Why Is A Clockwork Orange Banned

In 1971, A Clockwork Orange, a philosophical and dystopian film written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, was released. Before being withdrawn from the British public sixty-one weeks after its release, by Kubrick himself, this movie gained the attention of several different groups- churchgoers, media, police, local authorities, teenagers, and other townspeople. While some reactions to the film were positive-specifically among teenagers and young adults- there were numerous negative reactions that argued that the film was morbid and unnecessarily violent. Despite those comments, however, the film did phenomenally well among American audiences, grossing almost thirteen times more than its modest budget of 2.2 million dollars. The
film has commonly been considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time and has been the site of inspiration for several mediums of art, ranging from television, film, music, and even video games. With the tagline of, “Being the adventures of a young man whose principle interests are rape, ultra-violence, and Beethoven”, A Clockwork Orange, follows a psychotic malefactor, known as Alex DeLarge, whom after being captured for a series of horrendous gang-related crimes, is forced to undergo psychological rehabilitation. As stated in the title itself, this film argues that destroying an individual’s power of free will, destroys them as a person, turning them into a clock-like machine. While the meaning behind the film is comprehensible and even applaudable, the issues that came with the release of the film had little to do with its message. Rather, the problems society had -and still have- with this film lay in its depiction of youth, take on violence, and casual nature in regards to sex. For these reasons and so many more, A Clockwork Orange - a film entirely ahead of its time - is considered to be one of the most controversial movies in film history. In the opening fifteen minutes of the film, viewers are introduced to a series of violent and sexually explicit scenes, that involve- but are not limited to- the assault of a drunken homeless man, the group rape of a young female, a turf-related gang fight, and to top it all off, the musical performance of “Singin’ in the Rain” intertwined with the paralyzing assault of an elderly man and the rape- and eventual murder- of his young wife. Unlike the novel that the film is based on, viewers of the movie are not given the opportunity to allow their minds to invent their own depiction of what is happening. The film shows in explicit detail everything that is going on and leaves very little room for imagination. It was because of this, that the film was given its X rating. Several orthodox organizations within Britain and America protested the showing of the film and various newspapers in America refused to advertise the film. The Festival Light, a British censorship group, began a campaign to prevent the movie from being shown, which in turn lead to the movie being attacked by several tabloids. The boycotts against the film, as well as its X rating- as per the MPAA- restricted distribution, causing temporary distress at the box office. In August 1972, Kubrick announced that he was withdrawing the film from the public for a few months, in order to spend time editing out and replacing some of the more controversially gratuitous scenes. By October, he had replaced thirty seconds worth of footage with a less explicit version of the same scene, including a slightly more censored and comical version of the high-speed orgy scene, and the involvement of more waist-up shots during the Ludovico rape scene, (Alternate Versions) resulting in a slightly more modest R rating. This, in turn caused the controversy to gradually die down. However, the issues on the implications that come with violent films and the effect that violence has on society and youth in particular, continued to grow. (McDougal) During the time of A Clockwork Orange’s release, violence and crime were on the rise all over the world. Adults-specifically those on the conservative side- were afraid that the violence depicted in the cinema would increase the already escalating crime and violence rate. Maurice Edelman, co-chair of the All Party Film Committee believed that since, “The film stimulates for two and a half hours an appetite for sadistic violence with the instantaneous communication which the visual arts uniquely offer, when A Clockwork Orange is generally released, it will lead to a Clockwork cult which will magnify teenage violence (Bugge).” Fears of this magnification of teen violence, was proven reasonable, when the first case of Clockwork inspired crimes was brought to light. A sixteen year old boy, named James Palmer, viciously beat a harmless street woman in Oxfordshire, South East England while acting out a scene from the movie. Edward Laxton, of the Daily Mirror, reported that “The terrifying violence of the film A Clockwork Orange fascinated a quiet boy from a Grammar school… And it turned him into a brutal murderer. The boy viciously battered to death a harmless old tramp as he acted out in real life a scene straight from the movie A Clockwork Orange (Bugge).” As expected this statement from the Daily Mirror, as well as articles, reports, and other press released-information regarding the correlation between the film and its “copy-cat” crimes, would make the film even more controversial than before. Because of this new-found relation to real-life crimes, the film became a euphemism in the press used to refer to “teenage crime and societal deviance.” Although there were several people who argued against the belief that the film was responsible for the crimes, including Anthony Burgess, author of the original novel, who stated that “No evidence has ever been adduced in a court of law to prove beyond a doubt that a work of art can stimulate anti-social behavior,” A Clockwork Orange became the center of violence-related delirium, and was cited as the reason for the fear of assault among elders and young girls. One of the most controversial features of this film is its musical rape scene, in which the protagonist, Alex DeLarge, and his gang of misfits, trick a woman into allowing the clan into her home, only to assault her husband and force him to watch as Alex violently rapes her, while performing the all-too familiar tune, “Singin’ in the Rain.” This scene alone caused a great amount of controversy and even played a large part in the eventual withdrawal of the film. Being that it was constructed for the purpose of sending chills down the spines of the viewers, this scene caused outrage for its correlation of things as horrifying as rape and murder with something so cheerful as Gene Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain.” According to the American Cinematographer Magazine of October 1999, the song was only used by chance, as “Singin’ in the Rain” was the only tune that Malcolm McDowell -Alex DeLarge- knew by heart. After looking into obtaining the rights to the song, Kubrick invited Stanley Donen, the director of the Singin’ in the Rain musical, to view the scene and receive his permission to use the song for the sequence. Donen reportedly felt that the sequence did not affect the musical in a negative way, and therefore was not offended by the use of it. Gene Kelly, however, was disgusted with the use of the song alongside the horrific sequence, and reportedly refused to talk to Stanley Kubrick upon meeting him at an awards ceremony following the film’s release (MacGuffin). This scene has been considered to be one of the most uncomfortable moments of female nudity in movies and has been accused of completely tainting the song, “Singin’ in the Rain”, despite Donen’s objections. Many argue that because of A Clockwork Orange, whenever the song is played, those who have seen the movie do not recall Gene Kelly’s performance, but rather “conjure up disturbing flashbacks of Malcolm McDowell’s Alex DeLarge and his gang of Droogs enjoying a night of ‘ultra violence’, which consists of breaking into a writer’s home, beating him, and raping his wife… all while belting out “Singin’ in the Rain (Olson).” The scene was also cited as a source of more copy-cat crimes, one of which, taking place in November of 1973, involved a Dutch tourist being violently raped by a group of teens whom, as expected, were singing the musical’s song. By the time of this attack, it became apparent to many that Kubrick’s decision to withdraw the film, and release a reedited version was, in many ways, the right thing to do. As time has passed, arguments regarding the violence and sexual explicitness of the film have not wavered.
This film, after all, is considered to be one of the most violent, disturbing, sexually explicit, and controversial depictions of youth in film history. However, this film is no longer considered to be damaging, or more specifically, worth banning. Since its release, the film has continued to be successful, both economically and culturally. A Clockwork Orange, has become a cult classic and has subsequently been a huge influence in popular culture, earning several references in many television shows- The Simpsons, Franklin & Bash, and Phineas and Ferb- as well as films- Batman & Robin and Fargo. This film has largely become the source of inspiration and a medium of expression for filmmakers and artists alike. Some may argue, that the film has become so accepted in the modern day- as it has become a midnight movie event and a source of Halloween costumes- that people have forgotten how “dangerous” it is (Whitty). Whether seen as “dangerous” or “inspirational”, one thing can be said for sure: due to this film’s ability to bring to light the ideas of ultra-violence and rape in a way that was largely before its time and the issues that grew because of these depictions, A Clockwork Orange is one of the most controversial films of all
time.