The movie, Natural Born Killers, directed by Oliver Stone, written by Quentin Tarantino, viewed by scores of prominent citizens and common moviegoers, raises many controversial and moral issues (1).
NBK presents us with what’s supposed to be a social satire on the public’s fascination with the violence in the media, in a raw form. People rant that NBK holds solid performances, and has great experimental film technique. However on the critical side it contains, extreme carnage, sex, drugs, and language. The movie is frightening and delivers a strong message about the violence we obsess over but is the message too strong? Oliver Stone strongly defends his movie and he stands proudly behind it has a satire, to protect him from any lawsuits that might come his way.
His movie is supposed to be a satire about society’s obsession with violence in the media but seems more along the lines of a ferocious array of madness and carnage. His movie promotes violent lawlessness instead of revealing the follies of society. Stone’s beloved controversial movie, NBK, definitely gives a sense of violence but doesn’t present itself as a satire. Obviously this movie is an overkill of manslaughter, sexual innuendos, and violent crimes. It is so much so that you really can’t distinguish if it even is a satire.
Stone undeniably claims NBK is a satire but its suffers from the worst failings, an unbelievably heavy-handed tone, cartoons and camera tricks that don’t contribute to the message, mind-numbing repetitiveness, annoying performances by the leads, and the evident fact that Oliver Stone attempted to make a satire, while he himself lacks the one irreducibly necessary element of satire: subtlety (2).
The Term Paper on Youth Violence And Television
Youth Violence and Television Youth Violence Do The Young Ever Listen? It would be safe to say that American society is preoccupied with Television. If one asks the question, "How much violence is on television?" One finds that the level of violence has remained relatively constant over the last 2 decades. Most of the violence is directed mainly to the young viewers. All most all the television ...
The gruesome movie numbs your senses to violence, leaving you confused, feeling disoriented, giving you a sense of disturbance, and not knowing weather to like the movie or hate it (3).
The movie also lacks another traditional characteristic of a satire; universally satires are made to be funny as John Grisham writes, “A satire is supposed to make fun of whatever it is attacking. But there is no humor in Natural Born Killers” (Kirszner, Laurie, and Mandell, Stephen.
“Unnatural Killers.” Patterns for College Writing. ) NBK glamorizing killing, his point of satire is so blurred by the orgy of violence you never know if it was supposed to be a satire. Some people might not even know what a satire is, how are they supposed to realize this movie is a satire. If this is what Stone calls a satire, it’s clearly too much satire; you can’t correct a folly if it is unclear. Not only is the satirical objective of this movie unclear, it doesn’t present us with any formidable objective or morals to believe in.
I believe that our society today instructs us in a particular sense, or non-sense, of bad behavior and that our lives quite naturally reflect this instruction. As in the case of Ben Darr as and Sarah Edmondson they were influenced by the movie, so much so that they were driven to kill two innocent people in almost the exact ways as Mickey and Mallory did in NBK. Sarah told police that “it was as if he was fantasizing from the movie ‘Natural Born Killers'” (Brown, Corie. “Can Pistols Get Smarter?” Newsweek 2 August 1999: 42).
As they were driving along a deserted rural highway, Ben guns down an innocent hardworking citizen, just for the sheer amusement. During the get-away, the callous boy mimics the noise of the dying man.
The following day Ben demands Sarah to kill someone, that it’s her turn. That following night, she obeyed his orders by shooting a convenience-store clerk cold heartedly, leaving the mother of three paralyzed below the neck. Stone boldly claims that Ben and Sarah were under the influence of drugs and that they also watched Fantasia the night before they departed. Well, Stone it wasn’t Fantasia they were mimicking and the drugs sure didn’t kill anybody. Sarah professes she saw a demon on the clerk’s face not Mickey Mouse. John Grisham writes, “Oliver stone is saying that murder is cool and fun, murder is a high, a rush, murder is a drug to be used at will.
Little Children Movie Review
“You couldn’t change the past. But the future could be a different story. And it had to start somewhere. ” This final statement sums up the message of the Little Children, a film opus of Todd Fiend, that talks not merely about a love affair of two married persons, but the story of struggle and redemption of common folk living in an upper-middle class suburban Boston. This ...
The more you kill, the cooler you are. You can get by with it, you won’t be punished” (Kirszner, Laurie, and Mandell, Stephen. “Unnatural Killers.” Patterns for College Writing. ) Oliver stone, as well as the media, is glamorizing killing and teenagers have become disillusioned in this false reality sometimes inflicting serious crime. The exciting life, depicted in movies, portrayed in video games, scene on T. V, supported in NBK, utterly lacks ethical qualities and moral commitments (4).
In addition to all the chaos in NBK, Mickey and Mallory destroy others, as well as themselves, and there is no heroic intervention. To some the movie itself is a kind of weak blessing, it reveals to the educated how sick our society is but to the uneducated endorses murder and bloodshed. Just as many television series and commercial films eulogize an affluent cast of characters, who never mention where their money is coming from, so the stories of this generation of teenagers distinguish little consciousness of a link between labor and income (5).
Characters like the ones in NBK don’t even mention success in education, good parenthood or ambitions in the workplace. NBK doesn’t contain values that enrich society; morals are all together absent in the movie.
The industry seems to be running away from the fact, as Corie Brown wrote, “The studio executives hate publicity about their moral values” (Brown, Corie. “Can Pistols Get Smarter?” Newsweek 2 August 1999: 42).
Yet our crime rate is the highest ever and our simple concern isn’t being dealt with. Mickey and Mallory are criminals to the most sadistic degree; they commit crimes, but only for the hell of it, they hate; not understanding why they hate, they are loved or abused or depressed and don’t know why. In short, they consistently miss the way into the heart, the motive behind events, the feelings behind purposes. Movies like NBK are worsening our societies morals not improving them.
The Essay on Fewer Morals More Crime
Fewer Morals, More Crime: How the Decline in Morality Has Caused an Increase in Crime In an age where violent crime is more dominant than ever and morality is not heard of, there arise many problems that result from each other. The past thirty years, our society has been determined to secularize itself and to separate from many moral standards that root from the Bible. Since moral values were ...
As the weight of the violence in movies has become too great: NBK doesn’t seem able to sustain it. NBK persuades actions occurring today in society, drug deals are made, young women compete with other young women for the favors of men, children get abused, cars crash, people are killed, girls get raped and as the bumper sticker says, “shit happens (6).” These abysmal qualities are all supported in films like NBK, plots snap or explode leaving us with no morals or hope, feeling even guiltier about life. Clearly Oliver Stone can’t figure out how to solve the problems he invented in the movie. His approach of a satire falls short, a Newsweek article reported, “What Stone can’t acknowledge in his fitfully astonishing, ultimately numbing movie is that he and Wayne Gale are two sides of the same coin.
It’s fighting fire with fire the movie cancels itself out. You leave it more battered than enlightened” (An sen, David. “Raw Carnage or Revelation?” Newsweek).
Oliver Stone should be accountable for the copycat crimes to some degree. Even though, Ben and Sarah were under the influence of drugs.
Stone shouldn’t be thrown in jail or sued for copycat crimes. He shouldn’t hind behind his narcissism; he should make an effort to repair what his violent movie depicts. He should make a movie with heroic interventions, and moral qualities. We can only successfully build the future with such intangibles as hope, faith, love commitment, trust and hard work.
