Luigi Mangione: Folk Hero or Villain?

What does it mean to be a "folk hero?” While figures like Robin Hood and Paul Bunyan once inspired ideals, like wealth redistribution and frontier progress, today’s larger-than-life characters carry the scent of cynicism. Jim and JB trace the evolution of the folk icon, starting with the 1970s mystery of D.B. Cooper—the enigmatic hijacker who vanished into the clouds with a bag of loot— to the obsessive revival of the Unabomber manifesto and the zealous courthouse support for Luigi Mangione. We ask: Do today’s "folk villains" signal a legitimate breakdown in our social institutions or a reckless descent into nihilism?

Boomer Has It! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hi, this is Jim Jelamis in New York. This is JV Miller in London. And welcome to Boomer Has It. So, what are we talking about today, Jim? Well, we're thinking about what a folk hero means in 2026. And we think it's something that's horrible or maybe involves horror or at least murder. And that's why I chose a location for today to be Twisted Spine. That's spooky. Yes, it is spooky, Twisted Spine. It's New York City's horror bookstore and cafe. And it's right here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Yeah, we we were we were thinking about the story of D.B. Cooper, who was a boomer folk hero from 1971. Some of you listeners and viewers who are old enough will remember that in uh here, I've got the notes. November 24th, 1971, a man extorted $200,000 in ransom before parachuting from a Boeing 727 over Washington State. So he essentially hijacked a plane and threatened he would blow it up or something if he wasn't given $200,000. He got the money when the plane landed and they got the passengers off the plane, and they flew off again. And he literally jumped out of the back of the plane into Woodland in uh Washington State with a bag of $200,000 and was never seen again. No one knows who he was. Um, and uh no one knows if he even survived with a jump. He became, but he became a folk hero and he spa inspired books and TV shows, music. He inspired a lot of songs, comics, and films. There was a film called The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper in 1981, starring Treat Williams, directed by the veteran director John Frankenheimer, who said it was his worst cinematic experience of his entire career. And the film didn't do very well. But the folk the the the the story lives on, and I was thinking about it compared to this story recently. Was it a couple years ago when uh Luigi Mangioni, was that his name? A young man shot and killed a pharmaceutical uh executive in broad daylight in New York and was arrested on the spot. But he became an unlikely folk hero to a lot of people on the left, maybe on the right, but I think mostly on the left. And he just seemed, you know, it was a homicide. He was a murderer. And I was thinking uh also, you know, related to the to uh Trump saying, you know, years ago, famously saying, you know, he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and he wouldn't lose any support. And he do a lot of people as a folk hero. So has our concept of folk hero changed that much in 55 years?

SPEAKER_03 3:11

I don't know. I think because we're in fraught times, it just seems like everything is ruined and horrible. And with with emotions, with emotions just boiling over. Um, you know, it you don't have to go far to be in a a pub somewhere here in Bushwick, and you'll see a sticker of Luigi Manjone in his orange jumpsuit. It's that right. There's no text, it's just him. It's almost like people recognize him.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

So they they would they assume people would know who that is. So it's a political message of some kind, a political emblem or statement, do you think? Well, why else would you solidarity on the bathroom door?

SPEAKER_03 3:52

I that's that you know, if if there wasn't some kind of at least fascination, um, it doesn't seem to uh express disgust. Um, but you know, there the fact of the matter is he shot um United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, in midtown Manhattan. And this is a guy with two kids in a house, and shot him dead because because what healthcare.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Because of healthcare, yeah. I don't think I I I I agree that there are a lot of major healthcare issues in the US that need to be sorted, but the answer, my friends, children, is never violence. But I mean, honestly, I mean it isn't I'm I was I was kind of shocked at the reaction to uh that killing, and uh and and it and it hasn't been forgotten. You're saying he's still Mangioni is still a um a folk hero to what people young people, people on the left. Who are these people? Well, you know what?

SPEAKER_03 4:54

I it's interesting because in re in recent years, Ted Kaczynski has had has rebounded. There's been fascination with uh Ted Kaczynski. We know him as the unibomber. Some of us know him as that.

SPEAKER_05 5:09

He killed he count some people, main people. Did he murder him?

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Killed some people and main people. He perfected a letter bomb technique that hurt people in academic circles because he had vendettas and he was psychotic.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

He was psychotic and he did a very long manifesto, thousands of words, which I didn't read. I didn't even know if it made any sense. By the way, I was surprised. This is a related issue. I was surprised when, you know, there was recently a an attempt, not a very good attempt, but there was an attempt on uh we think on Trump's life uh at the uh White House Correspondence Dinner. And the next day, Nora O'Donnell, is that her name, was interviewing Trump because he loves to be interviewed. And she read a quote from the perpetrator, the would-be assassin's very brief manifesto to Trump. And I was kind of I was kind of shocked by that. Trump was angry about that. I would have been angry too. I don't think that the would-be assassin should be rewarded with getting his manifesto read on on 60 minutes. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 6:19

I don't think, you know, that's not it shouldn't be an avenue for political uh Well, I mean, it wasn't she wasn't it wasn't an act of advocacy, was it?

SPEAKER_04 6:30

I mean, her purpose of it was to say that it was no, but it was politicizing. Because it was it was doing his work. He wanted his he, you know, you shouldn't be able to get your manifesto read on 60 minutes by attempting to shoot someone. What was the context though?

SPEAKER_03 6:49

I mean, was she trying to you know I didn't hear it. So she was trying to get a rise on. Can't say except that I disapprove.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

I mean, uh Well, I mean it was kind of s it was kind of snarky. I mean, she read this quote saying he didn't he didn't uh I hope I got this right, he didn't r refer uh to Trump by name, but he said he refused to um refused to um allow or uh have a um you know head of I didn't even anyway he's he referred to a uh rapist and friend of pedophedophile or you know clearly referencing Trump. And um, you know, I mean, okay. And and Trump started um uh interrupting her, reading it, and said, I knew you'd do that, and that's why you know you're a piece of filth, whatever. And he said, I'm the rapist. And she very snarkly said, Oh, do you think he was referring to you? You know, which is kind of clever, but I don't think that's fair. I don't think she should have read that manifesto uh on the air.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

Well, just to drive back to our original theme, do you think he's okay, yes. If if he was a if he's a folk hero, do you think that that motivated people who admire him for whatever reason?

SPEAKER_04 8:16

Who? The fo the guy-be the would-be assassin of the White House body. Uh is he a folk hero? Are people considering him a folk hero? I don't know. I don't think he is. Well, sorry, I didn't understand uh quite what your question is.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

You're saying if he's a wrong we're we're talking about uh whether folk heroism has been subverted into some form of performative murder. And it are you calling him a folk hero now because he took a shot at Trump in the the you know White House correspondence dinner? Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_04 8:50

No, I'm not. No, no, it's it makes no sense. No, it reminded I was just reminded of his manifesto because we were talking uh about the unibomber who had a huge um a huge manifesto. That was the connection. It was it was to the unibomber's manifesto, not not to the idea of a folk hero. But I mean, um, you know, D.B. Cooper didn't have any manifesto. He was just he was in it for the money. Why do you rob banks? Because that's where the money is, you know. Um now folk, but so it that's different, you know. It the idea of a folk hero is what less about money now, I ironically, because everything seems to be about money now. Um, and um more about uh political activism, you know, Luigi Mangioni did not want any money, he wanted to make a point and I guess kill out of vengeance, the uh who is the CEO of US Health, what was I don't know, he healthcare or whatever that company remember that company's name. Um I just think you know the Bonnie and Clyde. I don't know if Bonnie and Clyde were folk heroes in the 30s. I think they became folk heroes when uh they came when they were portrayed by uh Warren Beatty and Faye Denaway in a movie in 1967. I think they became a folk hero 50 years after the fact, but they did become folk heroes, and that was about uh that seemed like a glamorous all right, and that yeah, if we're going if we're going into to uh to um artistic realm, the um uh protagonist of Breathless, the uh Jolac uh Godard film, um, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo. He is a um renegade uh guy on the lamb, and he after he's killed a um I think a policeman, he becomes a folk hero. Do you remember that film, Breathless? I think I think that's a good thing. I do remember that.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

But I you know I'm cinematic. I think we let's let's just get the fundamentals here. I mean, I think of a folk hero, I think of Paul Bunyan or Robin Hood, someone like that, someone bigger than life, maybe mythical. But I think the idea is if you're you you're in the public imagination one way or another, and if your thesis holds, it means that the the public imagination has become corrupt or perverse, defending people like Ted Kaczynski. Here's another one. I would I wonder if Tyler James Robinson who's that he's the 20-year-old from St. George, Utah, accused of murdering Charlie Kirk. He wasn't he wasn't very, you know, his background isn't as straightforward as the media or politicians like to make out. He wasn't necessarily leftist, necessarily rightist. He was he might have been described as a great E-R-U-Y-P-E-R. I mean, but no one's calling him a ties to you know uh white supremacist. So it's it's not what it seems always. No, but I don't say I wouldn't defy the political it defies political guy, you know.

SPEAKER_04 12:16

No, but but I wouldn't describe him as a folk hero, would you? I don't think anyone was calling him. I think more people were criticizing Charlie Kirk and saying, you know, you can you can um decry his murder without agreeing with what he said. And that was where I stood. I don't think there was any I don't think it was any different. There was very, very little defense of the murder of Charlie Kirk, and that and where there was defense, that was a ton of bricks came down to those people. Um, no, I don't think he's perceived as a folk hero.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Why is he different from Luigi Mangione then? There was a manhunt for both of them, they're both murderers. Why, why do we, you know, why do we have this ambivalent view of Luigi Mangioni instead of just straight out wholesome disapproval?

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Well, I don't know. I can't I I can't defend you know either of them, but um uh how about Edward Snowden? Uh that's more complicated.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Uh he's a whistleblower. And yes, a whistleblower is an underdog. People like underdogs, and he speaks truth to power. His his case isn't resolved at all. He's a man on the run, which is fascinating. Living in Russia. Living in Russia.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

Yeah, I don't know much sympathy for him, but but um I don't uh know he's kind of a truth teller or an anti-her in a way, but he certainly captured the public imagination.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

If we go back a few years earlier, there's Ju you know, in the same vein, Julian Assange, who we don't like at all. But again, he captured the public imagination holding true to him. Trump got elected.

SPEAKER_04 14:08

That's one of the reasons I don't like him. I mean, he we he hated he hated um uh Hillary Clinton to the point where you know he he had all those, I think, emails released and really damaged, damaged. He may have been the one of the deciding factors in the in the election of Donald Trump. So I think he's got a lot to answer for. And he was a pretty repellent character, from what I understand. I I don't like any of these people. I I guess I sort of like D B Cooper, but I don't know where where where that where that money came from.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Well, you know, the question is one practical question is how do you jump out of a commercial airline and not every people get sucked out? I mean, like how do you think that's a good one? I know you had a parachute, but how do how come how do you open a door and jump out of a commercial airliner? How do you do that?

SPEAKER_04 15:02

This is this is a good question, and our technical experts will answer this. Apparently, um they changed the design of airplanes uh a couple years after the DB Cooper case because it it incited uh a number of copycat um incidents, and and then some of them people jumping out the back. It was the there was um you remember maybe you remember planes sometimes used to have a uh back uh stair staircase in the back of the plane, uh in the tail that could open up. There weren't any other uh passengers on the flight. There were just, I think, crew. So I guess they would have been at the front of the plane and then they would open the back um briefly. Oh, charter flight. Uh it was it well, he he hijacked the flight and had it land at an airport, maybe in Seattle, I'm not sure. Passengers got off the plane, money got on the plane, and he had it. He directed them to fly over this forest and open up the and he had asked for two parachutes. I don't know what second parachute was for it.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Maybe uh well, actually, this is an this is an interesting topic because in 1971 there was a problem in the skies in the United States, and that was something called hijacking, and it was a pretty common and very inconvenient problem.

SPEAKER_04 16:41

They don't do hijacking anymore. There was a remember there was a spoof, it was even a spoof of it in a couple of uh Monty Python uh sketches, so it certainly entered the uh public consciousness. Well, it was like it was an hijack, I hijacked this plane to Cuba. People wanted it to be high, they hijacked planes to Cuba. I didn't know quite what that's what they would do. People trying to get out of Cuba. I think they people were hijacking planes the other way around. Oh hijacking Florida, an incredible national lampoon skit from their audio album.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Um covering exactly that. Oh, yeah. Isn't there a film called with Jack Lemon where it involves a really bad weekend in New York City and they end up getting hijacked in the end as they're leaving town?

SPEAKER_04 17:30

The out of towners, yeah. The out of towners. The out of towners.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

No, I just gave away the ending. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

It's still a very funny film. It's a very funny film. And it that's an interesting, that's a that's a uh time capsule film of um New York in the uh how awful New York was in the 70s, uh, which is sort of ironic because Neil Simon lived in New York in the 70s, but he was sort of uh accentuating its uh the perception, popular perception of New York as a hell Hulk. They were the couple from the uh suburbs entering the hellhole. He was uh I think uh at a going to a job interview in uh maybe 1975, perhaps.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Who's his co-star in that one? Sandy Dennis.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Sandy Dennis, who played Honey in the film of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? And uh she's uh very funny. It's a very funny film, uh to which she gave away the ending, yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

But that won't ruin it for people uh I think um I think our folk hero definition is turning into folk villain. Um folk villain, yes. I think that's I think we're embracing folk villains. I mean, what maybe Paul Bunyan wasn't a very nice man, maybe he gambled or something.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

Who was who was Paul Bunyan? I forget his body.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

He was a lumberjack, he was a giant lumberjack. He he was um you know 100 feet tall or something, cut down a lot of trees. Yes, I thought there was a sort of thing. He's an anti-environmentalist, destroying trees. Okay. Well, because you know who else comes to mind is Elon Musk as a symbol once, not now. Yes, um, entrepreneurial spirit. I think he was very he was highly fascinating to a lot of people. Um gave it all away, frittered it away with his with Doge, and thank God for a lot of protesters, drove it.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

As he got as he got richer, he got more repellent. I mean, he his his his repellent nature increased with his fortune, it seemed to me. He got more compromised politically. He was uh he's a truly uh truly powerful and odious person. If I can put it that way.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Um, I have to agree. So do we have folk heroes?

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Yeah, where are do we have any who are our folk heroes? Do we have any folk heroes? There must be some.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

Uh you mean nice folk heroes? Nice ones.

SPEAKER_04 20:10

Yeah. Yes. Wasn't there this may be going back 20 years? Wasn't there someone who s saved his factory in like Vermont or something? And and um, you know, had all of his um instead of firing his employees, he gave them all a part of the company or something. I mean he started out as a virtual.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

You're thinking of Maldon Mills, which which innovated a fabric called Gore-Tex. And the mill burned, they kept everyone on payroll.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

Well, well remembered. And then they a few years later they they declared bankruptcy, god bless them. God bless the U.S. bankruptcy courts. But um, no, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

He's not a folk hero?

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Well, I don't know if it's a he. It's a it's a corporation, so it's an it.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Oh maybe I'm thinking of someone else. All right. Not a very good reference point because I can't remember who it was. They have to be some folk heroes. I don't think they'd be politicians. It's like going back to our original conversation about national treasures. There should be of you know a compliment, a compli complimentary title of uh folk hero, you know, that people can can agree on. They can't be I I mentioned the the national treasure conversation because we both agree that they couldn't be a p political figures because they had to be above politics. So by that definition, a folk hero maybe has to be above politics as well. But do we live in a times that have no folk folk heroes? Or we folk hero less.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Yes, and that's and that concludes our podcast for today.

SPEAKER_04 22:02

Ah, but you have a headquake for us.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

I do have a head headquake and it's it's the Met Gala this year. Uh I don't get it. Um it's it's been around since the 60s. Um it's as successful as ever. Last year's raised 71 million dollars. And what does the money go? And it it cost five million to operate. So and where does that money go to? It's at the Metropolitan Museum. Does it go to the Met? Part of the Met. It goes to part of the Met, not the whole body, just charging entrance fees.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

What's the charter of that museum was it was supposed to be free to everyone, and now they're first they they heavily well wait wait just back it up a second.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

The money goes to the costume institute because it's such an important it's such an important area of research uh and development for the United States, so it you know it's such an intellectual hotbed for the rest of us. No, they've they've built up a sort of a uh uh a wealth fund within the costume institute of around a hundred million dollars that which allows it to exist into perpetuity almost.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Um is there a part of the Met that shows costumes? Is it is it a wing or part of the Met? Are there costumes you can see there? Or is it just a there are private collection?

SPEAKER_03 23:34

It has an important collection of costumes because you know in London. We gotta see costumes. I probably the most costumes. I I think I think how maybe the Met Gala has jumped a shark this year, though. I mean, you'll recall in years past they featured guests like Alexandria Casio-Cortez, who famously wore a um glamorous-looking frock that said eat the rich. And um, but this year, this year, the honorary chair people are um Lauren Sanchez and her husband Jeff Bezos. Jeff now, if anything jump the shark, that's it. So that's my head quake for the week. I'm going to boycott. I'm I will not attend this year. Oh, speaking of not attending, um, often mayors do attend, sometimes they don't, but they don't often make press releases about not attending, and that's what our mayor this year did.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

That's a bit performative, perhaps. But here's the question. Here's that word.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

Yes, there's a word. So you know, I I'm not I'm not attending the Med Gala this year if you'd like to know I'm not.

SPEAKER_04 24:46

But seriously, you've mostly gotten off uh Amazon too. You're you're you are putting your money where your mouth is because you've been you've been disconnecting yourself from from Amazon, isn't that right? Do you want to share with our listeners and discount?

SPEAKER_03 25:06

In fact, okay, the New Yorker has it. The New Yorker has an interesting article this week, and it's about how we're we're seeking a way around, we're seeking inefficiency because every single app, computer program, software, software offered that comes into our lives is to make our lives more efficient. And what it means is we end up in our bedrooms in front of a glowing screen, logging in, registering, trying free trials, and not getting out of the house. And as and and and I have to tell you, the the Amazon and Whole Foods um retreating from it has an effect. It's it's sort of I forgot where I used to buy things, and it's it's so pleasant and repressing to take a walk down the street and go shopping, which I don't really normally like to do. Uh I like shopping. And and I I and I I might have I might have stayed on in you know the Amazon network of Whole Foods and Um online retail if it weren't for Bezos really capitulating in such a yeah cowardly way to the administration.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

It was an innovate, it was a very innovative company. And yeah, could it could delight?

SPEAKER_04 26:25

He's not just treats his workers so badly. Um I not only listen, Jim, not only do I salute what uh you're doing, but you are my folk hero for disengaging yourself from Amazon, something I haven't quite uh achieved yet. But I I admire you for doing that. And and uh who's that who's that guy you mentioned who's the on the uh that figure who is um publicizing uh getting off Amazon. Isn't there some uh Scott Galloway?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah, there we go. Scott Galloway and company. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 26:58

Yeah, all right. Couple uh a shout out to him, Scott Galloway, and a shout out to you too. Well, I'm rereading um well, sort of. I I've I've started re rereading Evelyn Waugh's first novel, Decline and Fall, and I'm actually reading a first edition, first U.S. edition of the book that I bought at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe for one dollar, maybe 20 years ago. It's kind of falling apart, but I enjoy reading the reading it as a first edition. The pages are kind of coming out, and it is a very, very funny book, uh, published originally in 1928, and it has line drawings by Yvelinois himself. Now that's my very um uh a his very uh historical and not um up to the minute uh headquake.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Is anyway with and and is that interest a follow-up to our discussion about lost lambs, which you you keenly defined as a comic novel.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

Yes, indeed. Yves Lenoir, one of the great comic comic novelists, and uh certainly not a folk hero, because he had some extremely uh curmudgeonly. I mean, he was um he was racist, but he was also anti-Semitic and hated Americans, all Americans. So I think he was pretty performative in his curmudgeon, in his curmudgeoness.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

Sounds like he falls into the category of folk hero.

SPEAKER_04 28:27

I was wondering folk villain. Fogue anti-hero, maybe. Um folk jerk. He's he he is a folk jerk. He's a there was a spot for him in English hearts. He's never been out of print, and there are a lot of Americans who love his work, despite the fact that he um can be very snooty to them. Um so I guess that's my uh headquake of a kind. So, all right. Well, we've covered some ground. If anybody wants to respond to um our our uh our discussion folk heroes and and and and let us know if you know, if you can think of any folk heroes out there, um you can comment on our on our YouTube page and get a conversation going because I can't think of any at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

Isn't that inquiring minds want to know?

SPEAKER_04 29:17

Inquiring minds want to know. Okay, well, that's Boomer Has for this week. Thank you for listening and watching.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

I'm Jim Jelamis in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_04 29:26

I'm JB Miller in London. Thanks. Bye bye.