A Clockwork Orange is one of the most controversial films ever made. Condemned during its day and in the decades since for its violence and sexual exploits, even director Stanley Kubrick famously thought he had gone too far. These criticisms are incredibly valid, for even though the sociopath Alex DeLarge gets punished for the crimes he commits, he is ultimately elevated to the role of martyr. These criticisms seem to miss that it is this martyrdom that is the true evil A Clockwork Orange wants to skew, and that the satire lies in how some violence is more acceptable due to who that violence is committed against.
More than half the runtime of the film is dedicated to the punishment of Alex and the horrors of the Ludovico treatment. But these tortures are all brought upon himself, are nothing if not for the evil Alex himself had relished in. We spend more time and are meant to sympathize more, with the man who has only been shown to do harm. It is in this that Kubrick draws satire, pointing out that the sympathies of society are rarely placed upon those who are harmed in the first place. In the end, Alex’s martyrdom signifies that those in power will only ever protect and trust themselves.
The two attacks perpetrated against women in the film reveal and revel in the horrors that, when applied to Alex, are disgusting and terrible. The first, the rape and assault of the writer and his wife, is undercut in its horror by the inclusion of “Singin’ in the Rain”. The use of a Hollywood standard, a classic in all regards, implies a casualness to the assault, and an everyday attitude to it. Using such a casual song brings us into a world where rape and attack are normalized and even comical. While we still see this attack as terrible, the film actively robs it of the full power of the act.
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