Comparing Stanley Kubrick‘s “The Clockwork Orange” And Lexi Alexander’S “Green Street Hooligans”
Sometimes violence in movies is not only an 'action tool' but also the main explicating mechanism exploring such important social topics as loyalty, honour, duty, friendship, and even family. In this way, such movies could be called excellent examples of a specific kind of educating films containing both action and tutorial subtext. This combination is (no doubts) one of the most controversial ones, It does not only shock the audience with brutal fights and crime scenes but also carries a deep educational sense. Stanley Kubrick‘s “The Clockwork Orange” and Lexi Alexander’s “Green Street Hooligans” are among those films that aim to describes the 'inner side' of the street gangs lives.
Both movies tell stories of brutal stand-offs between particular groups of people revealing many details of their violent and sometimes even inhuman actions. These details, however, are used not to simply shock the audience , rather, they become the main elements depicting the true range of human's capabilities as a cell of a cultural organism. The main similarity between Stanley Kubrick‘s “The Clockwork Orange” and Lexi Alexander’s “Green Street Hooligans” is the common attempts of both producers to describe the true nature of humans with its principles and ideals. None of the above-mentioned movies aims to focus its viewers' attention on scenes of extreme violence. Their main mission is rather to describe the evolution of human's soul in situations of brutal reality. “The Clockwork Orange” and “Green Street Hooligans” are the greatest examples of movies to search for deep cultural analysis. They explicate the structure of well-known moral concepts in an unexpected form of violence and street gangs' confrontation brutality.
There is no better way to study human’s culture than investigate potential human's capabilities in different life situations. According to Ott & Mack's 'Critical Media Studies: An Introduction' book definition, any 'culture can be described as the collection of artifacts, practices, and beliefs of a particular group of people of at a particular historical moment, supported by symbolics system and directed by ideology' (Ott & Mack). In this way, it comes out that any random group of people can create their own 'cultural group' based on their common ideas and interests. That is not necessary to be a large number of people to form their separate 'group'. It could consist of only three or four people. Stanley Kubrick‘s film “The Clockwork Orange” provides the example of a particular 'group', or rather say a 'gang' of people who share common interests, practices, and beliefs. The movie aims to describes the true side of teenage rebellion movements in the 1950s. It is a typical film of the juvenile delinquent cycle. According to the plot-line, Alex, Georgie, Dim and Pete, the 4 main characters, are teenagers who form their own gang. They often fight with members of other groups proving their leadership to appear threatening. The boys waste the rest of their days doing the numerous crimes, hitting civilian people and making fun of their city's civil population. All these things bring joy to each of the gang's members. They are connected with the same idea of violence and brutality towards others.
Throughout the “The Clockwork Orange” film's plot-line, Alex, the protagonist, makes his way searching for himself. First, the audiences sees him as a leader of their violent teenagers' gang. At that point, it may appear that he is in relationships of trust with other gang's members. However, this small 'cultural group' is based only on teenagers' thirst for violence. In this way, they have nothing else to connect them tight enough to continue the group's existence without criminal activity. Todd Davis, the author of the 'O My Brothers: Reading the Anti-Ethics of the Pseudo-Family in Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange' article, calls Alex's gang a 'pseudo-family', which does not actually care about any of its members. The author of the above-mentioned study also claims that the gang is a 'dysfunctional interpersonal unit that problematizes Alex's various efforts to establish selfhood and to transcend the violent landscapes of his youth (Davis). In this way, Alex's 'cultural group' is doomed to failure from the very beginning of its establishment since it 'offers only the illusion of genuine community' but not an actual one (Davis). At the end of this story, we, the viewers, see 'the final version' of Alex who has learned much from his mistakes. He chooses to follow the example of his former gang's member Pete who settled down with his new family.
Stanley Kubrick‘s “The Clockwork Orange” has a lot in common with Lexi Alexander’s “Green Street Hooligans” movie. According to the plot-line, Pete, one of the main characters, is the leader of a British soccer hooligan firm – Green Street Elite (GSE). The firm’s members are hardcore fans of the West Ham United Soccer Club. They are tied together with soccer and shared hate towards other English club fans. In this way, the GSE members form a separate ‘mini-society’ based on shared interests. The occupation of this kind of 'cultural group' is not really different from the one of Alex's gang. The GSE members usually fight with other soccer fans and spend the rest of their free time in sport bars discussing details about their recent battles. As opposed to Alex's gang, Pete's firm consists of a large number of people. Most of them are young men and adults who are consumed with hatred for any other soccer fan group. The main difference between Alex's gang and Pete's firm is that the GSE members always remain loyal towards civil people. They manifest their violent aggression only in relation to the opponent fan group. However, it does not make their battles less severe that Alex and his 'droogs'' ones. Overall, each of both movies' episodes is a pretext for the oncoming crime or short downtime after the previous fights.
Just as Alex, Matt, 'The Green Street Hooligans' film's protagonist, conducts a long way before he finally finds himself. According to the plot-line, he is an average American student. He comes to Great Britain to see his relatives but suddenly becomes 'drawn into the violent and secretive world of West Ham's [soccer firm]' (Glynn). It is important to state that Matt has nothing to do with this movement. He is not even a fan of any soccer club. Still, however, the unique atmosphere of fans confrontations absorbs him and makes him rethink his own life principles and ideals. At the end of this story, Matt finally finds himself. He becomes a brave and fair man who chooses to take an example from his friend Pete, who died attempting to protect his family in one of the gangs' battles.
The most interesting similarity gathering Stanley Kubrick‘s “The Clockwork Orange” and Lexi Alexander’s “Green Street Hooligans” movies is the glorification of family values. The films' producers picked one of their characters to be family-oriented. In this way, they could give their protagonists, Alex and Matt, the appropriate example to follow. These family-oriented are characters supposed to teach both gangs' warriors and movies' viewers to appreciate the value of family. They play the role of the 'guiding characters' slowly leading the audience to the recognition of the author's main ideas. By coincidence, both of these family-oriented characters have the same name in the movies - Pete. At the same time, however, their images are slightly different from each other. Stanley Kubrick‘s Pete is a former violent gang's member who got to realization of family values only by the end of the plot-line. As opposed to him, Lexi Alexander’s Pete has always appreciated family ties. He remains loyal to his brother's family and makes every effort to protect the lives of his brother’s wife and a small child.
Conclusively, Stanley Kubrick‘s “The Clockwork Orange” and Lexi Alexander’s “Green Street Hooligans” movies appeared to be appropriate examples for 'cultural groups' study. While having a lot in common, the differences in gangs' ideals and their fundamental interests showed up a set of specific details making one group more successful in terms of cultural aspects than another one. As it was mentioned before, any culture or 'cultural group' has to be based upon specific interest or a kind of occupation bringing the people together. It has to be something more significant than just beating people. As we can see from the “Green Street Hooligans” movie's example, Pete's gang survived because it has a more stable foundation - football. Moreover, every of the GSE members deeply appreciated family ties and were ready to die for it.
Works Cited
- Davis, Todd F. O My Brothers: Reading the Anti-Ethics of the Pseudo-Family in Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. College Literature, 2002, https://www. wssd. org/cms/lib02/pa01001072/centricity/domain/202/o_my_brothers_reading_the_anti-ethics_of_the_pseudo-family. pdf. Accessed 9 June 2019.
- Glynn, Stephen. The British Football Film. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, https://books. google. com/books?id=FLNZDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA184&dq=Green+Street+Hooligans+Matt&hl=ru&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIqZqCkdziAhUOGewKHUC7A7MQ6AEIQTAD#v=onepage&q&f=false. Accessed 9 June 2019.
- Ott, Brian L & Mack, Robert L. Critical Media Studies: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, https://books. google. com/books?id=htwHHQJ4Sw0C&lpg=PP1&dq=ott%20and%20mack%20critical%20media%20studies&hl=ru&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q=ott%20and%20mack%20critical%20media%20studies&f=false. Accessed 9 June 2019.
