000), a satirical film featuring Hearst as the mother of a guerrilla filmmaker. The film parodies her real-life parents’ public appeals during the trial, blending camp and black comedy—a combination that could be seen as exploitative were it not for Hearst’s enthusiastic participation.
Hearst’s involvement with Waters offered her a new way to reclaim and reshape her public image, contrasting the polarizing portrayals of her during the trial—as both a naïve victim and a rebellious provocateur. Her roles, delivered with a deadpan seriousness, underscored her control over how she was perceived, while Waters’ films allowed her to simultaneously inhabit both “normal” and “eccentric” personas.
Their collaboration marked a departure from earlier interpretations of Hearst’s story, such as Paul Schrader’s 1988 film adaptation of her memoir. Schrader’s version took a more expressionistic and psychological approach to conveying Hearst’s trauma, employing surreal visuals to illustrate disorientation rather than adhering to journalistic retelling.
However, Hearst has not cooperated with every portrayal of her ordeal. She famously refused to be interviewed by journalist Jeffrey Toobin, who later published the unauthorized biography American Heiress in 2016. Hearst publicly condemned the project, criticizing Toobin personally and successfully prompting the cancellation of a planned film adaptation by Twentieth Century Fox.
This controversy parallels criticism leveled by Amanda Knox against Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater (2021), a fictionalized film inspired by Knox’s wrongful conviction. Knox objected to the use of her name and story without her involvement, highlighting the ethical debate surrounding artistic appropriation of real-life trauma.
Legally, fictionalized works based on public events are not obligated to seek permission or compensate those depicted. Yet, victims often expect a form of moral recognition or compensation, reflecting broader societal struggles to reconcile justice, trauma, and public storytelling.
Hearst, heir to a substantial family fortune, frames her objections less in financial terms and more in questions of artistry and personal affinity. She has criticized Toobin’s portrayal of her as a willing participant in the SLA, a view now widely discredited but endorsed by the media and courts during her trial. Her resistance underscores the complexity of representing trauma without romanticizing or exploiting it.
Farr acknowledges this tension in his own work, his debut novel The Bombshell drawing loosely on Hearst’s narrative but transforming it into a story about a privileged young woman who embraces radicalization as a pathway to stardom. Influenced by Waters’ camp sensibility, Farr sought to avoid a straightforward trauma narrative, instead creating a character defined by audacity, theatricality, and dark humor.
Despite the risk of misunderstanding, Farr hopes that his novel respects Hearst’s legacy as it explores themes of victimhood, political violence, youth, and power. He reflects on Waters’ ability to humanize notorious figures through empathy and artistic vision, suggesting that genuine engagement with difficult subjects is essential to responsible storytelling.
Hearst’s kidnapping remains a cultural touchstone that shaped Farr’s understanding of trauma and celebrity. Revisiting her memoir as an adult, he found deeper compassion for the frightened young woman at its center. While Hearst expresses fatigue over ongoing public fascination with her story, Farr is grateful for the diverse interpretations it has inspired and hopes his work contributes thoughtfully to that conversation.
