kvarterakademisk - Akademisk kvarter - Aalborg Universitet

akademiskacademic quarterkvarterIcons of TransgressionBent Sørensenbreak out, eventually leading to the annihilation of the white race,with the exception of Manson and his followers who as an elitewould ‘ride’ the black insurgents and emerge as the new leaders ofsociety. This prognosis Manson believed was detailed in songs suchas ‘Helter Skelter’ – in fact he was convinced the whole album waswritten specifically for him and the Family and contained specificdirections for them to follow. When Manson’s race war, which hetermed Helter Skelter, failed to materialise he became convincedthat he needed to trigger it by committing particularly vicious andbloody crimes, and leading the police to believe that groups such asthe Black Panthers were behind them. A number of murders werecommitted by Manson followers, on his specific orders, to spark offHelter Skelter – including the killing of Sharon Tate and the rest ofthe members of her household. These and other murders weremade to look ritualistic (slogans were written in blood, and horrificmultiple stabbings employed as killing method) and were ‘signed’as Black Panther—related crimes. The Manson Family were amateursat killing and were soon arrested for the crimes, having failedto cover their forensic tracks and also having committed numerousminor crimes which meant that the police were constantly lookingfor members of the Family.After Manson’s arrest the devotion of the family to him and histeachings puzzled and shocked the general public, as did Manson’sown bizarre behaviour. He appeared in court with an Xscratched into his forehead, claiming that his identity had beenX’ed out because he was not allowed to act as his own defenceattorney during the trial. The Family followed suit by similarlyX’ing their foreheads. Later, during the trial, Manson shaved hishead and forked his beard, declaring this to be an enactment ofthe demonization he felt victim of by the state. He declared “I amthe Devil, and the Devil always has a bald head”. These two deliberatestigmatizations of Manson’s own body have of course beenrecurrent features of the icon work done on Manson, as over theyears he became adopted for the causes of Nazis (in a radicalisationof the X on his forehead into a Swastika) and Satanists. In thespring of 1971 Manson received the death penalty, but as Californiasoon after (in February 1972) introduced a moratorium on executionsManson’s sentence was permanently commuted to lifeimprisonment. Manson staying alive has no doubt extended theVolume03 125