(no subject)
Oct. 21st, 2011 05:33 pmTRASHY TRUE CRIME AHOY!
Except The Bobbed-Haired Bandit: A Story of Crime and Celebrity in New York is actually much more interesting and less trashy than I thought it would be, because the authors basically start out by saying "Hey! There are loads of conflicting accounts and a huge media circus around this case, and really we have no idea what actually happened, so we're going to have fun studying the media coverage and what that says about the time period in 1924 when it happened! Cool?"
And of course my answer to this is "COOL!" because this way I get to use this as trashy true-crime entertainment AND as legitimate research. It is a win-win!
Anyway, if you're at all interested in this kind of thing, you should read the book to get the research, because it is actually really excellent. But I can tell you the story! It starts with Celia Cooney, who is cute and spunky and bobbed-haired and twenty and also pregnant, and her husband, Ed Cooney, who is tall and good-looking and an auto mechanic. They are madly in love and starting a family and have no money! How about . . . holding up a drugstore?
(Note: the Cooneys basically only robbed stores in their own backyard, which coincidentally is practically my backyard. Not very bright of them, but lots of fun for me!)
So Celia comes in and does the stickup, looking very fashionable and un-robberlike with her cute hat and fur coat and bobbed hair, and Ed is her backup, and they get a couple hundred dollars and all is well in the Cooney world . . . until they run out of money and decide to do it once or twice more, and then . . .
THE MEDIA: so hey, everyone is panicked about this social trend of ladies being liberated and chopping off their hair, and now a bobbed-haired lady is holding up stores . . . AWESOME. HEY GUYS BOBBED-HAIRED CRIMINAL MASTERMIND IN BROOKLYN GETCHER PAPERS HERE!
CELIA COONEY: Gee! Gosh! Look at the police and everyone getting all excited! Isn't this a lark!
THE MEDIA: ZOMG DOPE FIEND ROBIN HOOD CRIMINAL MASTERMIND BEWARE BOBBED-HAIRED WOMEN
CELIA COONEY: "Here, Ed, wait a minute while I take a shot in the arm and play you a tune on the slide trombone. See who I am! I am the Bobbed Haired Bandit! I am a dope fiend and the leader of a band! Don't you just love it?"
ED: >:|
CELIA: Ed, are you just mad because everyone thinks I am the bold and sassy mastermind here?
ED: No, honey, I am CONCERNED because the police say they have orders to SHOOT TO KILL.
CELIA: "Why, that's awful! You don't think they mean it, do you? They haven't got any right! They wouldn't do that, would they?"
ED: I think . . . given that we are ROBBERS now . . . they do, actually, have the right?
CELIA: :O
(Everything in italics is a direct quote from Celia Cooney's autobiography, As Ghostwritten For the Papers, so, you know, grain of salt. BUT STILL.)
So everything is all very farcical for a while as the police scamper around chasing ALL BOBBED-HAIRED WOMEN, and Celia and Ed decide it is a brilliant idea to scamper around leaving snarky nodes for the police and raiding drugstores for $40 in cash, and the press are just like "THIS IS THE BEST YEAR EVER *______*"
But eventually, FINALLY, Celia and Ed decide that, since Celia is pretty much about to pop her baby any minute, it is time to get away with ONE BIG SCORE . . . at an office that is like right next door to their house. Naturally, this is where everything goes horribly wrong. I won't spoil the details for you, but I will tell you that what is most amazing to me is the fact that, years and years down the line, when interviewed by the authors, Ed and Celia's kids had no idea about this chapter of their parents' life. Can you imagine finding out that your mom was an infamous true-crime celebrity back in the day? So weird!
Though I guess it could be worse. I mean, Ed and Celia never actually killed anybody, and one thing all the papers agreed on is that the bobbed-haired bandit, wicked though she may be, was also a total badass.
ETA:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kate_nepveu also points out, rightly, that I should add in a warning for just how badly everything does go desperately wrong; it is definitely not all lols and hijinks by the end.
Except The Bobbed-Haired Bandit: A Story of Crime and Celebrity in New York is actually much more interesting and less trashy than I thought it would be, because the authors basically start out by saying "Hey! There are loads of conflicting accounts and a huge media circus around this case, and really we have no idea what actually happened, so we're going to have fun studying the media coverage and what that says about the time period in 1924 when it happened! Cool?"
And of course my answer to this is "COOL!" because this way I get to use this as trashy true-crime entertainment AND as legitimate research. It is a win-win!
Anyway, if you're at all interested in this kind of thing, you should read the book to get the research, because it is actually really excellent. But I can tell you the story! It starts with Celia Cooney, who is cute and spunky and bobbed-haired and twenty and also pregnant, and her husband, Ed Cooney, who is tall and good-looking and an auto mechanic. They are madly in love and starting a family and have no money! How about . . . holding up a drugstore?
(Note: the Cooneys basically only robbed stores in their own backyard, which coincidentally is practically my backyard. Not very bright of them, but lots of fun for me!)
So Celia comes in and does the stickup, looking very fashionable and un-robberlike with her cute hat and fur coat and bobbed hair, and Ed is her backup, and they get a couple hundred dollars and all is well in the Cooney world . . . until they run out of money and decide to do it once or twice more, and then . . .
THE MEDIA: so hey, everyone is panicked about this social trend of ladies being liberated and chopping off their hair, and now a bobbed-haired lady is holding up stores . . . AWESOME. HEY GUYS BOBBED-HAIRED CRIMINAL MASTERMIND IN BROOKLYN GETCHER PAPERS HERE!
CELIA COONEY: Gee! Gosh! Look at the police and everyone getting all excited! Isn't this a lark!
THE MEDIA: ZOMG DOPE FIEND ROBIN HOOD CRIMINAL MASTERMIND BEWARE BOBBED-HAIRED WOMEN
CELIA COONEY: "Here, Ed, wait a minute while I take a shot in the arm and play you a tune on the slide trombone. See who I am! I am the Bobbed Haired Bandit! I am a dope fiend and the leader of a band! Don't you just love it?"
ED: >:|
CELIA: Ed, are you just mad because everyone thinks I am the bold and sassy mastermind here?
ED: No, honey, I am CONCERNED because the police say they have orders to SHOOT TO KILL.
CELIA: "Why, that's awful! You don't think they mean it, do you? They haven't got any right! They wouldn't do that, would they?"
ED: I think . . . given that we are ROBBERS now . . . they do, actually, have the right?
CELIA: :O
(Everything in italics is a direct quote from Celia Cooney's autobiography, As Ghostwritten For the Papers, so, you know, grain of salt. BUT STILL.)
So everything is all very farcical for a while as the police scamper around chasing ALL BOBBED-HAIRED WOMEN, and Celia and Ed decide it is a brilliant idea to scamper around leaving snarky nodes for the police and raiding drugstores for $40 in cash, and the press are just like "THIS IS THE BEST YEAR EVER *______*"
But eventually, FINALLY, Celia and Ed decide that, since Celia is pretty much about to pop her baby any minute, it is time to get away with ONE BIG SCORE . . . at an office that is like right next door to their house. Naturally, this is where everything goes horribly wrong. I won't spoil the details for you, but I will tell you that what is most amazing to me is the fact that, years and years down the line, when interviewed by the authors, Ed and Celia's kids had no idea about this chapter of their parents' life. Can you imagine finding out that your mom was an infamous true-crime celebrity back in the day? So weird!
Though I guess it could be worse. I mean, Ed and Celia never actually killed anybody, and one thing all the papers agreed on is that the bobbed-haired bandit, wicked though she may be, was also a total badass.
ETA:
kate_nepveu also points out, rightly, that I should add in a warning for just how badly everything does go desperately wrong; it is definitely not all lols and hijinks by the end.
