I read in USA Today that there are two new books about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow due for release. The first, Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn purports to delve deeper into the history, personal lives and psychology of the crime duo than any book or movie that went before.
The second, Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend by Paul Schneider, is out March 31st, and makes similar claims, that it too, has revealed never-known facts in its strictly non-fiction accounts.
At first, I thought I’d see what we had on the site (and found, among other things, two of Bonnie and Clyde’s Wanted posters from 1934). Then as I discovered the vast number of Bonnie and Clyde books available for sale on AbeBooks, I started to think. And I remembered a story a friend told me about his son and his son’s best friend, both boys, running madly around the yard shooting fake guns at each other. “You’ll never take me alive, coppa!” And my friend trying to conceal his mirth at the boys’ openmouthed horror upon learning that Bonnie was a girl.
But then it started to bother me a little.
I understand the glorification or hero-worship of some lawbreakers. Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. An economic balance-bringer. Protestors. Even criminals like Attilus Ambrus, whose persistent poverty in Hungary and Romania, and desperate need to impress the ladies, drove him to rob banks (if you’ve not read Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, it’s a great read - it’s impossible not to like the guy), while yes, a lawbreaker, and yes, for his own purposes, made certain never to hurt or kill anybody.
Bonnie and Clyde, who have been glorified, glamourized, celebrated and depicted arguably more often than any criminals in history, were murderers. They killed upward of a dozen people, mostly police officers. At least a dozen people, every one of whom was somebody’s loved one.
We’ve made movies about them (Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty), countless books have been written, they’ve been compared to Romeo and Juliet and to Robin Hood, and every year, on May 23 (the anniversary of the day in 1934 when Bonnie and Clyde were finally ambushed and successfully killed by police officers), the town of Gibsland, Louisiana holds a festival. Whether its purpose is to celebrate the couple or their demise, I’m not sure. 
But why do people love and romaticize them so? Is it because they were a romantic couple? If they had been brothers, or sisters, or friends, would the bloom be off the rose? Many have speculated that Bonnie Parker (age 23 when killed) should have been spared as she was young, wrote poetry, and claimed she just went along because of her love for Clyde. However, she was present, and handled her own guns, and I think I remember Karla Homolka trying to use a similar defense about her love for Paul Bernardo.
They were bad and desperate people, taking what they hadn’t earned, and responsible for the suffering, fear and death of countless people. Frankly - who cares that they loved each other? People love each other quietly, without the hail of gunfire and murderous sprees, every day.
I guess I just want to know why the world loves Bonnie and Clyde? I’m sure I can blame Hollywood somehow.
People have always romanticized outlaws who railed again, broke from, or skirted the system. Robin Hood. Jesse James. Martin Luther. Jesus. Even Henry VIII. Some of them were peaceful, some violent. But I think it’s that most people feel like the “system” is unjust to them, but they are powerless against it. In the great depression the banks represented the failure of the system to protect the people who still had to live within its confines. (Obviously) the media was nowhere near as saturated or as immediate as it is now, and in times desperate for salvation, the story of two lover outlaws getting rich on the run held captive the country’s imagination, spawning a legend. Sure, they were bad people. I don’t think anybody would deny that.
Thanks for the comment! I see your point, and understand - but as unfair and prejudicial as many of our societal systems are, they exist for a reason, and there are people fighting against them in peaceful, lawful, intelligent ways every day, to make the world better and to protest injustice. It irritates me that two thugs who skipped hard work, decency and reason in favour of shooting innocent people to death and trying to get away with it are now glorified and remembered as exciting and romantic.