TBI Recommended: The Right Way To Tell The Manson Story
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Karina Longworth isn’t a crime reporter and there’s nothing in her bibliography to suggest cults were an interest of hers before she assembled the comprehensive series Charles Manson’s Hollywood. Longworth’s specialty is actually in criticism of old and obscure Hollywood, which she unpacks on the esoteric Panoply podcast You Must Remember This. She isn’t a Sarah Koenig, where this story came to her and it altered her trajectory either. This falls little more under the umbrella of her previous work. It’s also worth mentioning for newcomers that Longworth’s world isn’t particularly inviting to the kind of audience that typically consumes crime stories, as it’s generally the kind of place that requires a background in film and olde starlettes to wade into. A TBI specific, roulette-style sampling of YMRT’s non-Manson podcasts produced a bit head scratching as she defiantly avoids subjects a millennial would likely have any context for. For the sake of fairness we’ll leave open the possibility that we’re lacking sophistication, but Charles Manson’s Hollywood seems like the thrilling outlier in the catalogue.
This is to say- You Must Remember This was about the last place you’d expect to find a meticulous, ten-hour deep dive into what is, not only the most famous cult story ever, but perhaps the most dissected American crime story of the 20th century this side of OJ and the grassy knoll. Some of the real estate is adjacent to her wheelhouse, but that really only accounts for a sliver of the 12 part series.
If Longworth covered Manson on a YMRT episode about the career of actress and Family victim Sharon Tate it wouldn’t be all that surprising, but that’s not really her focus; she’s after the entire enchilada from Manson’s troubled childhood through the trials. What Charles Manson’s Hollywood turns out to be is an egghead’s idea of what a capital-T True Crime story would like if skillful but forced metaphors were as important to the creator as a crime scene. The ties that bind Longworth’s foray into the acid splattered gore of Manson are often tenuous and tangential, yet they don’t sway the ship what this podcast actually is, which is a no-detail-spared retelling of a massive Tinseltown curiosity and the tendrils that blend it with the pop culture of yore. What separates it from the kind of shlock that typifies new spins on subjects this familiar to grown ups is the staggering punch the opportunists always miss, which is the sort of all-angle slantless research that’s just shy of a PhD dissertation. The fact that it’s as good as it is should be a masters lesson in how to approach a dead horse like Manson without adding any salacious ingredients to the carcass. Somehow, the product is essential even when the film metaphors being sold feel like a quite a stretch. Worth mentioning is that spin is essential when returning to worn territory. The takeaway from this particular story is that it’s unnecessary for the twist to be something that alters the actual story or causes research to be omitted. It’s truly an amazing feat. What’s more, Longworth’s innocuous stakes/high reward podcast might replace Helter Skelter as the essential entrance into the cult story that hovers above the rest.
This isn’t to say Longworth’s Manson story is perfect. There are a couple of moments where the filmography staggers and she wants us to see the Manson in movies like Easy Rider. This feels like the equivalent of watching a Ken Burns documentary about The Hell’s Angels that attempts to tie their history to battles of The Civil War. This analogy that required a little imagination is more apt than it sounds, especially since Longworth refuses to indulge in the actual laypersons idea of what a Manson inspired film is. In fact, the whole Movies and Manson conceit would be close to a bust if that were actually the central focus of the series, but Longworth clearly went deep in her exploration and smartly zeros in on the cult madness at its center. Every dip into Hollywood is like an interesting oasis, mileage varying, in an otherwise straight retelling of a few stories organized brilliantly. At the end of the day, this is just a fabulous storyteller sewing together a fascinated story. Longworth earns the excess she indulges in. Again, without the spin there’d be no reason for this to exist.
This is all to say that, be you a Manson novice or a descendant of Lotsapoppa, this is absolutely worthy of the binge.
You’ll find all 12 episodes below. To visit the You Must Remember This series portal click here.
