Luigi Mangione and the new era of villainy
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It has not been a great year for “the good man”. The virtues of honesty and decency have been largely eclipsed by more toxic traits. The leading players of 2024 have showcased a spectrum of other characteristics, among them victimhood, zealotry and an appetite for monstrous acts.
After 30 years in prison for the murder of their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez are anticipating a resentencing hearing in late January, which could result in their immediate release. The retrial comes amid a groundswell of popular support following a Netflix TV drama and documentary about the gruesome murder case. Meanwhile, the scale of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ alleged criminal behaviours is beginning to cast a wider pall: musician Jay-Z walked the red carpet at the premiere of Disney’s Mufasa in the wake of accusations that in 2000 he and Combs raped a 13-year-old girl. Both deny the claims.
No character has captivated the public’s attention as much as that of Luigi Mangione. The 26-year-old Italian-American was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, this week for the murder of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, 50, who was shot dead in the street. The murder is alleged to have been a pre-planned assassination, and the bullet casings were marked by the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose”. The words are a reference to the way in which insurers, such as UnitedHealthcare, avoid paying claims.
Based on a manifesto found on his person, New York police surmised that their suspect “appeared to view the targeted killing of [Thompson] as a symbolic takedown”. They added that Mangione seemed to be acting upon perceived “injustices” in the healthcare system and “likely views himself as a hero”. Further information reveals that Mangione suffered from crippling back pain, and had become increasingly isolated from family and friends since undertaking spinal surgery in 2023.
The case already has the flavour of a David Fincher screenplay. And online, Mangione’s reputation has been burnished by a near-insatiable thirst. Mangione has emerged as an anti-hero, dubbed “the Adjuster”, and quickly lionised. He’s been cast as a vigilante in a muscle-T; Etsy is already flogging “deny, defend, depose” T-shirts and Mangione merch.
The story is irresistible: a young man from a background of wealth and privilege, who attended a private boys’ school with fees in excess of $35,000 per year. His grandparents owned country estates and golf clubs. His family are entrenched in local politics. A computer science scholar and former class valedictorian, who studied at an Ivy League university, he is described by one former associate as having a “good heart”. His retreat from public life was spurred, according to the screed of online analysis now at our disposal, by a back pain of such severity that he is unable to endure any physical intimacy.
Was it being an incel that made him angry? Did sex-deprivation fuel rage? Mangione may be an extreme example, but he’s a neat expression of the types who have gravitated towards Donald Trump’s much-studied base. Mangione is a young white male, who was living largely online and isolated from his peers. According to the messaging sites and forums with which he was interacting, he felt betrayed by the current system and buttressed in his convictions by heterodox thinkers such as Sam Harris, Joe Rogan and other arbiters of anti-woke he followed on X.
Or did his alleged actions represent the gamification of a society that can no longer distinguish moral codes? A passionate student of computer science, Mangione had been coding and developing games since childhood. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was a former intern at Firaxis Games. Likewise, the blurry CCTV footage that seems to show Mangione, flirting at his motel, walking around Manhattan and in the back of taxis, has the same grainy quality as Grand Theft Auto in which he becomes almost a simulacrum of a human being. Brian Thompson, instead of being an innocent victim, the father of two teenage children and a husband, is reduced to that most belittling of gaming acronyms, a Non-Player Character, or NPC.
It’s convenient to see the case of Mangione as some harbinger of public lawlessness to come: when Trump, the incoming leader of the free world, is a convicted felon and sex offender, it perhaps obscures one’s broader sense of right and wrong. Mangione has become a symbol on which to hang all sorts of societal ills. And his social media footprint has been the wellspring of information. Look at TikTok and you can examine the profusion of repostings showing Mangione’s evolution from grinning schoolboy to surf bro. Pore over his library on Goodreads. Check out the X-ray photos of his spine.
In a few days, Mangione has become an avatar of social justice, a thirst trap and a meme. And have we discussed the fact that he’s hot?
The simplest explanation for the obsession with Mangione stems from the fact that he’s a dead ringer for the actor Dave Franco and “looks cute” in that assassin’s coat. He seems to follow in a long tradition of men whose degeneracies are overshadowed by their chiselled jawlines, athletic bodies and impressive dental health. Such good looks were not to his advantage: investigators say that the enormous interest in Mangione’s massive eyebrows was inevitably what led to his quick arrest.
Even more gruesome: Mangione embodies the persona of the tragic hero, a lost young man who only needed to be saved. His alleged villainy has been obscured by a cycle of objectification in which he’s been claimed by the gay community, the women and the bis. Watching him being escorted into court this week, his tone of arrogance and self-aggrandisement seemed rather pitiful. At least he can look forward to undertaking lots of breathless correspondence while awaiting what will be next year’s most sensational trial.
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