The Pop Corporation

March 30th, 1981, in the mid afternoon outside the Hilton in Washington DC, six shots ring out and Ronald Reagan is unceremoniously bundled into a car. His press secretary lies critically wounded on the floor, and injured too are a secret service agent and a police officer. The President of the United States of America has a bullet in his chest, and it’s all for Jodie Foster.

John Hinckley Jr grew up in a wealthy family, his father the chief executive of the Vanderbilt Energy Corporation in Texas, before becoming a college dropout, living off handouts from his parents coupled with tales of a fabricated girlfriend called ‘Lynn Collins’. Hinckley Jr would move back home to obsess over firearms and spiral into depression, and given tranquillisers and depression meds to deal with his emotional issues.

In ’76, Hinckley watches ‘Taxi Driver’ and quickly becomes obsessed with the violent and disturbed central character in the film, Travis Bickle. Played by Robert De Niro, the movie shows someone who plots to kill a presidential candidate, and Hinckley, emotionally distressed, begins to infatuate himself with actress Jodie Foster. Foster plays a 12 year old trapped in sex trafficking, and the actress a child herself.

A prodigious young woman, Foster attends Yale, and Hinckley Jr moved to New Haven, Connecticut, in a bid to be in closer proximity. Delusional, Hinckley sent Foster – now just 19 years old – a flurry of letters and poems, calling her and leaving answering machine messages. It transpired that Hinckley was consistently hatching plans to catch her attention, having failed to do so with what he deemed the traditional methods.

He would fantasise about hijacking planes or killing himself in front her, in a demented bid to impress her. However, it was the plot of ‘Taxi Driver’ that would continue to appeal to him the loudest – Bickle’s character was in part, based on the diaries of Arthur Bremer who himself, had tried to assassinate American politician George Wallace and failed in his plan to kill Nixon.

First, Hinckley would track Jimmy Carter around the States, getting arrested in Nashville on a gun charge. Again, he would return home, financially broke and in despair. Continued psychiatric treatment proved to be no help.

Before turning his attentions to Reagan, Hinckley wrote to Jodie Foster.

“Over the past seven months, I’ve left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times, I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. The reason I’m going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you.”

Back in ’75, Hinckley’s time in Los Angeles saw him pounding the pavement trying to become a musician – he was unsuccessful, despondent. Conjuring up an imagined love life, obsessing about murder and suicide, and ultimately, becoming transfixed on a young actress who was unaware of what was about to unfold.

He unloaded his Röhm RG-14 and thanks to the quick thinking of a secret agent wanting to avoid another Lee Harvey Oswald assassination, Hinckley Jr was eventually sent to trial. He was found not guilty on grounds of insanity. Post trial, Hinckley Jr wrote that the whole incident was “the greatest love offering in the history of the world”, and still transfixed on Foster’s lack of reciprocation for his gestures.

Jodie Foster, now the focus of the media, appeared on the US news channels, showing incredible emotional maturity in the face of roundly devastating events.

Foster would write a piece for Esquire two years after the incident: “I was no longer thinking of the President, of the assailant, of the crime, of the press. I was crying for myself. Me, the unwilling victim. The one who would pay in the end. The one who paid all along—and, yes, keeps paying. That kind of pain doesn’t go away. It’s something you never understand, forgive, or forget.” She added:

“Obsession is pain and a longing for something that does not exist. John Hinckley’s greatest crime was the confusion of love and obsession.”

There would be another stalker who refused to kill her from ten feet away because they thought she was too ‘pretty’ on stage.

Hinckley spent 35 years in a mental institution before being taken into full time care by his mother, and recently, he’s returned to songwriting. After all court restrictions were lifted, Hinckley Jr has released an outsider folk LP on Asbestos Records, called ‘Redemption’.

Shows were planned, but wisely, they were cancelled over concerns for safety of all involved. A label releasing an album from one of America’s most notorious men is quite the statement. Talking to BoingBoing, Asbestos Records’ founder Matt Flood said:

There has been very few more polarizing figures in America during my lifetime than the author of our next release. While the controversial nature is unavoidable, we are choosing to focus on a man who took responsibility for his actions, served his time, and fully embraced therapy for decades to atone, and become a better person. The following album is a collection of beautifully lo-fi folk recordings very remiscent of Daniel Johnston or Neutral Milk Hotel detailing the life of man and his struggle to improve himself, and ultimately choose love. We believe everyone deserves a shot a redemption if they’re willing to work for it, and this record is this mans.

“Anyone who’s heard my songs knows that they are trying to be kind of upbeat and inspirational,” said Hinckley Jr in a 2022 interview. “When I listen to bands like Nirvana or something like that, where there’s just so much angst going on in the song, I really don’t want to hear that too much, ’cause that just kind of brings me down. So I like songs that are more positive.”

Redemption, rehabilitation, hope or otherwise, there’ll always be a large elephant in the room whenever John Hinckley Jr makes a move. It’s difficult to avoid looking for clues to unresolved feelings toward Foster.

In an interview, he said the past is a stranger to him:

“I had a lot of depression and alienation going on back then. I was trying to make it in the music business, but my mental issues were preventing me from going about it the right way. Even in my darkest hours, I had my music to keep me going. It was when I gave up on the music that I crashed. Music is my salvation. I am trying to redeem myself through my music and art.”

It’s outsider folk, for sure, but listening to it is complex. There’s a naivety there which does echo Daniel Johnston most obviously, but coupled with the heavily medicated frankness that comes with a similar unsettling feeling of seeing Brian Wilson in the ’70s.

His past makes him a fascinating prospect though, whether you take that interest to be a good or bad thing.

Given that he’s already been the subject of interest in punk and new wave circles, the attention in pop cultural terms is nothing new. Devo wrote a song which featured lines from a poem written by Hinckley, and the Crucifucks recorded ‘Hinkley Had A Vision’, and Stephen Sondheim even dedicated a character to him in musical ‘Assassins’ where the character duets about obsessions about Jodie Foster and Charles Manson. Of course, he’s been depicted in various accounts of Reagan’s life, and controversial punk GG Allin was arrested by the secret service for his correspondence with Hinckley Jr.

There’s almost certainly a documentary film to made of all this, because this is a story that’s just too unique to turn away from.