Natural Born Killers Remains Relevant To Society
Oliver Stone Movie Marks Fifteen-Year Anniversary As Social Comment
Aug 13, 2009
Natural Born Killers, released August 26, 1994 was directed by Oliver Stone and based on a story by Quentin Tarantino and a screenplay comprised by David Veloz. The movie starred Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as two serial-killing, star-crossed lovers named Mickey and Mallory Knox.
American Audience Lost On Subtext of Film
Those with no sense of irony were most likely lost in the film’s beginning scenes as, through a series of seemingly innocuous events, things turn bloody and murderous in a diner when Mickey and Mallory slaughter the inhabitants with aplomb and a sick and twisted sense of fun.
Many viewers of the film decided to stop at this scene and disregard the film as a glorified, violent, chaotic mess of excessive violence. And the ironic truth is, is that the the film can be accurately described as such. There are numerous unnatural acts of violence, senseless murder and overt sexuality in the movie, but those that view Natural Born Killers only on a surface level are missing the entire point of the film. In fact, they are the ones that the film is pointing its’ finger at in the truest sense of the word.
For example, in the opening diner scene mentioned earlier, those viewers that shuddered away from this act, will most likely be the next in line for an opening of the Terminator series. Stone was attempting to show the audience what gratuitous violence really is and the vast majority of the population didn’t like it. They saw no “bad guys” or “good guys”. There were no black and white lines to define exactly why the events were happening in the film and this made them uncomfortable. Mickey and Mallory Knox weren’t on the road to fight an evil, alien robot. They were on the road for the sake of the fight alone.
Stone Attempted To Teach Lessons
Oliver Stone who has had no problem in his career with provoking his audiences through violence, politics or sexual content was trying to illustrate several points in Natural Born Killers. The most obvious was the over-glorification of sex and violence by the media, culture and art of America. This was done ironically through the film by exhibiting these glorifications by an even more grandiose over the top exploration of such themes.
Another point Stone attempted to make in the movie was that the media glorifies such excess violence, tries to pin a label of “why” on it and sell it to the American public. Now this seems redundant, because that’s what Stone himself was doing, but how else to get your point across but to exhibit the same behaviors you find repulsive?
Media, Authority Figures and Mass Appeal Were Demonized
In the movie Robert Downey, Jr. plays TV anchorperson Wayne Gale, an over-zealous, ratings obsessed tabloid reporter who tries to draw significance and meaning into Mickey and Mallory’s “reign of terror”, all while studiously going over his ratings and feedback on the stories he is producing.
Gale is shown as an equal predator to the Knox couple. While not murdering on a whim, Gale is portrayed as raping the situation for profit. This harsh take on the media as piranhas and scavengers is part and parcel of Stone and Tarantino’s message. Gale is shown as no better than the two killers who he eventually befriends. The movie’s way of saying birds of a feather flock together.
The police fair no better in the film as Tom Sizemore, playing Det. Jack Scagnetti, is shown to be nearly as treacherous as the two main characters. The brilliant performance by Tommy Lee Jones as jailhouse warden Dwight McClusky also reiterates the point of when incompetents rule the world who is really in control?
Standing The Test Of Time
Natural Born Killers is a beautiful movie that will stand the test of time as a harsh, critical look at twentieth century society. Some will understand the subtext and irony in the plot and its’ themes and some will disagree or refuse to believe it was made as anything other than another strange, art house, shoot ‘em up flick. It is a movie worth revisiting from a fifteen year distance to see if the theory of aggrandizing violence in America has been proven or if we, as a society, have changed our attitude of entertainment towards real-life sex, death and violence.
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