The story at that link is about 1 month old, but someone posted about this mural on Reddit yesterday.
Thoughts?
Great evils create great folk heros. Luigi is a hero forever.
My main thought is that this is very reminiscent of the way saints are portrayed in stained glass.
It was a popular image floating around a little while ago
Shame bout the watermark
This is the oldest copy I could find, which unfortunately still has the watermark:
There are older copies (all of them originating from Imgur), but unfortunately they all were deleted before I was able to retrieve any of them from TinEye.
Random things saved to my phone’s photos from Lemmy coming in useful:
Thank you.
The Hitler 'stache on the new snoo design is on point, though.
this is my pfp on everything lol
Good to know we aren’t all idiots.
Pretty clever use of the arch and the golden painted bricks to create a piece reminiscent of an icon.
Honestly, aside from what Mangione did and whether it can be justified, I just think this shows how America-brained so much of the UK is. The guy lives and committed his crime on the other side of the ocean in a context which does not exist in this country. I would personally prefer for him not to be executed but I don’t understand what anyone’s thinking when they use him as an icon over here.
The guy lives and committed his crime on the other side of the ocean in a context which does not exist in this country.
The word “tenement” has a negative connotation specifically because of the UK’s treatment of the working poor. The Grenfell Tower was only 8 years ago. You guys might not have the health insurance issue we have but you certainly have the “Parasite class killing and causing suffering for monetary gain” problem that is the root cause of both issues.
By far the most coherent response, thank you. I still think the contexts are sufficiently different that I find it odd that anyone would feel the need to paint his face on a wall thousands of miles away.
You don’t understand why a country full of oppressed people enslaved to billionaires would empathise with citizens of another country experiencing similar oppression? Why not?
I think you probably understand why it’s ridiculous when right wingers say that socialised healthcare = Stalinism, and so on an identical basis you should see it’s ridiculous to describe the people of the UK as oppressed slaves.
Who is most of the income you generate going to, if not a billionaire, or multi billionaires?
Me. But I should add that a system of wages and salaries is not slavery, and that part of the reason I know this is that actual slaves really, really want instead to be paid a wage or a salary.
I don’t understand what anyone’s thinking when they use him as an icon over here.
i mean cmon usa isnt the only place where a lot of people want some rly rich people to die
Luigi Mangione did not do anything. He allegedly killed someone. He is innocent until he is proven guilty. You cant assume that just because someone is suspected for committing a crime, they actually committed the crime
You forgot the last part of that phrase: innocent until proven guilty IN A COURT OF LAW. We are not in a court of law, we’re in the the court of public opinions, where I can, and will, say I think he did it. Doesn’t mean I think he did anything wrong though.
Okay, this isn’t a court and it’s absolutely fine for people in casual conversation to say he did something when there’s strong evidence that he did.
Strictly speaking if he yelled ‘I did it and I’d do it again’ at the cameras on his way into court, he’d still be ‘innocent till proven guilty’ but no one would insist that actually meant he ‘hadn’t done it’. EDIT: Actually, strictly speaking, he’d still be ‘innocent’ under a strict definition after pleading guilty but before the jury pronounced him so.
In any case, as to our wider discussion, you’d then be disagreeing with many of the people here and arguing that people painted his face on a wall because he didn’t do anything.
I don’t understand what anyone’s thinking when they use him as an icon over here.
We are also governed by billionaires who own our press and control our politicians. It doesn’t matter that Mangione did what he did three and a half thousand miles away, what matters is that he is a symbol for the ultimate sanction the people can have against a billionaire class who are otherwise unaccountable and untouchable.
Brian Thompson was not a billionaire. As for the ‘unaccountable’ class our side of the pond, just yesterday a prominent political megadonor and former hedge fund manager was banned from working in financial services, so neither side of your analogy stands up to very much scrutiny.
EDIT: I mean, guys, you could try the path of ‘You can’t trust the systems any more! The only choice is to ignore the law and inflict arbitrary punishments on people we dislike!’ but it is not one that leads to leftist utopia.
The cost of living crisis is global. Exploitation of labour is global. Everything for profit’s sake is global. Climate action being hampered due to corporate interests is global. Wealth inequality rising is global.
What’s the alternative? Continuing as we have so far? Doesn’t seem to have worked out so great.
There is quite a range of options between continuing as you say we are and shooting people in the street. Again, enacting arbitrary violence against perceived enemies is literally what Trump is doing. This is not the path to take. Like all people calling for this kind of violence, you are assuming it won’t be inflicted on you or anyone you like, but that is not what history suggests will happen.
Incidentally, another way the UK is not like the US is that carbon emissions are falling in the UK.
Are you being purposefully obtuse? You could say the exact same thing about Robin Hood.
It just goes to show how England brained America is. What business does America have making movies and TV shows about a 12th Century English folk hero? America hadn’t even been discovered in the 12th Century, how can you have context in the US for his actions?
It’s a story about a little guy who broke the law to stand up for the greater good while risking his own life to do so. That kind of heroism is borderless. Luigi Mangione may have killed one person but the person he killed was responsible for the death and chronic pain of thousands. I think we English understand that very well indeed.
Fictional characters and real people are not actually the same kind of thing, and how people read them are not equivalent.
You are clearly someone who does not understand nuance.
Ironically, your statement lacks nuance.
You’re only saying that because you don’t understand it.
Touché.
I’m sure there are greedy shenanigans that happen without consequence in the UK, too.
I just think this shows how America-brained so much of the UK is.
Yep, they already had the majority of brands and culture back in the 80s and 90’s but since the internet and especially since social media we’ve never been so american
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM Comments are turned off.
Speaking as a Dutchie, I hope the big American middle finger (and Hitler salute) will at least lead to their culture not being so omnipresent in European countries anymore.
I’d like that for Feddit too, actually…
The UK: America without so much fascism and with better health care!
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Mangione has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder as an act of terrorism
Act of terrorism? Yeah sure…
Well made mural art, but it will get removed in the next few weeks now it has been made public and getting traction !
It might still be there. The article I got the OP image from is about 1 month old, but someone posted photos of it on Reddit yesterday: https://old.reddit.com/r/london/comments/1jdgavu/luigi_mangione_in_bethnal_green/
If he wasn’t so good looking, nobody would care about him. The fact is, he took another life in cold-blood. He had a manifesto and a gun in his backpack. He’s not a hero and hasn’t accomplished anything through his violence.
You upset you want him
he took another life in cold-blood
Hasn’t been proven, yet, so he’s innocent still. Also: it wasn’t cold blood, whoever shot the guy was angry and targeting him specifically
Lick that CEO boot harder, you’ll surely get a share soon!
I suggest you familiarise yourself with the definition of being killed in cold-blood. He was shot in the back in a premeditated attack, while posing no threat and unarmed. He left behind two sons.
Oh, he was posing a threat alright.
while posing no threat
If your big plan for health insurance is to let an AI deny claims then you are absolutely a threat.
First, he and his wife had been separated for some time, and he had minimal contact with his kids. Second, how many children lost a parent due to being denied coverage as a direct result of his policies? I don’t know the exact number, but I know it’s a lot. No sympathy for that evil bastard.
Also whomever perpetrated the assassination was a hero long before we knew what Luigi looked like
What? I don’t typically find males attractive and I was supportive of this man’s actions way before I knew what he looked like.
Also, isn’t it a bit too soon to say he hasn’t accomplished anything through his violence. I mean at the very least he’s sparked a massive discourse about how Americans have a fucked up health industry. This is all while the media pretends he doesn’t exist anymore because they realised that sympathy for Brian Thompson was… lacking to say the least.
All of which was handled improperly by the police. The arrest the evidence all of it fruit of the poisonous tree. It’s gonna be a mistrial.
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People supporting something you don’t agree with doesn’t mean they’re doing it for popularity points, just the same as you supporting something that I don’t, wouldn’t have me saying you’re doing it for points.
Shocking but people have beliefs, whether right or wrong.
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I don’t know if it’s effective, it’s too early, the trial hasn’t even begun. What I do know is artists make statements whether I agree with them or not.
It doesn’t exist in this country yet. Don’t forget we’ve had over a decade of Tory cuts and particularly to the NHS, they’ve privatised more and more parts of it so it doesn’t seem to unrealistic that with our special relationship we will end up in a similar place.
Look at dentists. Woefully underfunded and so many dentists move to private practice making finding an NHS dentist an insurmountable task for many people.
Internet jokes aside, it seems pretty weak to be venerating killers like this.
I’ll accept your down votes with grace.
Well he is suspected of murder, we don’t technically know if he did. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
I thought that only applied to conservatives who have been accused of sexual harassment.
Being serious though, I agree with @mannycalavera@feddit.uk that killers probably shouldn’t be venerated, but it’s definitely interesting that the Luigi case has inspired a lot of discussion, so I wondered what Lemmy users might think about this mural.
Alleged killer, he has not been convicted of anything
He allegedly shot someone who was killing many other people for money.
It’s definitely sad and unfortunate that someone had to die, but I heard they were using unethical means to exploit vulnerable people and cause the deaths of many others.
If the police weren’t going to do anything about the CEO, then sadly, it’s ultimately necessary for a vigilante to step up.
It’s why you need a fair legal system.
It’s why you need a fair legal system.
This.
If the police weren’t going to do anything about the CEO, then sadly, it’s ultimately necessary for a vigilante to step up.
But not this.
If someone (a CEO, a powerful business man, a politician, whatever) is doing something so egregiously wrong then club together to raise awareness, take legal action, shame them in the press, set up you own alternatives. Going straight to murder is not the answer.
Yet it scares me that so many people think it is 😢😬.
If you think we as a society went straight to murder, you need to get your head out of your ass.
And yet we see a murderer venerated 🤷.
Because we’ve been fighting this battle the right way for DECADES. Enough is enough. Luigi did nothing wrong.
What have you tried? What have you personally tried?
For example, have you got together in your locality and created a shared insurance scheme for you and your neighbours? Basically adopt a version of French / German healthcare insurance on a local level? Have you tried that?
No one went “straight to murder”. There have been decades of struggle.
You’re also describing the “boxes of liberty” thing. “To be used in order: soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box”.
No one went “straight to murder”
This Luigi chap did…
Then club together to raise awareness, take legal action, shame them in the press, set up you own alternatives.
Pretty sure that everyone over in the US has already tried and failed this. If not, then you’re 100% correct.
They might have tried it in different ways, and it might be really difficult I don’t deny that. But the alternative of murder seems a little overkill, no?
No, what they’re doing to millions of Americans is overkill.
I agree the US health care system is pretty fucked up and I feel bad for people in the US. But are you saying that killing is the answer?
When doing things the right way repeatedly for decades gets you nowhere, you reach a point where you need to stand up to your oppressors.
Not allowed to down vote. You wrote hurty words. That’s violence. Literal violence.
Don’t you just love Woke.
How is this related to the UK?
That’s where London is traditionally found.
Teach us your ways, oh wise one.
mural is in london
I don’t want to mass respond to all the replies but what I meant was:
- The UK healthcare system is not as predatory as the US one
- This is a crime (arguable justifiable) which has taken place in another country
- We shouldn’t transpose politics from other countries onto our own where they don’t fit. A lot of the moral intricacies of this case are idiosyncratic to USA’s crazy system.
Edit: missed the word “not” from my first point
This is such a nonsensical take. It’s art. Just because we don’t have the same system here doesn’t mean people don’t understand or shouldn’t have opinions on it. Do you listen to American music? Watch American TV programs or films? If so, why? They transpose politics from the States and therefore should be avoided.
Everyone, no matter where they live, is entitled to their opinion. Even if it is nonsensical.
It’s pretty much the 2025 equivalent of a Che Guevara t-shirt/poster
So what dude? Just because you don’t like or understand it doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t. He’s become a symbol for of rebellion for millions of people across the globe.
Che Guevara. Luke Skywalker. Robin Hood. Guy Fawkes. Neo. Katniss Everdeen. Joan of Arc. Fucking Moses FFS. All figures of rebellion. All standing up against oppression. All now considered heroes. Luigi Mancioni is now one of them. Just deal with it.
Ok, I feel like we’ve both explained our positions here. Let’s agree to disagree.
No. You must agree with me.
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