The Manson Girls-Coming Soon To A Threatre Near You

Just what the world needs-another Manson movie. This one revolves chiefly around the women in Charlie’s life, and it is obviously supposed to draw crowds looking for blood and gore and especially for the sexcapades typically associated with Manson’s orgiastic guru image. Unfortunately, judging by some of the dialogue on a part of the leaked script, realism takes a back seat to trite, wooden, and obvious characterizations. The women in this kind of movie act the way we are supposed to want them to act, and speak in the way we would expect them to speak.

Many four-letter words abound, of course, and you can probably count on many ironically intentioned references as well. Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme is one of the featured real-life characters, and you just know she will make some outrageously obvious statement to the effect that she would love to assassinate a President some day.

Sonny Bono even makes an appearance, getting it on with one of the girls sometime during a party at-you guessed it-the Polanski home. Yes, Charlie is there too, of course, making the rounds with all the celebrities at the side of his good bud Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, and managing to piss off some of them, such as Frank Zappa.

At any rate, the movie is already being panned, and it hasn’t even been filmed yet. It’s actual production is up in the air, and as of now, there is a question as to the insurance problems of Lindsey Lohan, who is slated to star in the film as one of the girls-a question mark here as to which one. I read once that she might play Linda Kasabian, the one chick that turned state’s evidence against the Manson Family in the Tate-LaBianca murders. However, I later read that she might play one of the lesser-known girls. Talk about irony-the way Lohan’s life and career have spiraled out of control lately, this might be the most ominous case yet of type-casting, whichever one she plays.

Of course, bear in mind that a lot of the negativity about the movie is from the perspective of people who are Manson supporters-they are out there and there are more of them than you might think. They run the gamut from out and out apologists for Manson’s crimes, to those who think the media and prosecutors in the case at least greatly distorted the truth, to those who consider themselves friends of Manson and as such either deny his involvement in any of the more heinous crimes or make excuses for those crimes they cannot deny.

Here is a website that probably contains the most information, as well as pictures and forums, in addition to a gold mine of links.

This blog contains the information about the movie, and the blog owner, Colonel Parker, supplies the e-mail address of one of the principals involved.

Perhaps the most unintentionally humorous, in some respects, is You're Guilty Until Proven Innocent. This guy obviously has a great big old crush on Leslie Van Houten, and he will rake anybody over the coals who advocates that this woman remain in prison for life, regardless of the facts of her guilt in the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. He is especially incensed that the surviving sister of Sharon Tate (who seems to be universally despised among these Manson bloggers) should dare insinuate herself into Van Houten’s case. His feeling is that since she was not involved in the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends, she and the rest of the Tate family should butt out.

As goofy as all this is, however, this site beats them all. Here we have a person who claims to be a Wiccan Priestess, and who claims to have an on-going friendship with Manson, who she describes as some kind of shaman and, as such, incapable of lying. The possibility that Charlie, being a lifelong habitual criminal, might well be quite the con artist never seems to have crossed her mind. Even before Tate-Labianca he had, after all, spent the majority of his life behind bars.

In an e-mail comment to one of the other blogs, she relates how Charlie called her house once when no one was home but one of her teenage daughters, who he proceeded to advise to dispose of all the cleaning agents in the house, on the grounds that it was bad for the environment. The daughter refused, and the two of them proceeded to yak it up for a few minutes. My guess is Charlie wanted to see how easy it would be to establish a hold over this young girl, but this “Wiccan Priestess” seems clueless.

Instead, she insists that Manson had nothing to do with the murders of Tate-LaBianca, which she blames on, well, what do you know, one of the victims-who she alleges had some to my knowledge unknown and heretofore unrevealed problem with some criminal drug associates. Manson was just a convenient foil, according to this scenario, a hapless victim of a District Attorney desperate for a conviction and an excuse to close the case quickly. I find myself wondering just what deck of Tarot cards she derived this information from.

Yet, when it comes to crimes that Manson did commit, she offers the most banal of excuses. The barbarically brutal murder of Donald “Shorty” Shea she glosses over as understandable and maybe even justified on the part of this world-class shaman. Even the brutality with which Charlie habitually treated the pitiable Dianne “Snake” Lake, whom he beat and abused on a regular basis for the entertainment of the others in the group, is excused by this Wiccan mother, despite the fact that Lake was at the time an under-aged girl. Lake’s worthless hippy father handed her over to Manson, by the way, in a transaction conducted with about as much thought as one might give a stranger a cigarette. Yet, we are supposed to view Charlie’s actions in regards to such matters with discernment. As he was a biker at heart, you see, that provides some context for his actions, according to her.

Some of these people are not too far off the mark. Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter theory has always been problematic at best. It almost reads like something Steven King would have dreamed up over a bad weekend high on mescaline, and then later discarded as just too bizarre to be believable. The real key to understanding the crimes, they say, is the prosecution of Manson associate Bobby Beausoleil for the murder of music teacher and dope pusher Gary Hindman, whom Bobby killed because of a dope deal that went sour, therefore causing Beausoleil a confrontation with the irate Straight Satans biker gang. Bobby claims to this day that killing Hindman was not a part of the plan, which was to extract a refund from Hindman for what the Satans claim was not high grade mescaline, but was in fact laced with strychnine. Hindman refused, and in the resultant argument that turned violent, Hindman was wounded, and then killed. After this all went down, Bobby hurriedly devised a scheme with the other girls then present-Susan Atkins and Mary Bruner- to blame it on some of Hindman’s fellow communist associates by writing on the wall, in Hindman’s blood, the word “Political Pigs”.

Unfortunately for Beausoleil, he stupidly allowed himself to be apprehended driving Hindman’s stolen car, after Hindman’s body was discovered earlier than he expected it would be. According to this theory, Manson, or the girls, with or without the help of Manson-depending on who you want to believe-set about conducting the Tate-LaBianca murders after Bobby’s arrest. They hoped in doing so to provide an alibi for Beausoleil, on the grounds that since he was in jail and awaiting trial for the Hindman murder, he obviously could not have been responsible for Tate-LaBianca, and so was probably innocent of the Hindman murder as well.

Where the Manson apologists lose track of reality is when they fail to take into account the fact that the Tate residence-actually owned at the time by Terry Melcher, the record producer and son of Doris Day-was chosen precisely because it was familiar to Manson and fellow conspirator Charles “Tex” Watson. They had been there as guests of Melcher, and had rode dune buggies all over the property.

That Manson might not have been involved in any of this, while technically possible, is nevertheless highly unlikely, to say the least. The Helter Skelter business, written on the walls of the Tate residence in the blood of one of the victims, certainly pointed the way for Vince Bugliosi to present his conspiracy as evidence based on the words of Susan Atkins and later of Linda Kasabian. Yet, it seems meant more to pave the way for the release of Beausoleil in the hopes all the murders would be blamed on some shadowy radical group, perhaps the Black Panthers. Helter Skelter was probably an afterthought. This seems to be an example of chaos married to pure evil spawning a diabolical offspring from the depths of hell.

So then, what would be the reason to accuse Manson of such a bizarre plot if there was no such fantastic scheme? According to the Mansonites, it was in order to have a provable case, albeit one made up out of whole cloth. Even though the police and Bugliosi apparently believed Manson was responsible for the heinous crimes, they had no proof. This conspiracy provided them with what they needed to bring a case. They evidently could not wrap their heads around the idea the career criminal Manson was not involved. These kids certainly did not do this on their own initiative. Such a scenario was simply too horrible a concept to entertain.

Of course, some Mansonites read even more into it than determination to find a scapegoat. They wanted Manson back in prison because he was dangerous to society due to his environmental beliefs. Yep, here we see Charlie revealed as among the first of the truly authentic modern day pioneer environmentalists. They credit him with the development of the philosophy of ATWA. This stands for Air, Trees, Water, and Animals, those four things Charlie in reality devoted his life to the preservation and protection of, above and beyond all other concerns. Because of such radical teachings, and because of his potential to start a new and widespread movement by utilizing his supposedly immense musical talent as a conduit, the system had to shut Charlie up-despite the fact that, until after his arrest for the Tate-LaBianca murders, nobody even knew who the fuck he was.

In the meantime, Manson is in prison for life, and so is thankfully most of his cohorts, including Bobby Beausoleil, who may have otherwise become a renowned musical artist over time. When he met Charles Manson as a fellow-member of a band called The Milky Way, he eventually diverged onto a road of ruin, but until that time, he had promise and potential. He was in a band called The Grass Roots (not the famous later band of the same name), and later Orkustra, a band with a concept ahead of it’s time, a psychedelic-classical fusion band with some jazz elements. He later went on to record the soundtrack for Kenneth Anger’s film Lucifer Rising and has since devoted himself to various artistic, musical, and writing projects.

Yet, he too will probably never get out of prison. He has changed his story numerous times. According to one account he gave, Manson was nowhere around the scene of the Hindman murder and was in no way involved with it. Later, he said Manson was there, and did in fact inflict the wound to Hindman’s cheek that nearly severed his ear. In his first account, Bobby himself struck this blow. He seems to change his story to suit the desires of the parole board, in an attempt to tell them what he perceives they want to hear in order to grant a parole that will probably never come his way. His association with Manson seems to have doomed him to a life imprisonment for a crime he for which he would ordinarily have been paroled twenty years ago.

This, then, is the true story of The Manson Girls. Like Bobby, it is a story of ruined lives and self-destruction beyond any realistic hope of redemption. Some of these girls, it is true, are the spawn of families the world would be better off without by any means necessary. For the most part, however, they were young, confused, naive young girls who went in the wrong direction and received the guidance they were looking for without knowing they were heading straight for the pits of hell. They came from good families, of working class, and in some cases upper middle class backgrounds, from families who were well liked and respected in their communities. They themselves in many cases had talents and great potential that, instead of molded with care and appropriate guidance, instead were twisted into abominations of humanity.

If the movie focuses on that point, it might well be a success and have something to add, something that is relevant for today and for all times. It can happen to anybody, under the right circumstances. No family, nor any child, regardless of background, is truly immune from the corruption of such manifestations of pure evil. The sex, drugs, and bloody mayhem can still be there, and should, but without this factor to provide some meaning to it all, it becomes just another exercise in exploitation.