There’s one news story that has dominated all others in the past month: the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by assassin Luigi Mangione. While some condemned the violence, others soon began to see Mangione as a hero, someone who sacrificed everything to fight back against the broken US healthcare system.
The imagery associated with him didn’t help. Mangione is a handsome man and even his mugshot doesn’t dilute how good-looking he is. In every shot of him he simply gives off heroic vibes, and people have responded very well to that. On Thursday Mangione went to court in New York to face two counts of stalking, a firearms offense, and finally murder through use of a firearm. This is the most serious offense and can be met with the death penalty. But the charges coming through have made people even more supportive of Mangione: they simply don’t believe he should be overly punished for what he did.
And then came the actual photos of Mangione being extradited to New York. It was an incredible perp walk. He was surrounded by cops carrying guns, and the result was yet another incredibly striking image. The internet couldn’t get enough of it.
And unfortunately for the NYPD, the trailer for a hugely anticipated new Superman movie just happened to drop the same day Mangione did his perp walk… and the movie features a scene of David Corenswet’s Superman being escorted by cops. There’s a set shot that’s extraordinary similar to the pictures of Mangione in his orange jumpsuit, and people were quick to juxtapose the images.
That’s not even the first time a movie Superman has been surrounded by armed men. Henry Cavill’s version of the character was too. It’s a classic Superman thing by this point.
The Superman iconography just adds to the aforementioned heroic vibes of Mangione. And it’s also sort of funny that the perp walk of a folk hero unexpectedly collided with a period of excitement for one of the world’s most beloved fictional heroes.
You can say, of course, that Superman would never have killed a healthcare CEO to make a point. And you’re absolutely right. But in a world without superheroes, people have turned to Luigi Mangione to make them feel a little bit better about the crushing system we’re all living it, the one that values profit over human lives. And it also doesn’t hurt that, like Superman, he’s hot.
Published: Dec 20, 2024 11:49 am