by Travis Mateer
As I was driving to the spot where the Branch Davidians were torched by the Federal Government, the idea to re-watch Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers popped into my head. The inclination was so strong that it overrode my attempt to watch a different movie, Tree Of Life, by Terrence Malick, which takes place in Texas. When I caught the smiley face in a scene at the beginning of the movie, it confirmed my hunch. What other images and references would emerge from this violent 1994 film?
Before we get into the movie itself, let’s talk about Woody and his dad, Charles, who was actually convicted, and served time, for killing people. From the link (emphasis mine):
Shortly after Harrelson was paroled in 1978, he and his then-wife, Jo Ann, were implicated in another murder. On May 29, 1979, U.S. district judge John H. Wood Jr. was shot dead in the parking lot outside his San Antonio, Texas, townhouse. Harrelson was convicted of killing Judge Wood after being hired by drug dealer Jamiel Chagra of El Paso, Texas. Wood—nicknamed “Maximum John” because of his reputation for handing down long sentences for drug offenses—was originally scheduled to have Chagra appear before him on the day of his murder, but the trial had been delayed.
Harrelson was apprehended when calls were made to the police saying he was firing a gun at imaginary FBI agents while on drugs. With the aid of an anonymous tip and a tape recording of a conversation that occurred during a visit from Joe Chagra to his brother Jamiel Chagra in prison, Harrelson was charged with Judge Wood’s murder. Harrelson claimed at trial that he did not kill Judge Wood, but merely took credit for it so he could claim a large payment from Chagra.
Before Natural Born Killers hit theaters, Woody Harrelson was primarily known for his goofy role on the show Cheers. Here’s an interesting interview from a Texas publication at the time where Woody talks about how much more he identifies with being a killer than the goofball.
From the link (emphasis mine):
Streit hasn’t seen Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, in which Woody gives an unforgettable performance as Mickey Knox, a charming rogue who, with his equally blood-crazed young wife, travels the country and brutally kills more than fifty people. Streit suspects that this is the story he had to tell. But now that the movie is out, things have gotten complicated. Woody is telling interviewers that he grew up brawling and carousing—behavior that people in Ohio don’t remember. In a bizarre case of life imitating art, he now claims that his own persona is much closer to that of Mickey Knox than that of Woody Boyd. “I think there’s many times that if I’d been holding a weapon, I’d have killed somebody,” he told Details magazine writer Rob Tannenbaum.
The carnage in the film kicks off with Woody’s character, Mickey, freeing his vicious soulmate by helping her murder her parents. Daddy, played by an appropriately disgusting looking Rodney Dangerfield, is DROWNED in the fish tank. Noted.
While we’re on the topic of fathers, both fictional and real, I’ll note that Charles Harrelson’s name has come up in the vast conspiracy to assassinate JFK. When you understand that Oliver Stone’s movie about the JFK assassination came out just three years before Natural Born Killers, it makes the choice to cast Woody even more curious.
Here’s some context on Daddy H. and his possible role in the “killing of the King” ritual (more on this later):
In September 1980, Harrelson surrendered to police after a six-hour standoff in which he was reportedly high on cocaine. During the standoff, he threatened suicide and stated that he had killed both Judge Wood and President John F. Kennedy. In a television interview after his arrest, Harrelson said: “At the same time I said I had killed the judge, I said I had killed Kennedy, which might give you an idea to the state of my mind at the time.” He said that the statements made during the standoff were “an effort to elongate my life.”
Joseph Chagra later testified during Harrelson’s trial that Harrelson claimed to have shot Kennedy and drew maps to show where he was hiding during the assassination. Chagra said that he did not believe Harrelson’s claim, and the AP reported that the FBI “apparently discounted any involvement by Harrelson in the Kennedy assassination.”[24] According to Jim Marrs’ 1989 book Crossfire, Harrelson is believed to be the youngest and tallest of the “three tramps” by many conspiracy theorists. Marrs stated that Harrelson was involved “with criminals connected to intelligence agencies and the military” and suggested that he was connected to Jack Ruby through Russell Douglas Matthews, a third party with links to organized crime who was known to both Harrelson and Ruby.
With this context in mind, it won’t be surprising when I tell you that there is a Jack Ruby reference in the movie, and Jack Ruby gets me thinking about another interesting REAL life character, Dr. Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West. Why is West important? He’s important because he pops up EVERYWHERE, like talking to Jack Ruby AND Timothy McVeigh, in his official capacity as a government psychiatric mind-fucker.
Oh, and he got an early start in the field of KILLING by dosing an elephant to death with LSD at a zoo in Oklahoma City. From the link:
One of the more unusual incidents in West’s career took place in August 1962. He and two co-workers attempted to investigate the phenomenon of musth in elephants by dosing Tusko, a bull elephant at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Oklahoma City, with LSD. They expected that the drug would trigger a state similar to musth; instead, the animal began to have seizures 5 minutes after LSD was administered. Beginning twenty minutes later, West and his colleagues administered the antipsychotic promazine hydrochloride; they injected a total of 2800 mg over 11 minutes. This large promazine dose was not effective and may have contributed to the animal’s death. It died an hour and 40 minutes after the LSD was given.
Since I got the idea to watch this movie while driving to the siege location outside Waco, I’ll note the very odd fact that Timothy McVeigh was pictured selling bumperstickers DURING the siege. Isn’t that curious?
And here’s my picture, which I took through a closed gate, despite the posted hours indicating the area should have been open.
Is the siege referenced in the movie? Yep, it sure is–at the end, during a montage of real events, the structure at Mt. Carmel is shown in flames. Noted.
The montage also has a few clips of something that caught my attention, and that’s the conciliatory comments made by Rodney King, except you don’t get to hear the entire “CAN’T WE ALL ALL JUST GET ALONG?” because Stone cuts the clip before Rodney King finishes his statement. Why did Stone make this decision? I have an idea, and it correlates with the theory that JFK’s assassination was a Masonic ritual, which you can read more about here.
So, what’s the idea Stone might be trying to communicate here?
The message starts coming into focus when Wayne Gale (played by Robert Downey Jr.) is discussing serial killer tv ratings–putting the popularity of Mickey and Mallory’s fictional carnage ahead of the clown (Gacy) and the charmer (Bundy). And Charlie? Nope, Manson beats out our FATED killing couple, to which Mickey says, IT’S PRETTY HARD TO BEAT THE KING
I think one could say the message is this: the benevolent King has been replaced with a crazed cult leader who was in a stone’s throw of someone you should know is going to pop again, and that’s our MIND FUCKER friend, Jolly West.
Here’s a screenshot of an excerpt (PDF) from Tom O’Neil’s brilliant book, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (emphasis mine):
Well, I’d say that’s pretty damn close. Kind of like going to a club called Austin’s, on Austin street, and wondering if anyone else in that place understands how this sign could be interpreted:
What else do I look for when rewatching movies like Natural Born Killers? It’s say rabbit imagery, but in this case we have Mickey going full Donnie Darko talking about “Mr. Rabbit”, like making this creepy and cryptic statement in his interview with Wayne Gale: “Mr. Rabbit says the moment of realization is worth a thousand prayers…“
What else did I find noteworthy? Let’s see, both Toms, Sizemore and Lee Jones, play characters from Texas, with Sizemore’s character describing how his mother was killed by Charles Whitman. Here’s context if you need a refresher on this mass murderer (emphasis mine):
The University of Texas tower shooting was an act of mass murder which occurred on August 1, 1966, at the University of Texas at Austin. The perpetrator, 25-year-old Marine veteran Charles Whitman, indiscriminately fired at members of the public both within the Main Building tower and from the tower’s observation deck. He shot and killed 15 people.
All these REAL world references in a fictional narrative (script was written by Quentin Tarantino, though he later washed his hands of the movie, hmmm) is a conscious decision to blur the lines of what’s real and what’s not, and guess what? This is a tactic used by predators. Don’t believe me? Just look at the KING of the jungle (the one on the left):
But don’t take my word for it, take SCIENCE! From the link:
A tiger’s intimidating roar has the power to paralyze the animal that hears it and that even includes experienced human trainers. Elizabeth von Muggenthaler, a bioacoustician from the Fauna Communications Research Institute in North Carolina, presented her research at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Newport Beach, California on December 7. Bioacoustics is the study of the frequency or pitch, loudness, and duration of animal sounds to learn about an animal’s behavior. At the meeting, von Muggenthaler discussed her work analyzing the frequency of tiger sounds to better understand the part of a tiger’s roar that we can feel, but can’t hear.
Another animal I’d like to spend more time digging into is the rattlesnake and its role in providing venom, the element that weaken Mickey and Mallory, leading to their temporary incarceration, but for now I’ll say an obnoxious podcast episode where this dude kept calling Jesus a pederast mentioned venom and other drugs as a part of the MYSTERY inspiring pre-Christians back in the day. Ok then.
The BIG INTERVIEW that precludes the prison riot is all set to take place LIVE after the Super Bowl, a Super Bowl won by the DALLAS Cowboys, I might add. Funny. And there’s some Monarch butterflies flashed at some point, of course. And Yoga is mentioned by Mickey, along with Wayne Gale, pre-interview prep, making a weird reference to some charity benefit for “homeless transsexual Veterans. Ok then.
A few more things and we’re almost done. The cut in the interview to a Coca Cola commercial featuring POLAR BEARS hits very differently with True Detective’s new season having, of course, a weird one-eyed Polar Bear in it. There’s also Wayne Gale screaming I KNOW BILL CLINTON to prolong his life, which ultimately ends in his OMMMMMM after being asked by Mickey if he believes in reincarnation. Noted.
But how do Mickey and Mallory plan on DISAPPEARING? Mallory starts answering that question, posed by Wayne Gale, with something about an “underground railroad”, but Mickey quickly covers her mouth to keep her from saying anything more. Well isn’t that interesting? Kind of makes me think of this guy, who has a Space X facility VERY close to Waco.
I’m sure I could say more, but this is already quite a post, and I have a song to share. We’ll save the dueling William Cowpers for another day. Enjoy!
And thanks for reading!
