I realized some years back that the reason we have heroes in movies is really that there are so few of them. We truly do want unbending honesty, and heroic defenders, and powerful people who fight for truth and justice.
But they’re next to impossible to get in real life. Instead we get … George W. Bush. Jesse Jackson. Britney Spears. People who can’t even aspire to be flawed heroes, because though they possess flaws in abundance, they don’t have the required heroism. They’re just people — famous ones, but not very good ones.
The other side of the thing holds true, though, too. Some of the bad people we see in movies are there because there are so few of them.
For instance, when’s the last time you heard of a real Mad Scientist? I’m guessing pretty close to never. They make it into the movies because they almost don’t exist in real life, and so filmmakers feel free to use them as convenient boogeymen.
But listen to this, from USA Today, just about 3 years back: “Police: Evangelist’s Wife’s Body Found in Freezer”
Police believe a body found in a small-time evangelist’s home freezer is his wife and a mother of eight, and arrested him on a murder charge as he preached at a small south Alabama church.
The 37-year-old evangelist is being held in the Mobile (Alabama) County jail Wednesday awaiting a bond hearing and appointment of an attorney.
Police said no one reported 36-year-old Arletha Hopkins missing, even though she hadn’t been heard from in three years. The body was discovered covered in a freezer in a utility room during a police search of the home in Mobile, after a relative of the preacher contacted police.
He was arrested at a Christian “revival.”
He was also charged with rape and sodomy in a separate case. Eight kids, six of them his, and reportedly home-schooled (what else?) were taken into protective custody.
This just might be an actual, bona fide case of a Mad Religionist.
And the guy’s name is Anthony Hopkins.