‘Violence: The Strong and the Weak’ Devin McKinney Film Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Summer, 1993), pp. 16-22 Published by: University of California Press Jstor, 9 Apr. 2008

Devin McKinney’s article makes a striking and brave point about the true shock value of violence in cinema, and asks what aspects fully take hold of the viewer’s internal emotional investments, and what methods are only hackneyed formulas used to merely keep what’s left of the viewer’s attention? He divides all scenes of violence into two kinds: the strong and the weak. The strong can leave the viewer physically sick, burdened with dread and plagued with nightmares; the delicacy of the miraculous human form will be reduced to “God’s garbage”. He writes that weak violence has no weight of consequence: a death will result in a moment’s pause before the plot, characters, and viewers all carry on to never think of that person again. Scenes of weak violence can claim no partiality from the viewer toward any side of any equation. They are incapable of keeping the audience from remaining neutral to all characters out of apathy. Momentary reflexes might make a viewer flinch, cringe, or shake his head, but those miniscule sensations are fleeting, only aroused by the garnish of special effects or pleasing cinematography. As McKinney puts it, the violence is used to lure the average movie-goer into the theatre, but bears no promise that there will be anything for him to take out with him.

A film like Natural Born Killers is a play on these two categories. As a satirical commentary of overblown violence in media productions, it makes an absolute mockery of what McKinney would consider weak violence, painting every stroke of his argument into an actual cinematic demonstration. Everything is exaggerated – far beyond the typical exaggerations of Hollywood blockbusters. Blood that can be seeing flying in every silly action film spurts with extra vivacity; grimaces of unadulterated barbarianism are upgraded into hellish, psychedelic snarls reminiscent of cartoons; the victims are just worthless props in the way of full-throttle heroes, rampaging across the country in drug-fuelled elation; the cinematic candy that McKinney describes as “campy” (the occasional lover’s montage, or tête-à-tête at twilight offered as a mixer for the weak violence from the director) turns to punk-rock marriages on highway bridges, and ethereal drunken dances beneath stars, on top of cars in random fields.

But ultimately, director Oliver Stone pulls off the impossible: his caricature of weak violence becomes so aggressive, so over-the-top and shameless in its soulless murders that the violence does become strong. It reminds the viewer that while he sits there watching fake violence on screen, somewhere there is real violence going on, and it is worse than those fake-blood spurts and cliché wooden shouts of pain that make up the average Hollywood production’s depiction of physical cruelty. Stone lets you enjoy the carefree spree of the killers like it’s just another movie, but he brings the reminder back again and again of the cold true world outside, with disturbing scenes of child abuse, attempted rape, fuming psychopathic looks, and mobs and mobs of born-to-kill inmates, destined to jail for the rest of their lives, desperate for a chance to tear the warden apart just one time.

Is TV violence all that bad for kids? The Age (Melbourne, Australia), March 5, 2005 Saturday, INSIGHT; Opinion; Pg. 9, 816 words, HUGH MACKAY LexisNexis Academic 9 Apr. 2008 

This article is a response to a report from The Weekend Australian that asserts a child’s witnessing of violence in media will result in higher levels of aggression. Writer Hugh Mackay refers to a 1960’s American child-psychology experiment which consisted of observing the different ways children would play with a particular object after they watched different videos, ones that either showed children playing peacefully with that toy or children punching and kicking it. The findings were that those who watched a violent video would treat the toy violently, and those who watched the peaceful video would treat the toy peacefully. Mackay makes sure to point out that although the children would emulate the behavior, it has been concluded that the effects are only short-term, and that all long-term personalities remain virtually unchanged. Furthermore, he declares that the search for variables which might shed light on a child’s increased or decreased susceptibility toward emulating violence in the media result only in negligible data that cannot give any indication of why a particular child would be acting more or less violent than any other one. Mackay’s overall point is that although these experiments may show children in the act of emulating violence on television, all large-scale national crime statistics show that the introduction of television into the societies of decades past resulted in severe drops in crime, and that the age-group which watches the least amount of television today commits the highest amount of violent crime. In short, what a child views in movies or videogames has far less positive or negative impact on his personality than the benefits of extensive human interaction, or the dangers of lazy, television-filled inactivity.      

This article is worth factoring into the discussion of Natural Born Killer’s potential effect on inspiring three young couples to committing separate violent murders in Europe and America, all after their viewing (and in one case, repeated viewing) of the 1994 film. Although accusations were made that the filmmakers and producers were responsible, hardly evidence has been found to support them. Mackay also says that at the time of his writing the article in 2005, the violent crime rate in America had been in steady decline for the last 10 years – which would mean the trend began in 1995, one year after Natural Born Killers was released. If violence in the media could truly influence people to emulate the brutality on screen, Natural Born Killers would surely qualify for those results, considering the rare intensity of bloodshed that is present throughout the whole movie. And considering it grossed 11 million dollars in the first weekend, and over 50 million dollars to date, enough people have seen the movie that we can say if there was a slight rise in a person’s aggressive tendencies after watching the movie, no matter how slight, the accumulation across the country would certainly be noticeable.

The relevance of this article has to do with the controversy surrounding Natural Born Killers, over what impacts a film of such incredible violence (coupled with its themes of glorifying such acts) can – and has – and will – have on the societies of its viewers.  Boyle draws on three specific cases of murderous love-duos that occured after the films release. Edmonson-Darras, Rey-Maupin, and Herbert-Paindavoine were all young couples tried for committing horrendous murders as pairs, and all three couples admitted to having been influenced by Natural Born Killers, further adding to the intense question of how acts of brutality we see in the media are linked to real-world violence.      

“What’s Natural about Killing? Gender, Copycat Violence and Natural Born Killers” By: Boyle, Karen. Journal of Gender Studies, Nov2001, Vol. 10 Issue 3, p311-321, 11p; DOI: 10.1080/09589230120086511; EBESCO, 9 Apr. 2008

Karen Boyle argues that Natural Born Killers leaves a dangerous impression on society, which places male violence as something more natural than female violence, and perhaps even something to be expected, while female violence is somehow a reversal of a girl’s original nature, to be drawn from or manipulated upon that female’s innately more submissive personality. She compares Mickey, the male half of the murderous love-duo, to Mallory, the female half, and concludes that the different treatment given to the characters has a drastic on the viewer, even if the viewer doesn’t realize. She points to Mickey’s depiction as an emblem of pure, glorified brutality, a hero for fellow convicts, a star on primetime television. Mickey’s calm exterior and understated personal background leaves the viewer with the understanding he’s been a man of sheer violence his whole life; and that for man, violence is somehow hereditary, and that for man, violence is ultimately nothing more or less than normal.

Boyle contrasts Natural Born Killer’s depiction of Mickey with that of Mallory: as a sex-object, a young girl who carries out violence on others only as revenge for the abuse she received from her father during her upbringing, and is brought “into” this world by its original inhabitant, the male, citing the image of Mickey riding to her house on horseback, after having escaped from jail, to rescue her and take her away – but not before showing her how to kill her parents in cold blood. She also points to interviews given by director Oliver Stone and actor Woody Harrelson, in which the two men emphasis Harrelson’s own family history, specifically his father’s murderous past, which she says is proof of the intentional perpetuation of the film’s prejudiced ideas, (or at least a complete admission of having those sentiments themselves, even if they didn’t recognize it).

The article furthermore proposes that other critics’ lack of commentary on this aspect of the film is an indication of just how easily its viewers are willing to accept it as true, and therefore the contrasting depictions of Mickey and Mallory are consequently that much more dangerous. Boyle argues that to paint the female-murderer as a more intriguing, fragile, or more special specimen than the male-murderer can only cast confusion and blindness on society’s ability to sentence its criminals with adequately balanced judgment, and these imposed attitudes will hamper the cause of studying the true motives behind the mass-murderer, which shouldn’t be thought of as automatically in every male psyche, or inherently lacking and foreign to the female psyche, but rather an equally potential outcome for any human mind.

Marita Sturken History and Theory, Vol. 36, No. 4, Theme Issue 36: Producing the Past: Making Histories Inside and Outside the Academy (Dec., 1997), pp. 64-79

In this article, Marita Sturken discusses Oliver Stone’s popularity and bad name as a filmmaker, but defends Oliver Stone against his critics who lividly denounce the director’s credibility as an American cinematic historian, and maker of the legitimate docudrama. Stone’s 1986 Platoon was greeted with total acclaim. Sturken attributes this to the fact that Stone personally served in Vietnam, and therefore the public perceived his portrayal of his experiences as not only credible but deserved. Sturken implies that the American public felt better about themselves after seeing his movie because of his cinematic storytelling skills, which were so convincing that the viewers felt they themselves were present in the war, and somehow vindicated from any guilt of being lucky enough to stay out of it. However, Stone’s 1991 JFK, along with his1995 Nixon, garnered unbelievable amounts of anger and resentment, first for their unpatriotic messages, and secondly for what was, by many, perceived as a total distortion of truthful American history.

The article discusses the relationship between memory vs. history, and how the camera can affect both sides of the equation. The camera is a mechanism of recording truth, and yet at the same time it is a way of expressing one’s own perception of truth before passing it on. In this way, one’s memory of history can become history itself. Sturken believes Stone has earned the privilege of narrating the truth of 20^th Century America for its future generations in any way he wants, calling him the country’s “cultural messenger,” one which his people deserve, because of the incredible aestheticism of his films, his artistic audacity and determination to voice his own opinions. This article should be considered when thinking about Natural Born Killers for many reasons. Firstly, Natural Born Killers is a piece about violence, and it should be remembered that the director was himself engulfed in an environment of devastating war, where horrific images (real ones) were around him at all times. That vastly important part of the director’s identity should not be forgotten. 

Secondly, Sturken points out that Stone considers himself both a “cinematic-historian” and “just a storyteller.” The fact that Stone can see himself in such different ways at the same time sheds light on how he can create a very direct commentary about violence in the media without having to state specific opinions, or provide worthy morals to his story, or suggest solutions to society’s problems, or cite direct scientific or sociological sources to backup whatever he’s saying. The article focuses on Stone’s ability to manipulate images in order to retell things his own way. About JFK, Oliver Stone said, “I defend what I’m doing as something between entertainment and fact.” Natural Born Killers is just that, a cinematic masterpiece between commentary and entertainment. But, also, the subject of the commentary is that as well: the viewer finds himself focused on American primetime news, the sensationalized accounts written for the blood-thirsty news-watcher that lie somewhere between entertainment and fact.

Girls with Guns: Narrating the Experience of War of Frelimo's "Female Detachment" Harry G. West Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 4, Youth and the Social Imagination in Africa, Part 2 (Oct., 2000), pp. 180-194 Published by: The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research

West’s article about Female Detachments fighting for Mozambique’s independence from Portuguese colonialism (a war that lasted from the late-70’s to the mid-90’s) sheds light on differing psychological states of those who lead lives of violence in situations as extreme as risking one’s own life to kill others.

West himself admits he had expected to hear or observe that the women and children who lived through these ages of dramatic social changes (which were results from the consequences of colonial conquest, anti-colonial insurgency and post independent governance) would be permanently scarred from the trauma of war. This was not the case. The Female Detachments he met were proud of their service, never claiming to have ever felt scarred or vulnerable. Among the male militias, the women were not quite equal to the male soldiers, but they reported feeling empowered by the men when they were given space to carry out their own attacks. The women also claimed it felt important to participate in the war rather than having to stay trapped in their homes carrying out agricultural work.

These observations have a lot of resemblances to Mallory’s character from Natural Born Killers. West attributes the Female Detachments’ mental strength in terms of rising above trauma and suffering to their ideology and beliefs, which relates to Mallory’s ability to carry out her actions under the shade of Mickey’s philosophical indifference to death and murder. Following that relationship, the organization which the Female Detachments fought for, FRELIMO, was a forceful and dangerous group which might have been viewed as the stronger counterpart of the two genders’ militias (if they were closer aligned). As West writes of the Female Detachments, “Respect for and fear of FRELIMO were inseparable … they had no option but to comply with their ‘requests.” And after completing training, their loyalty would always be tested by FRELIMO, who would compel them to certain dangerous missions. Although Mallory is happy to carry out her side of the murders, perhaps she is much more inclined to do when she sees how much it pleases Mickey. Another similarity between Mallory and the Female Detachments is drawn from West’s account of interviewing one of the soldiers with a tape recorder: he never needed to ask a second question, the interviewee was so relieved to be telling her whole story that she never stopped. The idea of telling one’s story, and to have one’s own life of danger and violence be the focus of an interview, is one of the central themes we see in Natural Born Killers.