"Enough" Is Not Enough

In a bloody, glass-shattering fight scene that marks the climax of "Enough" -- the latest Hollywood woman-in-jeopardy flick that opened in theaters on Friday -- Jennifer Lopez kills her husband.

"Enough" is the story of Slim (Lopez), a young domestic violence survivor, who finally strikes back at her violent and abusive husband, Mitch. As one of only a handful of Hollywood films to tackle domestic violence head-on, "Enough" -- which has all the trappings of a major blockbuster -- could have helped increase awareness of a long-neglected social problem. But instead it mostly serves to fuel popular misconceptions, presenting overly simplistic ideas about domestic violence. The most damning aspect of the movie is its dangerous message that violence is the only choice open to battered women. Worse yet, it is completely inaccurate about the consequences of making that choice.

After she delivers the lethal punch that launches Mitch into a glass dining table, Slim calls the police, looking remorseful and shocked as she waits for authorities to arrive. But rather than deal with the consequences of her actions, the film cuts quickly to the final scene where Slim, looking lovely and calm, is reunited with her young daughter at a bustling airport, presumably to live happily ever after, Hollywood-style.

The film's tag-line is "Self defense is not murder." But in the name of self-defense, the movie shows Slim deliberately planning the murder of her husband. The result is a misleading and potentially damaging message of what really happens to battered women who kill their abusers. The heroine is able to evade all criminal and emotional consequences for her actions, unlike the estimated 1,000 women who are serving long prison sentences for killing their batterers.

"The movie both helps and hurts our message [which is] that survivors often act in self-defense," says Olivia Wang, an attorney with the California Coalition of Battered Women in Prison. "It [helps because it] promotes the message that domestic violence can be deadly, and that many survivors only have two choices: kill or be killed."

What hurts is the message that killing your batterer has no downside. "The audience walks away thinking Slim is a free woman, which is totally unrealistic. She would almost definitely be convicted of first-degree murder," Wang says. She also worries that some people will use the movie as a reason to get tough on survivors who defend themselves. "I think this movie will play upon the fears that allowing women to claim self-defense is like giving them a license to kill, which simply is not the case," she says.

In the film, the audience begins to understand the terror of domestic violence as Mitch stalks Slim, who flees from city to city with her young daughter. Slim first tries to protect herself by learning martial arts, but soon she begins to act in ways that go beyond mere self-defense. A few days before a child custody hearing, Slim silently and skillfully breaks into her husband's swanky loft. In preparation for a violent encounter, she hides his knives and guns, short-circuits the lighting and changes into steel-toed boots. When Mitch returns home, Slim challenges him to a fight and then uses a mere month of martial arts training to beat her unsuspecting abuser into a bloody pulp.

After watching Mitch beat and stalk Slim throughout the film, Slim's bloody retaliation offers the audience a visceral sense of satisfaction: The bad guy finally gets his due. But the scene also equates empowerment with violence. "It's important to empower women through physical movement if it helps them to be safe," says Dr. Diana Rios, a professor of Communication Sciences at the University of Connecticut. "But what Slim is doing is buying into violence as a solution."