Backseat Bandits

Okay, I'll admit it. I look in the backseat of my car before I get in. Especially if it is at night, and I am alone. Why do I do this? Because of an urban legend. I'm sure you've heard it:

A woman is driving alone at night down a deserted road and realizes that she is about to run out of gas. She pulls into a gas station, just making it. The male attendant comes out to help her. She tells him to fill it up, and he nods but lingers at the car. He nervously looks under her hood and tells the girl that she has to come inside because there's a problem with her car. The girl, now petrified, obliges. Once they get inside, the attendant locks the door. The girl tries to scream but the attendant puts his hand over her mouth. "Don't be afraid, I don't want to hurt you. I didn't know how else to get you out of the car without him knowing." "Who," the girl cries. "The man with the axe crouched in the backseat. He was waiting to kill you."

Yikes. There are many variations. But the driver is always a woman, and the attacker and savior are always male. That is the "moral" of this legend. Woman are silly and not too bright, thank God those big strong men are around to save them. The males have both of the power positions here, the crazed attacker, and of the man who saves the day. Certainly women should always take caution when driving alone at night, but this legend is basically a warning to women to either stay home, or to check their cars before they leave. Also, the woman is being chastised by the legend for allowing her gas gauge to run so low at such an inopportune time. One of the vignettes in the 1983 movie "Nightmares" acts out this legend. The woman is even more sinister: she needs cigarettes, and ignores a warning on the radio about an escaped convict in the area. Luckily, the male gas station attendant saves her life. If she 'd stayed home, she would've kept herself out of harm's way.

The 1998 movie "Urban Legend" (stop reading if you still want to see the movie) opens with this legend. But there is a major difference: the girl breaks free from the clutches of the gas station attendant, sprays him with pepper spray, gets back in her car and drives away. The problem here was that the gas station attendant had a stutter, and couldn't get it out quick enough. As she drives away, screaming because she thinks he's attacking her, he finally shouts, "There's someone in the backseat!" But it's too late, she loses her head to the attacker crouched in the backseat. Who later turns out to be a woman. Seems that the driver had accidentally killed the attacker's boyfriend acting out an urban legend a few years before. While driving with a friend, she had turned out her headlights, and waited for someone to flash her. When the attacker's beau did, the victim made a U-turn and followed closely, flashing her lights, pretending to be a gang member performing his initiation rite, as told in the legend. The boyfriend gets shaken up and runs off the road. The rest is, as they say, history. His girlfriend decides to get revenge by killing the girl and her friends by way of urban legends. This movie cleverly makes all of the power players woman, and most of the victims men, thus switching the roles in almost all urban legends.

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