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| Natural Born Killers (1994) |
Do you remember that movie on the left? It’s Natural Born Killers, directed in 1994 by the controversial Oliver Stone and written by Quentin Tarantino. For those who don’t know the movie or don’t remember, here’s the premise: “Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.” Starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as Mickey and Mallory Knox the movie delves deep into the future of our society, or the Stone’s vision of it. In his words, “a society consumed by media” which far from looking down upon Mickey and Mallory, they idolized them, and turned them into celebrities.
The movie certainly made its point, but was that revelation about our society the only thing that came out of it? Or was it an inspiration for people out there looking for fame? There are various cases of the latter, but the most famous one is probably the Columbine High School massacre on April 20th of 1999. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who committed this horrendous crime, were extreme fans of the movie. But did the movie really have anything to do with the crime? The young men were clearly disturbed and took liking a movie to a whole new level. In Harris’ journals, there were several references about the movie. On April 10th of 1998, Harris wrote in his journal "When I go NBK and people say things like "Oh, it was so tragic," or "oh he is crazy!" or "It was so bloody", just because your mommy and daddy told you blood and violence is bad, you think it's a fucking law of nature? Wrong, only science and math are true; everything, and I mean every fucking thing else is Man made. Before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit for anything at all, especially life." Are these references made in the journals enough to say that they were inspired by the movie or are there any other aspects? The crime in of itself is similar to the one committed by Mickey and Mallory who went on a spree killing and killed 52 people. Are these things just a coincidence? Or is there a connection between the two?
Do you believe the movie and the crime are connected? Give your comments…
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, here’s a trailer.
I do believe mass media contributes to the proliferation of violence. In this case, the movie, clearly inspires Eric and Dylan's crime... However, there are also other factors involved on the event, not just the movie.
ReplyDeleteI have not seen the movie but as far as movies influencing actual crimes I have mixed feelings. I do believe that movies such as video games or books can be influental in peoples actions but at the same time I think that a person who was influences by a movie in the first place sooner or later even if they had not watched the movie would have commited the crime.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, movies can only influence people who had that thought to commit a crime in the first place, and maybe would have done it without watching the movie. However, there's clearly a relation between violence in movies, video games, and other media, that can impact a person that had the idea and inspire them to actually do it.
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