“You Can’t Hide from Your Shadow” - Should Natural Born Killers Be Banned?
“You Can’t Hide From Your Shadow”
Should Natural Born Killers be Banned?
In 1994 a film was released that sent religious groups, politicians and the sensationalist media into a fever; Natural Born Killers was “a bold new film that takes a look at a country seduced by fame, obsessed by crime and consumed by the media.” through the tale of two young murderers. In the years that followed the film was blamed for scores of tragedies in America, including but not limited to the case of a boy who decapitated a schoolmate, an 18 year old man who strangled his girlfriend whilst watching the movie and several high school shootings (including the now-infamous Columbine massacre). The Daily Mail was quick to import US-fear mongering and announced “If ever a film deserved to be banned, this is it.”[1], causing a level of hysteria around a film not seen since Kubrick’s controversial classic A Clockwork Orange was released in 1971. This essay will examine the theory that Natural Born Killers inspired ‘copycat’ violence by looking in more detail at some of the cases in which it has been accused, and consider whether calls to ban it are reasonable.
The first point that must be addressed is the content of the film and what exactly it is that caused such uproar; it centres on Mickey and Mallory, a pair of young lovers who both have dark, abusive pasts. Fuelled by an explosive nihilism they flee their respective lives and travel together across America, systematically and gleefully murdering people as they go. They quickly become a media sensation as they fascinate and disgust the American people in equal measure. As you would expect from the subject matter, the film contains some fairly violent scenes (although anyone familiar with writer Quentin Tarantino’s other work will have seen far more gratuitous imagery before) including multiple shootings, stabbings and immolations, however this is not what attracted most of the film’s criticism. This may be in part due to the
Should Natural Born Killers be Banned?
In 1994 a film was released that sent religious groups, politicians and the sensationalist media into a fever; Natural Born Killers was “a bold new film that takes a look at a country seduced by fame, obsessed by crime and consumed by the media.” through the tale of two young murderers. In the years that followed the film was blamed for scores of tragedies in America, including but not limited to the case of a boy who decapitated a schoolmate, an 18 year old man who strangled his girlfriend whilst watching the movie and several high school shootings (including the now-infamous Columbine massacre). The Daily Mail was quick to import US-fear mongering and announced “If ever a film deserved to be banned, this is it.”[1], causing a level of hysteria around a film not seen since Kubrick’s controversial classic A Clockwork Orange was released in 1971. This essay will examine the theory that Natural Born Killers inspired ‘copycat’ violence by looking in more detail at some of the cases in which it has been accused, and consider whether calls to ban it are reasonable.
The first point that must be addressed is the content of the film and what exactly it is that caused such uproar; it centres on Mickey and Mallory, a pair of young lovers who both have dark, abusive pasts. Fuelled by an explosive nihilism they flee their respective lives and travel together across America, systematically and gleefully murdering people as they go. They quickly become a media sensation as they fascinate and disgust the American people in equal measure. As you would expect from the subject matter, the film contains some fairly violent scenes (although anyone familiar with writer Quentin Tarantino’s other work will have seen far more gratuitous imagery before) including multiple shootings, stabbings and immolations, however this is not what attracted most of the film’s criticism. This may be in part due to the