The film, “A Clockwork Orange,” is, to me, an almost exact replica of today’s society. Basically, one kid, who seems to have come from a financially sound home and community, goes through about three stages–1. He violates the laws society has set forth to maintain order. 2. He is caught and punished for his crimes against society. 3. He feels remorse for his violence and sexually deviance (although, at the end of the film, he’s back to his old, delinquent self). The main character, Alex, is shown as a typical juvenile offender.
He is shown in such a comparable manner not because all juvenile offenders are out robbing, rapping, and murdering people (although an argument could be made that today’s offenders are as bad, if not worse), but because he can do such things and feel no remorse until he is caught. His parents provide for him, but only in a financial light. What good is it if his parents don’t get involved in his extracurricular activities. He goes out all night doing wrong, and his parents think he’s out working, c’mon!! In today’s society, many parents are at the source of why a child may start to commit crimes.
They are not involved, or in some cases just don’t care enough about their children to teach them the rights and wrongs of society. Alex seemed to find the love he didn’t get from his parents in his friends. Alex and his friends did a lot of damage to others, but of course they did it as a group. They beat up an old man who asked for change, they fought another group of people, they broke into a house and beat up the old man who lived there, then beat up his wife, killing her, but only after they raped her. As a group they were to be feared, but when two of them tried to stand up to Alex, who was the leader, things seemed amusing to me.
Of the two who tried to stand up to Alex, there was one obvious leader, while the other was a follower, again. Alex started beating them up, and while this was happening, the fourth of the group got scared and ran. He didn’t have a mind of his own to take sides either way, he just did what he was told. This shows me that the people who were following Alex were in obvious need of a role model, or even just a hug. Taking terms from chapter six, Alex was not a democratic leader. Alex did what he wanted and didn’t seem to care much about what the group thought.
The group polarization was shown to a T. ‘ As a kid, I know for a fact I did things as a group that I wouldn’t have done if I were alone. For example, I picked on a lot of other kids because I was in the “cool” crowd. I know now that what I did was wrong, but even to this day I can be excited by others and do things that I wouldn’t normally do by myself. The neighborhood in which the crimes Alex and his social group were committing seemed very nice. People were skeptical after dark, but still were trustworthy enough to offer assistance when Alex told them he was in a terrible accident.
The houses were beautiful, and the area seemed to have a low crime rate. Out in California there have been rich kids who go around killing, or raping people, and they have world of opportunities ahead of them, they just choose a different path. In jail, Alex was beaten by the guards. This often happens in our jails here in America. If you disrespect the guards, you’re in big trouble. If you don’t disrespect the guards, you could still be in big trouble. Alex was given a chance to get off with a lighter sentence if he was a participant in an experiment to rehabilitate him.
This is a perfect example of differential association, which is the process of social interaction by which definitions favorable and unfavorable to deviation are taught and learned. The gist of the experiment was this: Alex was given serum and forced to watch violence. Murders and rape were shown to him repeatedly, and by the end of the pillage, he was made to feel violently ill. We, in our society, have something just like this. We have pills people take if they are an alcoholic. If they drink while on this pill, then they are made to feel violently ill.
The association between the alcohol and the deathly ill feeling becomes as great as Santa Clause with Christmas. What they did to Alex could be seen as cruel and unusual punishment. I easily understood why it shouldn’t be done to somebody, but we actually do it in real life, it’s not a movie, it actually happens!! The medicalization of deviance was blatant. In the movie, newspaper headlines, which were very unfavorable toward the treatment, flashed on the screen According to the control theory, deviance results when an individual has weak social bonds to conventional institutions.
This was shown in the movie when Alex got out of going to school. His parents were fine with the fact that he had a virus, but just happened to out on the town until the early morning. For the most part, this movie probably isn’t reality for many Middle Eastern or Asian countries. Crime isn’t as rampant in, say, Singapore, as it is in America. To me, the depiction of this kid is something I can relate to. Maybe not all the deeds he did, but definitely the fact that just because he had money, and the people around him had money didn’t stop him from committing any crimes.
He felt no remorse, which seems to be the trend in our society. When a 10 year old boy (Robert “yummi” Sandifer, from Atlanta) in a gang is executed by his gang “friends” because he was bringing heat from the cops on the gang because that boy shot a 12 year old girl, it’s a sad commentary on society. When there is a lack of social stability in a community, it reflects onto the children who seem to have nothing else to do, or no other way of getting the attention they need. “A Clockwork Orange” is a perfect example of a society where it doesn’t matter if your black or white, yellow or purple.
If you are human, you could fall into the trap. To me, the trap is where the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor, and the people in the middle work hard to keep from being poor while striving to be rich. I think I had heard that the movie was made in the 70s as a description of the 90s. If this is true, then the creating minds of the film are telepathic, or extremely intelligent. To predict how our society would be in twenty years is either sad because they were right, or great because we should just ask them how our deviant subculture will be acting in the NEXT twenty years.
