Sidenote on Mr. Manson: Years and years ago, the late Spaulding Grey did a series of shows called "Interviewing the Audience," where (in theory) he would bring a random sample of people on stage and bring out their stories. The night I saw it, the first guest was a cleaning woman who didn't speak English -- which made for an awkward conversation at best -- and a man who turned out to have been Manson's lawyer. (The first guest led me to believe the format was as promised; the second made me wonder.)
Regardless, the lawyer said that Manson, when the cameras are off, was a meek and charming guy who compensated for his lack of size and strength with an uncanny ability to win people over. It was only when the media were around that he turned on the crazy. Given his ability to assemble a "family" and his interviews (I particularly remember the one with Tom Snyder), I completely believed him -- and do to this day. --Dave Sikula On Tuesday, June 2, 2015 at 10:46:12 AM UTC-7, Tom Wolper wrote: > > On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> >>> I confess I've been preoccupied by this all day. I don't know if there >> was ever a civil suit against Manson by families of victims who might >> subsequently have a say in the "rights" to the use of and/or profit from >> his likeness or his name. I know convicts can't earn money off of their >> convictions while incarcerated, but I don't know how much say they have in >> unauthorized works of fiction about themselves. It just struck me watching >> it that if Manson was lucid enough to sit through a one-hour NBC drama (and >> let's face it, one doesn't have to be Manson to struggle doing that), he'd >> be annoyed at how he was portrayed. >> >> Many years ago when I was in junior high, we watched a documentary in >> school about Jonestown. If you can imagine how watered down Jonestown has >> to be for it to be shown in a Christian junior high classroom, that's >> basically how Manson was portrayed in the pilot of Aquarius. Strumming a >> guitar while doe-eyed girls fawned over him, not really doing anything >> until the end of the episode in the parking garage, at which point I >> remembered that Manson famously got others to do his dirty work, so the >> parking garage scene only served to rip me out of the story. >> >> Manson has to be a hard character to write, since he was a puppet master, >> but nobody could ever quite explain how he pulled so many strings beyond >> getting people so full of drugs they lost all their senses. He didn't take >> direct action, wasn't conventionally attractive, things he said rarely if >> ever made sense, so you can't get Hannibal Lector style quotes from him. In >> "Aquarius," he looks like every male Starbucks barrista I've ever seen and >> speaks in "beat" poetry. >> >> <javascript:>I don't know. I guess I just need to let it go and wait >> until the new X-Files episodes to get my Duchovny fix. >> > > Manson happened to get blown up by the media in 1969 because he > represented an evil dark side to the hippie experience. As he went > defiantly through the justice system with his co-defendants he provided > fodder for a narrative of how dangerous nonconformism can be. So he was not > only a public figure in 1969-70, he became a central figure and that is why > I could see that a work of historical fiction for that era could use his > name and likeness without compensation. > > I think Manson is a hard character to write because he just is not a > significant person. The media echoes of the consequences of the > Tate/LaBianco murders destroyed all proportions of the crimes and built a > small industry around the "mystique" of Manson. A fictional Manson > character has to embody that mystique even if the actual Manson did not. > -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
