Sex and Violence on the Big Screen, what ... - SAE Institute UK

Chapter 2.1
Natural Born Killers
Historical/Cultural Influences
Overall, it is important to emphasize that Natural Born Killers was not the first of its kind
to provoke shock amongst audiences through its graphic depiction <strong>and</strong> taboo subject.
Perhaps two of the most interesting examples to note are Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork
Orange (1971), which equally caused controversy not just in the US but in the UK as “It
proceeded to ignite a serious controversy that penetrated all sections of society in a way
that was unprecedented in the history of cinema in Britain. It’s depiction of a young gang
of anarchist hooligans raping, mugging <strong>and</strong> v<strong>and</strong>alising their way through a futuristic
dystopian Britain caused outrage <strong>and</strong> significant attention.” (Bugge, 2005) The film itself
is incredibly similar to Natural Born Killers in the way that the story is told through the
perspective of anti-hero Alex, the leader of a gang of thugs. The film shows our
‘protagonist’ inflicting violence upon innocent people, with little thought of the
consequences much like in Natural Born Killer. The film was also banned by Kubrick,
due to being faced with pressure from the public, (Bugge 2005) something that Oliver
Stone had done himself for the UK release of Natural Born Killers.
To fully underst<strong>and</strong> the impact that Natural Born Killers had on American culture, it is
important to acknowledge the historical <strong>and</strong> cultural advances of the 90’s. According to
Kingwood College Library Online (Whitley, 2007) the 90’s was the ‘electronic’ age. The
introduction of the Internet in 1992 “changed the way people communicated, by 1998,
100 million people were on-line’. (Whitley, 2007) News websites such as BBC news
online had been introduced <strong>and</strong> according to the website (BBC.co.uk, 2007) was one of
the leading websites in Europe by the end of 1999. Though this doesn’t directly link to
American culture, it does demonstrate the enormous effect that the Internet had, with
news <strong>and</strong> current affairs allowing Internet surfers availability of the news, thus resulting
to the increasing popularity of it.
The ‘digitalisation’ of television <strong>and</strong> radio in the 90’s also offered people ‘more channels
<strong>and</strong> wider interactivity’ (BBC.co.uk, 2007) therefore giving audiences much more choice
over what they wished to watch. According to the Statistical Abstract chart 910 (Whitley,
2007) over 98% of households in the US had a television with the average viewer
spending seven hours a day watching it, with the television series Cheers (James
Burrows, Glen <strong>and</strong> Les Charles, 1983) being one of the most popular shows of the 90’s.
One article by David T Courtwright (1998) suggests, “the electronic environment has
encroached upon, <strong>and</strong> partially supplanted, fact to face social interaction” thus
questioning the effect television <strong>and</strong> the internet have in socialization.
Other than the history of technology, film was beginning to see a change in the action
genre. According to an article written by Tim Dirks (2007) action films had become more
hyperkinetic, violent <strong>and</strong> expensive to produce with powerful <strong>and</strong> muscular heroes,
which were unlike the swashbuckler action heroes of the past. Actors such as Bruce
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