By Minimizing Domestic Violence and Addiction, 20/20 Normalizes It

More than 20 years ago, in May 1998, Bryn Hartman murdered her much-loved celebrity actor/comic husband, Phil Hartman. And then she killed herself.

Their two elementary school-age children were present, asleep in their own bedrooms.

It’s natural to want to know why. The television show 20/20 devoted an hour to telling their story, The Last Days of Phil Hartman, and the episode aired May 1, 2020, the first day of Mental Health Awareness Month.

Sensational spin

It’s all in the spin. 20/20, whether intentionally or not, chose a sensational spin in telling this story. Why did she do it? How could she have done it? We don’t know how this could have happened?

The irony—there were two obvious reasons that predicted this tragic outcome. Drug addiction and domestic violence. By giving both of these conditions short shrift, this highly rated national television show normalizes them.

Gross intoxication

Here was a missed opportunity to spin some insight into aberrant behavior, addiction, domestic violence, and brain impairment.

Bryn Hartman’s autopsy revealed Zoloft and cocaine in her system as well as a blood alcohol level, BAC, of .12. This BAC was taken hours after she murdered her husband, which means it was much higher at the time of the murder. The legal limit is .08.

 

Her brain was derailed, why are her actions such a surprise?

 

Does anybody check if alcohol is an issue when prescribing a potent drug such as Zoloft?

Female domestic violence

Our brains are our most complex organs. This woman had three mind-altering substances within her and a history of domestic violence, which could have been facilitated by her substance abuse.

Substance abuse masks one’s soul. Cocaine, Zoloft, and alcohol masked the essence that was Bryn Hartman, by all accounts a loving mother.

Instead of dramatizing her violent, irrational behavior over and over again, the show could have shared research and analysis as to the trajectory of substance abuse and the dynamics of domestic violence.

Another issue that was not addressed… Did Phil Hartman’s persistent marijuana use enable him to ignore the severity of the situation and cost him his life?

Unlike many victims of domestic violence, he would have had the means to move out, establish another residence, and hire an attorney that would make sure he had at least joint custody of his children.

Domestic violence statistics

Statistics for male victims and female victims do differ. When women are the victims, “Nearly half, 46% of more than 4,400 women killed in the past decade died at the hands of an intimate partner.” (Disturbing data shows how often domestic violence turns deadly, December 10, 2018, pbs.org)

20/20 would not have kept asking why if they shared this statistic from NCADV, “the nation’s leading grass roots voice on domestic violence.”

The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%.¹⁰

DomesticShelters.org lists a number of statistics regarding male victims of domestic violence. Here are two:

• About 1 in 7 menages 18 and older have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner.
• Men are the victims in about 6 percentof cases of murder-suicide in which the offender is an intimate partner.

Missed Opportunity

Domestic violence is on the rise, because of coronavirus. Couples on shaky ground are forced to be in close contact and stuck at home together. The economic devastation coronavirus has wreaked for many also contributes. 20/20 missed an opportunity to shed some light on what constitutes effective counseling and intervention for domestic violence.

They also missed an opportunity to address how toxic mixing drugs is and the different ways it affects different sectors of the brain.