Conditioning is basically the idea that a specific
stimulant can elicit some sort of involuntary response. The brains behind this
idea was a physiologist named Pavlov who used his crazy new concept to torment
dogs by tricking them into dribbling. The plan was to serve them food every
time a bell rang until eventually they associated the noise with feeding time.
After a while they'd simply salivate when hearing, it regardless of if they'd
been fed or not. As great as all that is though, I think I'd prefer scientists
to piss about with dogs only after they've cured cancer and discovered whatever
species Gary Busey is. Having said that, it was whilst learning this concept in
school that a fellow student enquired if we could condition ourselves into
getting better grades. The teacher responded by asking how he planned on doing
this to which he announced that every time he did well in an exam, he would
have a quick wank to reward himself. Although the teacher failed to inform us
if this would work, I can confirm that from my own experiments the answer is a
very sad no.
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick that is assumed by idiots to
glorify violence. Set in a dystopian future Britain, it tells the story of a
pleasant young chap named Alex whose amiable personality is only slightly let
down by his love of ultra-violence. Like Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket the
film itself is kind of split into two halves. The first shows Alex revelling in
his rape-y joys and the second depicts his subsequent comeuppance. In the same
way that my fellow student wanted to wank himself into a brighter future the
government of A Clockwork Orange attempt to condition Alex into being a
better member of humanity. Famously, this conditioning sequence involves sitting
him in front of a screen and pinning his eyes open as though he's about to be
forced to watch Sex and the City 2: Pigs in a City. Instead however he's
made to feel sick and shown violent imagery until he associates the two things
together. He's then released back into the wild where he quickly learns that
society is a massive, scary twat and without the means to defend himself, he'll
be well and truly fucked.
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| Wait- what are we watching?! |
Anyway, as valid as alternate
interpretations may well be, if there's one thing that this film definitely
does not do, it is portray violence for the sheer joy of it. I think probably
the only idiots who assume A Clockwork Orange contains gratuitous
horror are those who can't be arsed to actually watch it themselves. Hearing a
film has been banned for 27 years for inspiring copycat crimes does sound a
little grim but that's only because the reputation is a sensationalist slab of
shite. I don't believe that films can cause somebody to act out of character as
I stupidly have some small degree of faith in humanity. Perhaps a few
psychopaths did commit similar crimes to Alex, but crazy fucktards will always
find something to inspire them. Blaming anything other than their own mental
health is lazy and dangerous. With the amount of violent films I own, I could
commit more or less any crime I liked without worrying about being held
responsible. The reason it was banned too was not actually because of its
dangerous influence on society. Apparently it was because people were so
outraged about its fake violence that their only response was to threaten
Kubrick with the genuine stuff. Thankfully the film was re-released in 1999
when its recently deceased director became notoriously more difficult to
murder.
That's not to say of course that I'm
denying the violence of a scene in which somebody gets their head caved in by a
giant cock. In my opinion all the rape, murder and assault simply exists to
promote a discussion on the nature of freewill and morality. The more shocking
Alex's earlier antics are the more justified his later brainwashing may seem to
be. The title A Clockwork Orange implies that something might seem
natural on the outside but under the surface everything is robotic and
controlled. Pavlov's dogs didn't dribble because they were hungry but because
like Alex, they had been conditioned into an involuntary response. Alex might
have changed his violent ways but that's not because he has become a better
person and the lack of choice surely undermines the morality of the situation.
Adding to this, the experiment wasn't done to improve society either but
instead was being used as a political advert for a self-serving Government. I'm
not saying that Alex doesn't deserve to be punished but allowing those in
charge to try and keep power by dicking about with his brain doesn't seem right
either. Perhaps the message of the film is that the price to pay for freewill
is that some people will always act like cunts.
Despite how grim it might all sound though,
A Clockwork Orange is funny as fuck with Kubrick himself describing it
as “a social satire”. From what we know, Ed Gein
killed about as many people as Alex did but he doesn't even look bright enough
to tell the most basic of knock-knock jokes. Alex might be a nutcase but he's
also capable of politeness, friendliness and at least has a decent sense of
humour. There's therefore an implication that he may simply be a product of his
environment which also contains aggressive authority figures and a constant
barrage of casual pornographic imagery. Although it wouldn't excuse it, I
suppose there could be some irony if his violent behaviour was woven into him
to begin with. At the very least it would again throw up the hypocrisy of a
Government that aims to control and condition somebody out of a behaviour that
they're a partial cause of.
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| "Please believe me!" |
Since its release in 1971, A Clockwork
Orange has gone on to become a stone-cold classic. Its influence can be
felt everywhere from Trainspotting to The Dark Knight and even
the epic N64 game Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Despite his brilliant
performance as Alex however, Malcolm McDowell's career never took off the way
it should thanks in part to drug addictions and his face shrivelling up into a
chestnut. Although I probably slightly favour The Shining, I don't think
any Kubrick film about a likeable nutter is any less than genius. Every time I
watch this movie, I notice something different. On first viewing I noticed the
humour and on second I thought more about it's stance on morality. Most
recently however I noticed something huge that had previously escaped me.
Apparently the big gay looking man near the end that carries the cripple about
is actually Darth Vader! How I've only just viddied that bolshy veck, my gulliver
will never fathom.
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
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