Manson, My Name is Evil
Monday, October 11, 2010 at 4:20PM 
I first became obsessed with "The Family" and Charlie Manson in 1976 with the airing of the television movie Helter Skelter, the trashy re-enactment of a real life spook fest that caused many a sleepless night and the heebie-jeebies of all kinds on my impressionable, youthful, tender psyche. I voraciously read Vincent Bugliosi's source novel directly afterward which contained even more sordid and gruesome details coming out of Benedict Canyon in the late summer of 1969.
My otherwise conservative parents (bordering on Calvinist discipline in most areas) were curiously lax about whatever forms of media entered my eye and ear holes. For that I am eternally grateful, as my thirst was insatiable for almost everything this anti-establishment, hippie-bloodlust story created; Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme's attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford, Charles 'Tex' Watson and Leslie Van Houten's parole hearings being infused with character testimony from filmmaker John Waters (also an obsessive of "The Family"), and Susan Atkins' ironic plea for compassionate release as she died from cancer within the walls of a California state penitentiary in 2008. And, of course, there were always the disjointed ramblings of Charlie himself.
It is creepy, weird stuff from a very strange time in America. A time many of us never lived through or remember rather vaguely. Most of us would prefer to forget it, decide that abnormality like that does not exist in our current culture, or continue to uphold the same values that fomented the murderous rift in the first place.
To put these crimes in a contemporary perspective - imagine some Phish fans dropping acid and slaughtering the owner and wife of a local Piggly-Wiggly whilst carving cryptic shit into their bellies. Only to find out, the evening prior, these same trippers butchered Helena Bonham-Carter and a few of her Hollywood glitterati friends, leaving Tim Burton to sort it out and explain where he was that evening.
That would be BIG NEWS today. It was big news back then, but the shit was hitting the fan at such an accelerated rate (Bobby Kennedy's and MLK's murders were the year prior, Vietnam was raging) that it simply fell to the lurid curiosity and angst of a society perceived to be spinning out of control, certifying to most god-fearing Americans that the end of civilization was fast approaching and the 'Love Generation' was little more than a bunch of whacked out freaks running at them with knives and pistols, trying to kill them in their sleep.
The psychology of it all was, well, interesting.
I try to imagine how FoxPAC would have covered it.
Especially Bill-O.
The fear. Oh, the fear. What would Zeezus do about THE FEAR?
"Rascal" sales would plummet, as old people would no longer venture outside the home.
But would they dare hire colored or young folk to deliver their groceries and medicine?
What a dilemma for the anxious and selectively infirmed! Ratings would certainly go up for the "Scare Injectors", offsetting the losses in scooter sales.
I'm surprised Andrew Breitbart hasn't hired James O'Keefe to dress up like Doug Henning and go stab Betty White just to get the fires burning again.
Of course, Murdochian underling Geraldo Rivera famously interviewed Charlie Manson in prison sometime in the '80s, laughingly playing tough guy and goading Charlie to make a move, while he sat there protected by cameras and guards. It inspired the weasely reporter character played by Robert Downey, Jr. in Oliver Stone's paean to media frenzy slaughter, Natural Born Killers in 1994. Downey's head ended up on a pike during a prison riot in that film. Oh, if life could emulate art just a little more often. And if Bill-O, Hannity, Palin, Hume, Wallace and Huckabee could be involved on the receiving end of the carnage.
What all of this was leading to, before the sidetrack, was a review of the latest exploitation nonsense Manson, My Name is Evil, an initially fun romp satirizing the conservatism and stiffs of the era, but losing itself midway through with satirical laziness and a willingness to continue beating the dead horse of Christian hypocrisy and jackass patriotism with little freshness or innovation. One may question the taste and validity of a project that uses the grisly murders perpetrated by the Manson Family for comedic fodder, but it's truly difficult in this day and age to shout "Too soon!" at much of anything.
If you've got a theme, run with it. But be clever, asshole. Especially with a miniscule budget. Roger Corman weeps. This film could have been this generation's The Trip or Easy Rider. Or at least the one to get our kids back on the track of rebellion and uprising in the streets. Not really, no. And why am I choosing a two bit grind film on Charlie and his racially motivated bloodbath to make my point about moral indignation for our disenfranchised youth? Beats me.
But something has to rally these apathetic douchebags into confronting our immoral, war-mongering nation from its rapid decline into imperial decay. Facebook and Twitter don't seem to be the galvanizing political and moral forces of a generation. Why not a really shitty film, full of bad performances, anachronistic horseshit, and bad parody to metaphorically paint the face blue (Braveheart or Avatar anyone?), gather the troops, and fight the good fight against the oppressors?
"Fuck it". The rallying cry of my generation. The film's welcomed trashiness and more percipient moments quickly gave way to ham-handed parody and cartoon politics. The jerkoff who plays Charlie need not worry about the doom that befell Steve Railsback's career. He doesn't even get close to Railsback's masterful performance in Helter Skelter. The one that forever pigeonholed the actor and derailed what seemed to be a promising young career.
Just ask Roman Polanski. This grisly shit that occurred over forty years ago is still causing grief- and ruining lives, reputations, and livelihoods.
And Charlie Manson, at 76 years old, still holds court over it all.
And no doubt loves that fact.
It makes for great life drama.
A purely American story.
And one very bad movie.
Reader Comments (4)
As the twenty-somethings I teach would say: "Who?"
Their Father. Their blessed, Holy Father.
CA you missed your sympathetic side of the coin: what would the current painfully earnest Left do with Helter Skelter? The drones at MSNBC would talk about the foreign money pouring into Vince Buglioetc. 's investigation; The Nation would bleat over whether Squeaky Fromme was being targeted merely for her dreams of offing Gerry Ford, a clear suppression of art; The HuffPo would suspect darkly that Spiro Agnew was trying to foment a race war using Charlie (the domestic one) to off more ethnics; and Dan Rather would ask the Trickster whether this wasn't all proof of using an enemies list to deprive the progeny of The Family of their GI Bill rights. It's hysterical how so much of the pop media Right (as opposed to me, athe voice of freedom) lives so rent free in your head, with amenities, such as they are.
Well, Fitz, the "painfully earnest left" would call it murder. Why foreign money would be pouring into an L.A. DA's coffers to take down a hippie would be a matter for ??? The Bugliosi prosecution represented the "Establishment" of the time. You wingnuts forget that. The Republican Party in this country used to be a little left of Barry Goldwater. You've gone full bore crazy lately. Your reference to Spiro Agnew (another Republican criminal who resigned in the face of federal charges) segues to your "Dan Rather" cite regarding Nixon on some vague GI Bill offered to the Manson Family if they shut up about Watergate. I kid. Like I said, Fitzy, you're drunk and vague. And you're really going to have to define the pop media Right. Where do they exist? Is that the drama Red Eye on Fox? And are they part of this alleged "liberal media conspiracy"?