3 of 3

Write now Article Tools

Page 3 of 3

same treatment he gave out to many helpless victims. Yet this does not occur. Why? Because it is the sense of freedom the anti-hero has now lost which sticks. This is more damning than society meeting out revenge and torture. Anyone who claims this film made them take a gun into school and start shooting people, clearly wants a scapegoat for their own psychosis. In effect, issues like the Columbine High School massacre only underline the points Kubrick is trying to make.

It is interesting how Alex's brainwash' is the explicit indication of how Kubrick feels culture is dominated by the powerful, and how art has lost its authenticity. It could be argued that if power is gendered in A Clockwork Orange' this must mean the women are asking for it', but I believe women represent Kubrick's idea of the natural order of things. In this futuristic world, women have a power over the men. What Kubrick then investigates is how natural order is tainted by the powerful (politicians and the media) by their exploitation of sex and violence. Pop-culture in the film is full of sexual references, which as mentioned leads to violence, and when Alex needs curing, the doctors use extreme doses of ultra-violence' and sexual activity to subdue his attraction to them. This doesn't help Alex as his reintroduction to an outside world still dominated by sex and violence, leads to his victims taking their revenge. By being bludgeoned to nausea from something he once got a kick out of, Alex is forced to hate it. He loses his individuality and his freedom of choice. The film tries to tell us that pop-culture will eventually desensitize us to sex and violence to such a degree we won't have any sensations left. Art simply dies, as exampled through Alex's love of Beethoven, because as a drawback of the medical procedure that cures' him, the music he loves creates in him the same sick and paranoid feeling sex and violence does.

Learn more about this author, Daniel Stephens.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3

Add your voice

Know something about Movie analysis: Sexual obsession in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange?
We want to hear your view. Write now!