  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | Now... On the third day, I washed her. She wasn't too clean. I got all the right spots. She's the only one I kept for a certain amount of time, because I got a real short attention span. Now, I can't say she enjoyed her stay, but that washcloth I put in her mouth and held it there with a big piece of duct tape kept all her complaining to a minimum. | „ |
| ~ Bushman bragging about raping and murdering a woman. |
Charles Bushman is the main antagonist of the 1994 short film Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade and the secondary antagonist of the 1996 feature film Sling Blade. He is an institutionalized serial killer who attempts to befriend protagonist Karl Childers by bragging about his crimes.
He was portrayed by the late J.T. Walsh, who also portrayed Martin Swayzak in Backdraft, Matthew Markinson in A Few Good Men, Warren "Red" Barr in Breakdown, and Frank Fitzsimmons in Hoffa.
Biography[]
In both the short film and the feature film, Bushman is portrayed as a patient in an Arkansas psychiatric hospital who has been convicted of raping and murdering several women. One day, he approaches another patient, Karl Childers, a developmentally disabled man who was institutionalized at age 12 for murdering his mother and her lover. He drags a chair over to where Karl is sitting, while levelling a predatory stare at a female patient. He then sits down beside Karl, who is about to be released from the hospital, and starts telling him about his "exploits" at great length.
He first tells Karl about picking up a prostitute, describing her in lewd detail, despite Karl's obvious discomfort. Bushman then says that he pulled up her skirt, only to find out that she was in fact a transwoman. It is then implied that he raped and murdered her.
His next story involves kidnapping, raping, and murdering a married woman named Sarah Hunter simply because he disliked her husband. He describes her as "a fighter" whom he had to drag away with a nylon rope. He then says that "a shovel just makes too goddamn much racket," implying that this is the method he used to kill her.
Bushman appears once more at the end of the film. Karl has returned to the hospital after killing Doyle Hargraves, the abusive stepfather of Frank Wheatley, a 12-year-old boy he befriended, and Bushman begins telling him another unwanted story about his sexual predations. He tells Karl about a woman he kept bound and gagged for three days before killing her, and that she was the only one of his victims he kept for any long period of time because of his "short attention span".
He then asks Karl what the outside world was like, to which Karl replies, "It was too big." When Karl starts talking about Frank, though, Bushman sneers at him about being "bent", believing (incorrectly) that Karl molested the boy. Finally fed up, Karl tells Bushman not to talk about Frank, and to leave him alone. Bushman scowls at him and walks away.
Personality[]
Bushman is talkative, glib, and superficially charming, presenting himself as a man of the world with stories to tell. Beneath that façade, however, he is a psychopathic misogynist who takes sadistic pleasure in kidnapping, raping, and murdering women. He also has an inflated ego, believing that he "deserves" to do whatever he wants with his victims. regardless of what they want.
Above all else, Bushman loves an audience, and brags about his crimes to anyone who will listen. He especially enjoys talking to Karl, who has a limited vocabulary and thus does not talk much, giving Bushman the opportunity to wax lyrical about rape and murder without having to listen to someone else.