An Acceptable Evil
A Clockwork Orange and the Violence of the Status Quo
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.
The second attack, the one that finally sends Alex to prison, is equally undercut in its horror. If the film were solely from the perspective of the woman whose house is invaded, this would be pure horror; a masked man breaks into her home, intent on rape and who knows what else. But because of the weapon used in the attack, a massive statue of a penis, it can’t help but appear somewhat comedic. Because we’ve been tuned into the mind and sensibilities of Alex and his droogs we are allowed to revel in his joyful, playful banter with the woman he’s assaulting. He uses the penis to both defend and attack, much like throughout the film masculinity both defends the horrors that are perpetrated and attacks the weak and downtrodden. The murder of the woman (who isn’t even given the dignity of a name) by the phallic statue is the final insult to her.
These horrors are the main ones we linger on, the main ones that play into the satire the film later delves into, but there are more acts that are later laid double upon Alex in the second half. An elderly homeless man is beaten senseless by the gang, Alex threatens and frightens his parents, and the droogs themselves are viciously attacked by their leader. These are given even less attention than the two main assaults and are barely considered “bad” until the acts are returned to Alex. In being less audacious with them, the film also revels less in their lewdness and is less interested in the titillation of these acts as opposed to the rapes. These acts are even more mundane and are even more “supposed” to happen. The only one that is given gravitas is the attack on the droogs, and it’s given an almost archaically beautiful scene, a fist-pumping moment where our hero reasserts his proper place. The man is the man, no questions please.
All these assaults are paid redoubled on the newly released Alex. Alex’s release is even something brought upon himself. He volunteers himself for the Ludovico technique, after spending two years acting what he believes to be the “model prisoner”. He has no interest in reform, no interest in seeing the errors of his ways. Alex likely believes that there is nothing wrong in what he’s done, for Alex believes that all is fair when it comes to his fun. He is the exception to the rules, which is why he so strongly believes he can use this new technique to get away scot-free. It is another element of society that he can exploit. Only after undergoing the treatment does he realize that he is not the one exploiting, but the one being exploited. The Ludovico technique is nothing more than taking a person of privilege and stripping them of everything that privilege has provided them. He is now the victims he saw as lowly before.
When he is robbed of these privileges, Alex is thrown into the bottom rung of society. He is unable to defend himself, unable to even question the authority around him. The protection granted to him by class, sex, age, and race are all tossed aside, and Alex is meant to experience the world as a minority, as one this world was not made for. And in this state, those that he had previously wielded power over, now at his level, are able to enact their revenge. The film highlights how we are able to fight evenly with those we are seen as “equal” with, but not extend these defenses to those in power. Class traitors and those who hold up the system of oppression are fair game, as we see with the revenge of the homeless man and the writer.
We see Alex’s degradation in the auditorium, in the act of him literally licking a boot. An act symbolistic of class betrayal and of bending to the whims of authority, by making Alex perform this act he completes his fall from privilege. First robbing him of his physical power, and then stripping him of his sexual prowess when the model enters. Alex is effectively castrated, and it is in this state that he is brought out to the world. And with this castration, Alex is made to be more sympathetic than his victims (at least, the satire portrays him as more sympathetic).
Following the castration we see that without his power and fear, Alex has nobody. His parents no longer want him, his friends betrayed him before and now are even more indoctrinated into the oppressive system that Alex now is ruled under, and even his beloved music now makes him sick. Transformed into a pathetic thing, almost sub-human, he is kicked and beaten and destroyed even further. The near destruction of Alex, both his body and mind, are mirrored in his treatment of the world, but as we see in the final scene this was all a dream, a feverish fantasy of the well-off.
Alex, driven to suicide by his treatment and the world, wakes up in a hospital bed, being waited on hand and foot. News of Alex has traveled, and the world has agreed that his situation is disgusting and inhumane. His life must be corrected, and apologies from the highest order must come down. The status quo must be protected. If Alex were to be kept at his current status, those in power would be forced to admit the inhumane treatment of any and all other classes. Alex’s downfall shows that nothing separates him from the rest, and that all people are truly equal unless invisible barriers are raised. He must be brought up, must be “corrected”, or the whole system will implode.
Boys will be boys. Women are asking for it. The homeless did it to themselves. It’s these phrases, these ideas and corruptions on society, that A Clockwork Orange is actively satirizing. That any separation, any privilege, exists on a fundamental level is ridiculous, ludacris, as strange as ultraviolence and milk.