The Eternal Romanticization of Bonnie and Clyde


Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty played Bonnie and Clyde in the 1967 movie. Photo: Google
By SILVIO CANTO, JR.
In 1967, Autor Penn’s neo-noir film “Bonnie and Clyde” introduced millions of viewers to the outlaw couple and their flawed story.
It was back in 1934 that Bonnie and Clyde met the law for the last time in Louisiana.
Here in the United States, there has been a lot of interest in the May 23 anniversary of their death, as recently reported by The Dallas Morning News.
“Seven miles down the road, two crooks died a long time ago. For most other criminals, that could have been the end of the story. But Bonnie and Clyde live on,” the newspaper wrote.
“In the imagination of the public, Hollywood, haunted descendants and here on Main Street in this tiny town about an hour east of Shreveport; the legacy of their two-year crime spree endures 80 years after their bloody deaths on May 23, 1934.”
The article goes on to say that “it is here in this northern Louisiana town of 979 that the son of Ted Hinton, a Dallas County deputy who was in the posse that killed Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, has set up shop to tell the story of how the couple and their gang lived and died.”
Hinton’s Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum shows how the two robbed banks and killed people, loved each other and died young.
Hinton’s son Boots was born not long before his father helped kill the two outlaws on State Highway 154, which remains remote today.
In the Dallas Morning News article, he said there are two main reasons that people still latch on to the Bonnie and Clyde saga.
“One, it’s a love story that would put Romeo and Juliet to shame,” he said.
“The other is guts and bullets — the blood.”
I just hope that people remember that Bonnie and Clyde were actually ruthless killers.
They shot and killed law enforcement officers, as well as innocent people and bystanders.
It’s hard to see anything romantic about that, but the young couple still generates a lot of curiosity.
Go figure…