BY RICHARD TEO
Staff writer
Once upon a time… in Hollywood, there existed a failed musician named Charles Manson. News Flash! He was a murderer but not at the same time? It all dates back to the late 60s to the early 70s when new forms of media had started to emerge all around the world. Manson was an extremely popular individual back in the day. Not for his talent as a musician but rather his unique and remarkably intelligent way of planning murders. Manson was prominent for his leadership of the Manson Family, a famous cult that mostly consisted of teenagers and young adults who idealized the ‘hippie’ trend. A whole lot of them were addicted to hallucinogens such as LSD and his followers were particularly women from the Middle class. Their strange lifestyle included that they follow and stay loyal to their leader who taught them about the justice behind committing a genocide towards African-Americans and perhaps even other races. What’s even worse? His followers were very devout to these teachings and even carried out his operations of executing people. Manson’s strong charisma and control of these individuals remains a mystery today. Manson was never proven to have raised a single blade or shot a bullet at his victims. Instead, he had his followers assassinate them which is what makes him unique. His image stays prevalent today due to his unconventional and strange ideology about the world and society. His notoriety included his inspiration from The Beatles and their music, to which he credited for his ideas of adopting the name “Helter Skelter” as well as his precognitions of an apocalyptic race war. His murders weren’t random as his victims were exclusively white celebrities so he and the rest of society may begin to suspect that blacks had been the cause of these horrid assassinations. The most notable mentions include Sharon Tate, an actress in the early 70s, and her husband Roman Polanski, which both were killed at their own estate by numerous stabbings. Sharon Tate was only 26 years old at the time and had been 8 months pregnant. This particular story had been made into a movie by the famous director, Quentin Tarantino, to which he wrote a fictional story about an actor and his stunt double starting careers in Los Angeles, California. Though extremely obscure in the portrayal of Manson and his murders, the course of the film continues to involve snippets of Spahn Ranch (Manson’s base of operations) and the Manson family who would later fail to execute their assassinations in the end. An expected twist by the director since he’s famed for creating movies that build tension behind badass characters like Django (Jamie Foxx) from Django Unchained and the nameless woman (Uma Thurman) from Kill Bill. The real story, however, tragic as it may be becomes the most notorious planned murder of that time. Manson’s indirect ideological influence remains a special kind of crazy to this day. He died in 2017 with most of his life spent in prison.