La Femme Nikita

Intrigued by the rising popularity of the USA network's television series based on the French movie of the same name, I've watched a few episodes. Briefly, a beautiful young woman had been imprisoned for a crime she did not commit, and removed from prison by a high tech spy system that offered her freedom within its confines if she agreed to become one of them. She is resourceful, athletic, heroic---indeed, everything one might want to see in a heroine. Within the relentless system of "Section One," assassination, destruction of property, rape, torture, theft, lying, and nearly everything else forbidden to normal citizens becomes ordinary behavior. Nikita, dragged into this system for dramatic purpose, becomes its soul, the only person who retains the ability to feel or to be empathic. Michael, her "control" and teacher, is by turns supportive and heartless in his management of her services to an organization that does "good" by being amoral.

Yet I do not think that the program has become so popular merely because of the data noted above. Rather, I believe that the show is based on an issue well known to us as therapists. Just beneath the surface is the theme of spouse abuse. Each week, the beautiful Nikita is subjected to a number of horrible experiences that she survives because she is both good and capable. Yet with all her skills and attributes, she cannot escape from this macabre system. Michael and the rest of the Section One staff treat Nikita with contempt for her ability to feel, even though they often say privately that they wish they were more like her.

It is the old story of a woman trapped by the man she loves, a man who beats, tortures, humiliates, abuses sexually, and terrorizes her in the service of love defined as adherence to a brutal but inescapable system.

If you haven't seen this compelling television series, I commend it to your attention. I'd be curious to learn whether my colleagues feel, as do I, that such shows validate the behavior we spend so much of our time trying to erase or mitigate.

• La Femme Nikita & Intimacy by Steve Moncher, MS, LPC, 8/8/97