Taxi Driver: How an Antihero Inspired an Assassination Attempt, Parts 1 and 2

We've got another guest article - this one is by Mike Clark, who wrote about Taxi Driver and how it motivated a man's effort to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981. It's really cool and in-depth. In fact, this isn't even the entire article, and we'll be posting the second one right behind this one. If you get to the end before it's posted, the remainder can be found here!

Part I: The Antihero

“To our Television Audience: In the aftermath of violence, the distinction between hero and villain is sometimes a matter of interpretation or misinterpretation of facts. Taxi Driver suggests that tragic errors can be made.”

Meet John Hinckley, Jr.

In 1976, the self-described “young alienated loner” dropped out of Texas Tech University to pursue a songwriting career in Hollywood. It was in Hollywood that a depressed and anxious Hinckley developed a dangerous obsession with the hit film Taxi Driver starring Academy Award-winning actor Robert de Niro and twelve-year-old child star Jodie Foster. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the psychological thriller helped advance the popularity of the modern “antihero” — a morally or socially corrupted character that the audience becomes drawn to but appalled by at the same time.

​In the film, protagonist Travis Bickle (portrayed by de Niro) works the night shift as a taxi driver in New York City to cope with his chronic insomnia. Lonely and downtrodden by the filth and perversion of the dark city streets, the former Marine draws the viewer’s cautious sympathy as a well-intentioned misfit making ends meet. That is, until he reveals sexual and violent perversions of his own. As the story develops, viewers must reconcile their initial attraction to the troubled man with the fact that Bickle is frighteningly emotionally and psychologically disturbed. While brief moments throughout the film offer evidence that a certain redeeming humanity is left within Travis, its ending provides a deciding reminder that Bickle is a vile and deranged man meant to be met with aversion.

​Despite his horrid actions and psychotic nature, an antihero like Travis Bickle is a character that many viewers develop a reserved fascination with. Even the most moral of us can take a certain intrigue to his psyche because we recognize that Bickle is a fictional character developed on a movie set. He is meant to be vile. And, while his experience is convincingly authentic, he is not meant to be real. Viewers are drawn to these characters because the screen is where these characters can exist just as superheroes and villains may.

After viewing the film for the first time, 21-year-old John Hinckley, Jr. developed an understandable affinity for Bickle. Hinckley identified with the character’s feeling of emptiness and revulsion for the world while admiring his almost insatiable drive to take what he felt was his. However, this admiration proved to become a worrying delusion. During his year-long stay in Los Angeles, the aspiring songwriter began mimicking the character’s mannerisms, even adopting the iconic dress of the deranged taxi driver. Hinckley seemed determined to embody and find purpose in the delusion that he, like Bickle, was troubled yet could thrive in the cold and unwelcoming world that labeled him an outcast.

By his own admission, Hinckley would go on to watch Taxi Driver at least fifteen times in the years that followed. Inspired by the film, Hinckley purchased his first firearm in 1979. While this alone was not cause for concern, his continued habits mimicking Bickle certainly were. In writings to his parents, John claimed to have a relationship with a woman named Lynn who bore a curious resemblance to Betsy, the initial love interest of de Niro’s character. In fact, her son was so convincing that John’s mother Jo Ann was left blindsided when she learned that Lynn and the relationship ultimately proved to have been a total fabrication.

As his defense experts would later detail:

Hinckley began to imitate Bickle’s preference for army fatigue jackets and boots, and developed a fascination with guns. He adopted Bickle’s preference for peach brandy and, like the movie character, began keeping a diary. Hinckley’s isolation from society and vulnerability led him to unconsciously begin to mimic Bickle’s traits… Hinckley “absorbed the identity of Travis Bickle.”

Still, most concerning was Hinckley’s obsession with the film’s female child star and a plot line involving the main character’s attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate.

Spoilers (skip if you haven’t seen the film): In Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle’s interest moves from Betsy, a campaign worker for a local senator running for president, to Iris, a child prostitute who, by chance, hails Bickle’s taxi. Although the character’s motivation is left ambiguous by Scorsese, Bickle plots to assassinate the senator during a rally. When suspicious behavior causes his plan to unravel, the psychotic mohawked-assassin instead carries out a murderous rampage targeting Sport, Iris’s pimp, at the apartment where his underage prostitutes are made to “entertain” clients.

As mentioned above, Parts III and IV can be found here. It'll also be posted on this site shortly!