Luigi Mangione's case and how CINEMA can help us understand it

A few days ago, it was confirmed that there will be a documentary about Luigi Mangione's curious—and simultaneously weird—case. This 26-year-old young American, who comes from a wealthy family and has a high academic level, is Brian Thompson's alleged murderer, CEO of the private health company UnitedHealthcare. To better understand the reasons behind all this, I decided to google the company to see what it was about and if the media was spreading information on their websites about the matter, but I couldn't find anything at all: it is an absolute mystery.

From the moment I finished high school, one of my biggest schools of all has been and continues to be cinema. It has helped me learn history, politics and economy—no, Ridley, you aren't on my list—explore topics I never thought I would focus on and gave me more valuable life lessons than any other institution. This peculiar criminal case made me return to a type of ritual I had left aside: establishing parallelisms between real life and movies.

But who is Mangione and what were the reasons that apparently could have driven him to shoot the CEO of a renowned health company? Truth be told, the case is still in process, but there's certain evidence that would indicate the worst. Social media was flooded with websites intensively presenting two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, we have the people who believe it's impossible that this young man could murder anyone. On the other hand, we have those who assert they have proof of his "moral transformation" throughout the last years.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Luigi Mangione grew up on books, weights and wealthy friends. The standard life of any American middle/high-class young man. Top of his class, always smiling. He had bought everything movies had sold him without blinking, but these idealized doll prototypes usually crash into harsh reality during adulthood. They aren't ready to face harshness and negation. Everyone can have a bad day, but two, three, a week, a month? According to the snowflake generation's philosophy, this isn't well seen.

So how much do we think we know those around us? Cinema has always presented us with characters and stories in which the wrong person is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, Mangione could easily be The Fugitive's Richard Kimble, but he doesn't seem as smart as the iconic character played by Harrison Ford. Or maybe he doesn't have anything to hide, we don't know. In an era in which even an identity can be forged in the complex digital world—maybe due to a scheme or a calculated vengeance method—Mangione seems to have all the odds against him. But let's do a recap of his past, at least, the most recent one.

In mid-2023, when he was living in Honolulu (Hawai) together with other young men, he suffered an accident while surfing. This changed his life and caused him severe back pain from which he could never recover. Nonetheless, according to the people closest to him, the pain of not feeling supported by the health system—which he thought only worried about profits and not actually health—was what really fueled the hatred. Welcome to the 21st century, Luigi, that's how things are. This experience took the Baltimore native to write a manifesto expressing his absolute rejection of the situation and to post on Goodreads, which is similar to Letterbox but for books, his TBR. Interestingly, on it was Industrial Society and Its Future by Ted Kaczynski, aka Unabomber—there's a great documentary on Netflix about this murderer who many label as revolutionary.

Could Mangione be considered a type of Arthur Fleck? A run-of-the-mill person tired of a broken system that, when needed the most, seems to turn its back on him and that, according to data and evidence, focuses on benefiting from human condescension. Or does he simply want to be seen? "You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push," said Heath Ledger's Joker. Maybe he lost his mind and couldn't hold back? If looked from a realistic perspective, Mangione had been determined for a while to declare war on this system on social media.

“When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution.”

Those were Maggiano's words in response to the infamous Unabomber's book. But he also had one of the most commented and relevant books of our era on his list: Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, which talks about human beings' revolution from the Stone Age to present time. Does he have delusions of grandeur like the protagonist of Limitless thanks to the consumption of an illegal pill that unlocks his brain's full potential? Or is Mangione simply someone trying to do what's right and talk through actions in the name of good and justice?

MANGIONE'S MANIFESTO FOUND AFTER HIS ARREST:

"To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it.

My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.

A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart.

It has grown and grown, but [h]as our life expectancy? No, the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.

Obviously, the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain.

It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently, I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty."

Posted on DECEMBER 24, 2024, 19:37 PM | UTC-GMT -3

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