On Why A Clockwork Orange Is The Worst Movie At The Video Store.

So we're in the video store agonizing over which movie to rent because none of them look good, when the two of them spot A Clockwork Orange. I hate this movie. Actually that's an understatement. I don't call it a film because I don't think it deserves even this simple credit. I don't believe in censorship, but if it were within my power I would go to each and every video store, library, Best Buy, etc, across this country and take every copy of the dreaded piece of refuse. I would create the largest bonfire known to man. I would burn them, burn them all, and congratulate myself for a job well done.

They're talking about how it's a classic, one of the greats.

"Can you explain to me why you think it's great?"

"Whudduya, it's cool, it just is."

"That scene when they sing Singin in the Rain."

"But what's the point?"

"It's a statement about society."

"And what's the statement?"

They saunter off and I think about how easily we are led. Listen, if you are a fan of A Clockwork Orange, if you think it to be one of the new classics, a real stinging commentary of our society, congratulations, you are an idiot.

I don't like Stanley Kubrick, obviously; I think his films are mostly meaningless and misogynistic. I'm not against seeing violence on screen, or rape, or torture, but for fucks sake, if you're going to be parading these emotionally upsetting topics on screen, have a reason to be doing so.

The main character in the movie is Alex. Now, Alex isn’t the kind of sat-upon, working-class anti-hero we would be right to expect from a movie of this degree of bleakness. No effort is made to explain his inner workings or to take apart his society. Indeed, there’s not much to take apart; both Alex and his society are smart-nose pop-art abstractions. Kubrick hasn’t created a future world in his imagination – he’s created a trendy décor. If we fall for the Kubrick line and say Alex is violent because “society offers him no alternative,” weep, sob, we’re just making excuses. Alex is violent because it is necessary for him to be violent in order for this movie to be entertaining in the way Kubrick intends. Alex has been made into a sadistic rapist not by society, not by his parents, not by the police state, not by centralization and not by creeping facism – but by the producer, director, and writer of this movie, Stanley Kubrick.

What is Kubrick up to here? Does he really want us to identify with the antisocial tilt of Alex’s psychopathic little life? In a world where society is criminal, of course, a good man must live outside the law. But that isn’t what Kubrick is saying, he actually seems to be implying something much simpler and more frightening: that in a world where society is criminal, the citizen might as well be criminal, too. Although, assigning either of these overarching meanings to the movie presupposes that the audience has been given any tangible idea of the society from which Alex has sprung, which is simply something that never happens. This is perhaps the crux of my problem with the movie: instead of a general feel for a dysfunctional society, we are given undeveloped caricatures; instead of hearing any real social commentary, we’re given platitudes. I felt as though Kubrick set up to make an incredibly deep and meaningful film, and then forgot to write in the depth and meaning. Even the main character never becomes anything more than a bored and petulant child. Symbolism is hollow when there is no greater reason for it to exist than as shock value, or to be weird, or different.

As we drove home I realized that my opinion made me the odd man out in the car. Then I remembered that I was also the only one with a valid driver's license and who doesn't have to take meds every day as prescribed by their psychologist, and I felt a lot better.

Does that make me evil?