MovieChat Forums > The King of Comedy (1982) Discussion > Was Mark David Chapman a model for Ruper...

Was Mark David Chapman a model for Rupert Pupkin?


As a teenager, Chapman revered The Beatles and fantasized about being a member of the band. When it finally dawned on him that it wasn't going to happen, his obsessive worship turned into obsessive bitterness and hatred, much as Pupkin's "reverence" for Jerry turned to violent hostility:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/us/mark-david-chapman-lennon-interviews/index.html

I wonder if Chapman was a model for Pupkin, in the same way as Arthur Bremer was partly the inspiration for Travis Bickle.

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Chapman bears some psychological similarities to Pupkin, but I think the script for the movie had been written before 1980, when Chapman killed Lennon? Also wasn't Chapman a loner, whereas Pupkin, albeit kind of a basement dweller, did at least try to put himself out there? Also Chapman was a fat bespectaled nerdblob, not a guy with ridiculous pasty hair and a nerdy little mustache and a crappy leisure suit?

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I have read that the real impetus for this film was in the wake of John Hinckley. The connection between Hinckley and Scorsese is Jodie Foster.

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I have read that the real impetus for this film was in the wake of John Hinckley. The connection between Hinckley and Scorsese is Jodie Foster.


As far as inspiring the general theme of celebrity obession, I can see how the Hinckley case would have motivated this film.

However, there really isn't much in common between Hinckley and Pupkin apart from a fixation with a celebrity - for one thing, Hinckley's obsession was romantic/sexual while Pupkin was obsessed with becoming a celebrity himself (I suppose that Masha was more like Hinckley).

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I wonder if this is how Victoria Beckham became a fashion designer? She was lucky to be allowed to prance around the back without any solo singing parts with more talented singers, and then after she couldn't sing solo but still wanted the attention she suddenly decided to become a fashion designer despite being a cheap looking, orange, talentless chav and never spending a day working in or studying the subject. Then after managing to creep around more talented people to use them, she was paraded in the Olympics as one of Britain's top fashion designers. I wonder if she just spent a long time creeping around real fashion designers and talented people like Pupkin did? I can't think of any reason why somebody so talentless can be so promoted.
Plus her and her husband use charity events for attention and as a way of hanging around Prince William, so they can appear in magazines for more attention that they crave.

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