PREFACE TO HOLLYWOOD

Dear Hollywood,

Thank you for the murderous images that filled and fuelled my younger years. Thank you for Bronson, Schwarzenegger, Stallone and all the other violent killers who rampaged across the screen. At times I became quite confused. Could murder and mayhem be so wrong when all my favourite heroes were doing it?

Mickey and Mallory were really cool; Natural Born Heroes, they killed by the score.

Thank you especially for Hannibal Lector. Urbane, charming, witty, interesting, what a shame he killed and ate people on the side. How was I to know that this glamorized, sanitized portrayal was not the true nature of the serial killer?

For decades I travelled through the bowels of our prison system, searching for the heroes of my youth. You can imagine my disappointment when the man never once bore much resemblance to the myth. The serial killers were all sick, disgusting people; the rapists singularly unattractive; the gangsters often selfish and mean-spirited. You have misled a whole generation.

But perhaps my journey hasn’t been completely in vain. From my experience, let me now show you the true nature of the beast. Come into my world for a while and marvel at the abominations in human form. Bad, most certainly. But also quite mad. Sad even. Glamorous and attractive? Not ever.

Hollywood, how could you have got it so wrong?

 

NORMAN PARKER