edwin-wks
Joined Mar 2008
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"Why did Gabby ignore all the red flags to stay with Brian, especially when she was once close to ditching him before their trip?" A. Fear of abandonment; B. Dependence; C. Generalised anxiety; D. Childhood trauma; E. Preoccupied attachment style; F. All of the above.
The spotlight has been on the Laundries and justifiably so. Roberta Laundries most likely had an enmeshed relationship with her son, evident in her possessiveness of him and her animosity towards Gabby due to Gabby diverting Brian's attention away from her. His parents turned him into the person he was - insecure, narcissistic, manipulative and coercive, just like his mother.
If Brian was the product of his parents, would that not make Gabby the product of hers? When she was six months old, her birth parents separated. Both parents found new partners and started new families, eventually moving 2000 miles apart. She grew up with her mother, stepfather and three half siblings. All of this is glossed over by the documentary, which does not examine how it contributed to Gabby's personality and codependency with Brian.
People stay in toxic relationships because both parties are getting something out of it. In Brian, Gabby found someone who made her feel like she was the centre of his world, something that none of her parents were seemingly able to provide. Brian idealised Gabby initially as the perfect all-loving figure his parents never were, and devalued her when she wasn't able to live up to his impossible expectations.
Some other reviews reveal how little people know about love-bombing, pathological narcissism, coercive control, childhood trauma, attachment styles and codependency. This documentary did little to shed light on these issues, and facilitate understanding of how Gabby and Brian both tragically ended up the way they did.
PS. Reposting my review after it was taken down, following 30+ people liking it and one person deciding to report it because I had the audacity to look at this case from a different angle. The review wasn't offensive or inflammatory to the deceased, only to the sensibilities or lack-there-of of some.
The spotlight has been on the Laundries and justifiably so. Roberta Laundries most likely had an enmeshed relationship with her son, evident in her possessiveness of him and her animosity towards Gabby due to Gabby diverting Brian's attention away from her. His parents turned him into the person he was - insecure, narcissistic, manipulative and coercive, just like his mother.
If Brian was the product of his parents, would that not make Gabby the product of hers? When she was six months old, her birth parents separated. Both parents found new partners and started new families, eventually moving 2000 miles apart. She grew up with her mother, stepfather and three half siblings. All of this is glossed over by the documentary, which does not examine how it contributed to Gabby's personality and codependency with Brian.
People stay in toxic relationships because both parties are getting something out of it. In Brian, Gabby found someone who made her feel like she was the centre of his world, something that none of her parents were seemingly able to provide. Brian idealised Gabby initially as the perfect all-loving figure his parents never were, and devalued her when she wasn't able to live up to his impossible expectations.
Some other reviews reveal how little people know about love-bombing, pathological narcissism, coercive control, childhood trauma, attachment styles and codependency. This documentary did little to shed light on these issues, and facilitate understanding of how Gabby and Brian both tragically ended up the way they did.
PS. Reposting my review after it was taken down, following 30+ people liking it and one person deciding to report it because I had the audacity to look at this case from a different angle. The review wasn't offensive or inflammatory to the deceased, only to the sensibilities or lack-there-of of some.
Participating in this documentary is going to backfire on Kevin Franke as badly as the their eldest son's revelation of being deprived of his bedroom for seven months did for Ruby. As much as the Devil in the Family is about Ruby being the devil, we see Kevin, the devil's right hand man, trying to minimise his own guilt and involvement at every opportunity during this documentary. As a highly intelligent man who has a PhD and is a professor, he rationalises his complicity to alleviate the cognitive dissonance he intuitively feels at having let his children down by not protecting them from the abusive behaviours of his wife.
The defining scene for me was in episode 1 when he said, "I've learned there was a whole lot of horror that was going on in the shadows and behind the scenes". It then cut to Ruby aggressively handling her younger daughter, commanding her to "get down and be quiet". Kevin continued, "I had no idea this was going on in my family". The interviewer challenged him, "Did you really not?". The father was the one holding the camera; he had front row seats to his children's torment, that he participated in and is now conveniently obscured from his memory to distance himself from the shame.
A few scenes later, we see Ruby barking at Chad to "fake being happy" for their vlog and a despondent Chad replying, "I don't know if I can right now". While her entire identity hinged on her belief of herself as being the perfect mother, there is a clear distinction between delusion and reality. The greater the challenge towards this belief from her critics, the harder she pushed back and projected the blame elsewhere, including onto her children, so that she would remain perfect in her mind, and by extension in the eyes of their Mormon god. Incredulously, Kevin confessed in episode 3 that he was going to "support her over all his children" to save their marriage and that he still loved her even after everything she did came to light.
The reality is that the Frankes were abhorrent parents who used their children to prop up their own self-esteem, instead of giving their children unconditional love and allowing them the freedom of self-expression. As a result of Ruby's tyranny, Chad developed Oppositional Defiant Disorder and subsequently got expelled from school. Rather than look at what they were doing wrong, they blamed the child. There were so many opportunities for the father to put his foot down; time and time again he failed to grow a backbone to stand up to his wife and save his kids. If not for his compliance, Jodi Hildebrandt would have never entered the picture. Deplorable. I cannot give this more than a 4 for not going further to call the father out on his platitudes and excuses. It sickened me more to look at him than at her.
The defining scene for me was in episode 1 when he said, "I've learned there was a whole lot of horror that was going on in the shadows and behind the scenes". It then cut to Ruby aggressively handling her younger daughter, commanding her to "get down and be quiet". Kevin continued, "I had no idea this was going on in my family". The interviewer challenged him, "Did you really not?". The father was the one holding the camera; he had front row seats to his children's torment, that he participated in and is now conveniently obscured from his memory to distance himself from the shame.
A few scenes later, we see Ruby barking at Chad to "fake being happy" for their vlog and a despondent Chad replying, "I don't know if I can right now". While her entire identity hinged on her belief of herself as being the perfect mother, there is a clear distinction between delusion and reality. The greater the challenge towards this belief from her critics, the harder she pushed back and projected the blame elsewhere, including onto her children, so that she would remain perfect in her mind, and by extension in the eyes of their Mormon god. Incredulously, Kevin confessed in episode 3 that he was going to "support her over all his children" to save their marriage and that he still loved her even after everything she did came to light.
The reality is that the Frankes were abhorrent parents who used their children to prop up their own self-esteem, instead of giving their children unconditional love and allowing them the freedom of self-expression. As a result of Ruby's tyranny, Chad developed Oppositional Defiant Disorder and subsequently got expelled from school. Rather than look at what they were doing wrong, they blamed the child. There were so many opportunities for the father to put his foot down; time and time again he failed to grow a backbone to stand up to his wife and save his kids. If not for his compliance, Jodi Hildebrandt would have never entered the picture. Deplorable. I cannot give this more than a 4 for not going further to call the father out on his platitudes and excuses. It sickened me more to look at him than at her.
While it is understandable why Charles Manson was regarded back then as having a supernatural charm and ability to influence his followers to commit unspeakable acts, the growth of knowledge into psychology, especially childhood trauma and personality disorders, in the past 50 years will easily dispel any conspiracy theory that arose in the 1970s following the murders. The roll-call of cultish personalities that followed Manson, such as Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite and David Koresh, is proof that there is nothing magical about their ability to indoctrinate those who are susceptible to their influence; they are all basically following the same set of rules used by the greatest con-artists.
At the start of the documentary, Manson is shown proclaiming that he is not a nice man, but his would-be followers insisted that he is; they needed to view him as "nice" and thereby safe, perhaps helped by his diminutive stature, so he admitted to "reflecting nice back to them". People like Manson wield enormous influence over some simply because their superpower is sniffing out the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of others, and using that to their advantage. This superpower is often the result of severe childhood trauma and/or neglect, where the child does not have any healthy adult role models to learn empathy from, and views other people as merely tools to survive and get their needs met.
A cursory search into Manson's childhood revealed an alcoholic mother who was ill-equipped to raise him, a biological father that he never knew, and a step-father who flagged the mother for "gross neglect of duty". It is therefore no surprise that Manson's life was characterised by anti-social and criminal behaviour. In an ironic twist, the people most susceptible to those like Manson, such as Manson's followers, are usually themselves lost children seeking the guidance and love they never received from their parents. This shared experience of childhood trauma, and subsequent trauma bonding, is why Manson had such a hold over those he sent out to do his bidding. Manson himself was a scared child faking bravado to face the big bad world; that he ran away after injuring Hinman, leaving Beausoleil to deal with it, and how he delegated the killings to his followers proved what a coward he truly was.
As Beausoleil put it, Manson was not a mastermind. Far from it, he was instead a broken child in a man's body, hateful at the world for thwarting his desires, and the murders were his misguided way of taking revenge and exerting his will. That the documentary failed to explore any of his psychology and childhood, as well as that of his followers, makes it incomplete because the conspiracy theories are ultimately not as compelling as the truth behind Manson's deranged machinations. The only thing I got out of it was that Manson was a competent musician and songwriter. Perhaps in a parallel universe, where he had better parents and childhood, he might have become a successful musician, adored by many, instead of this infamous trainwreck of a human being.
At the start of the documentary, Manson is shown proclaiming that he is not a nice man, but his would-be followers insisted that he is; they needed to view him as "nice" and thereby safe, perhaps helped by his diminutive stature, so he admitted to "reflecting nice back to them". People like Manson wield enormous influence over some simply because their superpower is sniffing out the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of others, and using that to their advantage. This superpower is often the result of severe childhood trauma and/or neglect, where the child does not have any healthy adult role models to learn empathy from, and views other people as merely tools to survive and get their needs met.
A cursory search into Manson's childhood revealed an alcoholic mother who was ill-equipped to raise him, a biological father that he never knew, and a step-father who flagged the mother for "gross neglect of duty". It is therefore no surprise that Manson's life was characterised by anti-social and criminal behaviour. In an ironic twist, the people most susceptible to those like Manson, such as Manson's followers, are usually themselves lost children seeking the guidance and love they never received from their parents. This shared experience of childhood trauma, and subsequent trauma bonding, is why Manson had such a hold over those he sent out to do his bidding. Manson himself was a scared child faking bravado to face the big bad world; that he ran away after injuring Hinman, leaving Beausoleil to deal with it, and how he delegated the killings to his followers proved what a coward he truly was.
As Beausoleil put it, Manson was not a mastermind. Far from it, he was instead a broken child in a man's body, hateful at the world for thwarting his desires, and the murders were his misguided way of taking revenge and exerting his will. That the documentary failed to explore any of his psychology and childhood, as well as that of his followers, makes it incomplete because the conspiracy theories are ultimately not as compelling as the truth behind Manson's deranged machinations. The only thing I got out of it was that Manson was a competent musician and songwriter. Perhaps in a parallel universe, where he had better parents and childhood, he might have become a successful musician, adored by many, instead of this infamous trainwreck of a human being.