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I once had a shirt that proudly advertised the movie "A Clockwork Orange". I loved to wear it but was often amazed and amused at the fact that very few people had ever seen or heard of this classic thought provoking 1971 Stanley Kubrick movie (based on the novel written in 1962 by Anthony Burgess). I can't help but wonder if these people have been living in caves for their whole lives.

Those who had seen the movie usually shared common reactions. They just didn't get it. They could sum it up with simple petty words such as "vulgar", "stupid", or "weird". For the life of me, I can't understand why these people weren't more accepting of a movie that said so much as so little. I opted to just dismiss it as ignorance and a lack of open-mindedness.

I was working at a local video store when the home office called to inform us that we were to pull "A Clockwork Orange" off the shelves and not rent it anymore. Apparently, people were so offended by this movie that they refused to rent anything else from us until we did so.

To me, this was insane. Never mind the fact that that we had a whole section of adult movies there behind a blue door. When I mentioned this, it was explained to me that not everyone went back there so it didn't matter. It was a classic example of the old adage "out of sight, out of mind"

Suddenly, it occurred to me that this was the point of the movie. Stanley Kubrick and might not have figured that this movie would get pulled off a shelf but he knew that a hard-hitting subject was the wake up call we all needed. People may not think about sexual exploitations but they still exist. Things may seem brutal, weird, or stupid but that is only because we don't imagine the possibilities.

Life and society has changed a lot over the years. Values are no longer the same. We don't live in the times of the scarlet letter anymore. Sexual freedom is something many people long for but every few experience. The situations aren't as pleasant as they should be but nothing in life is.

People are obsessed with sex, even in the real world. We stare at pornography, and half-naked celebrities. We certainly aren't looking at their personalities. We study the karma sutra. It isn't because we lack better reading materials. Teenagers are having babies. Promiscuity is on a rise. Sex is everywhere we turn. Why would it not be in a movie?

Even brutal sex acts exist in today's society. I will admit that this is horrible and has drastic effects on our population. At the same time, I must argue that the only way to be aware is to understand the possibilities and accept situations for what they are and could be. If you watch a crime drama on television, you are likely to hear about a rape of some sort. Just because the show is about detectives solving the case, doesn't mean it is any different. It is everywhere we look and there is little we can do to change that.

Because this story is set in the distant future, how can we be sure that life won't be like that? We can hope that it isn't. We can figure that it won't be. The truth is we don't know for certain. When it comes down to it, Alex said it best. "Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!"

Learn more about this author, Laura Leigh Fields.
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