Laocoön and His Sons is one of the most famous of ancient sculptures. It shows Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.
Violence in art refers to depictions of violence in high cultureart
as well as popular culture such as cinema and theater. It has been the
subject of considerable controversy and debate for centuries. In Western
art, graphic depictions of the Passion of Christ
have long been portrayed, as have a wide range of depictions of warfare
by later painters and graphic artists. Theater and, in modern times,
cinema have often featured battles and violent crimes. Similarly, images
and descriptions of violence have historically been significant
features in literature. Margaret Bruder, a film studies professor at
Indiana University, states that the aestheticization of violence in film
is the depiction of violence in a "stylistically excessive",
"significant and sustained way". Aestheticized violence differs from
gratuitous violence in that it is used as a stylistic element, and
through the "play of images and signs" references artworks, genre conventions, cultural symbols, or concepts.
Plato proposed to ban poets from his ideal republic because he feared that their aesthetic ability to construct attractive narratives about immoral behaviour would corrupt young minds. Plato's writings refer to poetry as a kind of rhetoric,
whose "...influence is pervasive and often harmful". Plato believed
that poetry that was "unregulated by philosophy is a danger to soul and
community". He warned that tragic poetry can produce "a disordered
psychic regime or constitution" by inducing "a dream-like, uncritical
state in which we lose ourselves in ...sorrow, grief, anger, [and]
resentment". As such, Plato was in effect arguing that "What goes on in
the theater, in your home, in your fantasy life, are connected" to what
one does in real life.
Politics of House of Medici and Florence dominate art depicted in Piazza della Signoria,
making references to first three Florentine dukes. Besides aesthetical
depiction of violence these sculptures are noted for weaving through a
political narrative.
The artist Hieronymus Bosch,
from the 15th and 16th centuries, used images of demons, half-human
animals and machines to evoke fear and confusion to portray the evil of
man. The 16th-century artist Pieter Brueghel the Elder depicted "...the nightmarish imagery that reflect, if in an extreme fashion, popular dread of the Apocalypse and Hell".
18th century onwards
In the mid-18th century, Giovanni Battista Piranesi,
an Italian etcher, archaeologist, and architect active from 1740, did
imaginary etchings of prisons that depicted people "stretched on racks
or trapped like rats in maze-like dungeons", an "aestheticization of
violence and suffering".
In 1849, as revolutions raged in European streets and authorities were putting down protests and consolidating state powers, composer Richard Wagner wrote: "I have an enormous desire to practice a little artistic terrorism."
Laurent Tailhade is reputed to have stated, after Auguste Vaillant bombed the Chamber of Deputies in 1893: "Qu'importent les victimes, si le geste est beau? [What do the victims matter, so long as the gesture is beautiful]?" In 1929 André Breton's Second Manifesto on surrealist art stated that "L'acte
surréaliste le plus simple consiste, revolvers aux poings, à descendre
dans la rue et à tirer au hasard, tant qu'on peut, dans la foule"
[The simplest Surrealist act consists of running down into the street,
pistols in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the
trigger, into the crowd]."
"Everything in this world has two handles. Murder,
for instance, may be laid hold of by its moral handle... and that, I
confess, is its weak side; or it may also be treated aesthetically, as
the Germans call it—that is, in relation to good taste."
In his 1991 study of romantic literature, University of Georgia literature professor Joel Black stated that "(if) any human act evokes the aesthetic experience of the sublime,
certainly it is the act of murder". Black notes that "...if murder can
be experienced aesthetically, the murderer can in turn be regarded as a
kind of artist—a performance artist or anti-artist whose specialty is
not creation but destruction."
In films
Film
critics analyzing violent film images that seek to aesthetically please
the viewer mainly fall into two categories. Critics who see depictions
of violence in film as superficial and exploitative argue that such
films lead audience members to become desensitized to brutality, thus
increasing their aggression. On the other hand, critics who view
violence as a type of content, or as a theme, claim it is cathartic and
provides "acceptable outlets for anti-social impulses".
Adrian Martin describes the stance of such critics as emphasizing the
separation between violence in film and real violence. To these critics,
"movie violence is fun, spectacle, make-believe; it's dramatic
metaphor, or a necessary catharsis akin to that provided by Jacobean theatre; it's generic, pure sensation, pure fantasy. It has its own changing history, its codes, its precise aesthetic uses."
Margaret Bruder, a film studies professor at Indiana University and the author of Aestheticizing Violence, or How to Do Things with Style,
proposes that there is a distinction between aestheticized violence and
the use of gore and blood in mass market action or war films. She
argues that "aestheticized violence is not merely the excessive use of
violence in a film". Movies such as the popular action film Die Hard 2
are very violent, but they are do not qualify as examples of
aestheticized violence because they are not "stylistically excessive in a
significant and sustained way". Bruder argues that films such as such as Hard Target, True Romance and Tombstone
employ aestheticized violence as a stylistic tool. In such films, "the
stylized violence they contain ultimately serves as (...) another
interruption in the narrative drive".
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film written, directed, and produced by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess.
Set in a futuristic England (circa 1995, as imagined in 1965), it
follows the life of a teenage gang leader named Alex. In Alexander
Cohen's analysis of Kubrick's film, he argues that the ultra-violence of
the young protagonist, Alex, "...represents the breakdown of culture
itself". In the film, gang members are "...[s]eeking idle
de-contextualized violence as entertainment" as an escape from the
emptiness of their dystopian
society. When the protagonist murders a woman in her home, Cohen states
that Kubrick presents a "[s]cene of aestheticized death" by setting the
murder in a room filled with "...modern art which depict scenes of
sexual intensity and bondage"; as such, the scene depicts a "...struggle
between high-culture which has aestheticized violence and sex into a
form of autonomous art, and the very image of post-modern mastery".
Writing in The New York Times, Dwight Garner reviews the controversy and moral panic surrounding the 1991 novel and 2000 film American Psycho. Garner concludes that the film was a "coal-black satire" in which "dire comedy mixes with Grand Guignol.
There's demented opera in some of its scenes." The book, meanwhile, has
acquired "grudging respect" and has been compared to Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Garner claims that the novel's author, Bret Easton Ellis, has contributed to the aestheticization of violence in popular media: "The culture has shifted to make room for [Patrick] Bateman. We've developed a taste for barbaric libertines with twinkling eyes and some zing in their tortured souls. Tony Soprano, Walter White from "Breaking Bad", Hannibal Lecter (who predates "American Psycho")—here are the most significant pop culture characters of the past 30 years... Thanks to these characters, and to first-person shootervideo games, we've learned to identify with the bearer of violence and not just cower before him or her."
In Xavier Morales' review of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1, he calls the film "a groundbreaking aestheticization of violence". Morales argues that, similarly to A Clockwork Orange,
the film's use of aestheticized violence appeals to audiences as an
aesthetic element, and thus subverts preconceptions of what is
acceptable or entertaining.
Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the central character, is a charismatic, anti-social delinquent whose interests include classical music (especially Beethoven), committing rape, theft, and ultra-violence. He leads a small gang of thugs, Pete (Michael Tarn), Georgie (James Marcus), and Dim (Warren Clarke), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian
word друг, which is "friend", "buddy"). The film chronicles the
horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted
rehabilitation via an experimental psychological conditioning technique
(the "Ludovico Technique") promoted by the Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp). Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured adolescent slang composed of Slavic languages (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.
The film premiered in New York City on 19 December 1971 and was
released in the United Kingdom on 13 January 1972. The film was met with
polarised reviews from critics and was controversial due to its
depictions of graphic violence. After it was cited as having inspired copycat acts
of violence, the film was withdrawn from British cinemas at Kubrick's
behest, and it was also banned in several other countries. In the years
following, the film underwent a critical re-evaluation and gained a cult following. It received several awards and nominations, including four nominations at the 44th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the world's greatest films, A Clockwork Orange
was ranked 75th in the directors' poll and 235th in the critics' poll.
In 2020, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Human furniture from the Korova milk bar, where the "milk-plus" was served
In a futuristic Britain, Alex DeLarge
is the leader of a gang of "droogs": Georgie, Dim and Pete. One night,
after getting intoxicated on drug-laden "milk-plus", they engage in an
evening of "ultra-violence", which includes a fight with a rival gang.
They drive to the country home of writer Frank Alexander and trick his
wife into letting them inside. They beat Alexander to the point of
crippling him, and Alex violently rapes Alexander's wife while singing "Singin' in the Rain".
The next day, while truant from school, Alex is approached by his
probation officer, PR Deltoid, who is aware of Alex's activities and
cautions him.
Alex's droogs express discontent with petty crime and want more
equality and high-yield thefts, but Alex asserts his authority by
attacking them. Later, Alex invades the home of a wealthy "cat-lady" and
bludgeons her with a phallic sculpture while his droogs remain outside.
On hearing sirens, Alex tries to flee, but Dim smashes a bottle in his
face, stunning Alex and leaving him to be arrested. Deltoid brings word
that the woman has died of her injuries, and Alex is convicted of murder
and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Two years into the sentence, Alex eagerly takes up an offer to be a test subject for the Minister of the Interior's new Ludovico technique, an experimental aversion therapy
for rehabilitating criminals within two weeks. Alex is strapped to a
chair, his eyes are clamped open, and he is injected with drugs. He is
then forced to watch films of sex and violence, some of which are
accompanied by the music of his favourite composer, Ludwig van Beethoven.
Alex becomes nauseated by the films and, fearing the technique will
make him sick upon hearing Beethoven, begs for an end to the treatment.
Two weeks later, the Minister demonstrates Alex's rehabilitation
to a gathering of officials. Alex is unable to fight back against an
actor who taunts and attacks him and becomes ill upon seeing a topless
woman. The prison chaplain complains that Alex has been robbed of his
free will; the Minister asserts that the Ludovico technique will cut
crime and alleviate crowding in prisons.
Alex is released from prison, only to find that the police have sold his possessions to provide compensation to his victims
and his parents have let out his room. Alex encounters an elderly
vagrant whom he attacked years earlier, and the vagrant and his friends
attack him. Alex is saved by two policemen but is shocked to find they
are his former droogs Dim and Georgie. They drive him to the
countryside, beat him, and nearly drown him before abandoning him. Alex
barely makes it to the doorstep of a nearby home before collapsing.
Alex wakes up to find himself in the home of Mr Alexander, who is
now using a wheelchair. Alexander does not recognise Alex from the
previous attack, but knows of him and the Ludovico technique from the
newspapers. He sees Alex as a political weapon and prepares to present
him to his colleagues. While bathing, Alex breaks into "Singin' in the
Rain", causing Alexander to realise that Alex was the person who
assaulted his wife and him. With help from his colleagues, Alexander
drugs Alex and locks him in an upstairs bedroom. He then plays
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony loudly from the floor below. Unable to withstand the sickening pain, Alex attempts suicide by jumping out of the window.
Alex survives the attempt and wakes up in hospital with multiple
injuries. While being given a series of psychological tests, he finds
that he no longer has aversions to violence and sex. The Minister
arrives and apologises to Alex. He informs Alex that the government has
had Mr Alexander institutionalised. He offers to take care of Alex and
get him a job in return for his co-operation with his election campaign
and public relations counter-offensive. As a sign of goodwill, the
Minister brings in a stereo system playing Beethoven's Ninth. Alex then
contemplates violence and has vivid thoughts of having sex with a woman
in front of an approving crowd, thinking to himself, "I was cured, all
right!"
The film provided early roles for Steven Berkoff, David Prowse, and Carol Drinkwater, who appeared as a police officer, Mr Alexander's attendant Julian, and a nurse, respectively.
Themes
Morality
The
film's central moral question is the definition of "goodness" and
whether it makes sense to use aversion therapy to stop immoral
behaviour. Stanley Kubrick, writing in Saturday Review,
described the film: "A social satire dealing with the question of
whether behavioural psychology and psychological conditioning are
dangerous new weapons for a totalitarian government to use to impose
vast controls on its citizens and turn them into little more than
robots."
Similarly, on the production's call sheet, Kubrick wrote: "It is a
story of the dubious redemption of a teenage delinquent by
condition-reflex therapy. It is, at the same time, a running lecture on
free-will."
After aversion therapy, Alex behaves like a good member of
society, though not through choice. His goodness is involuntary; he has
become the titular clockwork orange—organic on the outside, mechanical
on the inside. After Alex has undergone the Ludovico technique, the
chaplain criticises his new attitude as false, arguing that true
goodness must come from within. This leads to the theme of
abusing liberties—personal, governmental, civil—by Alex, with two
conflicting political forces, the Government and the Dissidents, both
manipulating Alex purely for their own political ends.
The story portrays the "conservative" and "leftist" parties as equally
worthy of criticism. The writer Frank Alexander, a victim of Alex and
his gang, wants revenge against Alex and sees him as a means of
definitively turning the populace against the incumbent government and
its new regime. He fears the new government and, in a telephone
conversation, he says: "Recruiting brutal young roughs into the police;
proposing debilitating and will-sapping techniques of conditioning. Oh,
we've seen it all before in other countries; the thin end of the wedge!
Before we know where we are, we shall have the full apparatus of totalitarianism."
On the other side, the Minister of the Interior (the Government)
jails Mr Alexander (the Dissident Intellectual) on the excuse of his
endangering Alex (the People), rather than the government's totalitarian
regime (described by Mr Alexander). It is unclear whether he has been
harmed; however, the Minister tells Alex that the writer has been denied
the ability to write and produce "subversive" material that is critical
of the incumbent government and meant to provoke political unrest.
Psychology
Ludovico technique apparatus
The film critiques the behaviourism or "behavioural psychology" propounded by psychologists John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. Burgess disapproved of behaviourism, calling Skinner's book Beyond Freedom and Dignity
(1971) "one of the most dangerous books ever written". Although
behaviourism's limitations were conceded by its principal founder,
Watson, Skinner argued that behaviour modification—specifically, operant conditioning (learned behaviours via systematic reward-and-punishment techniques) rather than the "classical" Watsonian conditioning—is the key to an ideal society. The film's Ludovico technique is widely perceived as a parody of aversion therapy, which is a form of classical conditioning.
Author Paul Duncan said: "Alex is the narrator so we see
everything from his point of view, including his mental images. The
implication is that all of the images, both real and imagined, are part
of Alex's fantasies."
Psychiatrist Aaron Stern, the former head of the MPAA rating
board, believed that Alex represents man in his natural state, the
unconscious mind. Alex becomes "civilised" after receiving his Ludovico
"cure" and the sickness in the aftermath Stern considered to be the
"neurosis imposed by society".
Kubrick told film critics Philip Strick and Penelope Houston:
"Alex makes no attempt to deceive himself or the audience as to his
total corruption or wickedness. He is the very personification of evil.
On the other hand, he has winning qualities: his total candour, his wit,
his intelligence, and his energy; these are attractive qualities and
ones, I might add, which he shares with Richard III."
Society
The society depicted in the film was perceived by some as Communist (as Michel Ciment
pointed out in an interview with Kubrick) due to its slight ties to
Russian culture. The teenage slang has a heavily Russian influence, as
in the novel; Burgess explains the slang as being, in part, intended to
draw a reader into the world of the book's characters and to prevent the
book from becoming outdated. There is some evidence to suggest that the
society is a socialist one, or perhaps a society evolving from a failed
socialism into an authoritarian society. In the novel, streets have
paintings of working men in the style of Russian socialist art, and the
film shows a mural of socialist artwork with obscenities drawn on it. As
Malcolm McDowell points out on the DVD commentary, Alex's residence was
shot on failed municipal architecture and the name "Municipal Flat
Block 18A, Linear North" alludes to socialist-style housing.
When the new right-wing government takes power, the atmosphere is
certainly more authoritarian than the anarchist air of the beginning.
Kubrick's response to Ciment's question remained ambiguous as to what
kind of society it is. Kubrick asserted that the film held comparisons
between both ends of the political spectrum and that there is little
difference between the two. Kubrick stated: "The Minister, played by
Anthony Sharp, is clearly a figure of the Right. The writer, Patrick
Magee, is a lunatic of the Left... They differ only in their dogma.
Their means and ends are hardly distinguishable."
Production
Anthony Burgess sold the film rights of his novel for US$500 (equivalent to $4,800 in 2022), shortly after its publication in 1962. Originally, the film was projected to star the rock band The Rolling Stones, with the band's lead singer Mick Jagger expressing interest in playing the lead role of Alex, and British filmmaker Ken Russell attached to direct. However, this never came to fruition due to problems with the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), and the rights ultimately fell to Kubrick.
McDowell was chosen for the role of Alex after Kubrick saw him in the film if.... (1968). When asking why he was picked for the role, Kubrick told him: "You can exude intelligence on the screen."
He also helped Kubrick on the uniform of Alex's gang, when he showed
Kubrick the cricket whites he had. Kubrick asked him to put the box (jockstrap) not under but on top of the costume.
During the filming of the Ludovico technique scene, McDowell scratched a cornea
and was temporarily blinded. The doctor standing next to him in the
scene, dropping saline solution into Alex's forced-open eyes, was a real
physician present to prevent the actor's eyes from drying. McDowell
also cracked some ribs filming the humiliation stage show. A unique special effect
technique was used when Alex jumps out of the window in a suicide
attempt, showing the camera approaching the ground from Alex's point of
view. This effect was achieved by dropping a Newman-Sinclair clockwork camera in a box, lens-first, from the third storey of the Corus Hotel. To Kubrick's surprise, the camera survived six takes.
Adaptation
The cinematic adaptation of A Clockwork Orange (1962) was not initially planned. Screenplay writerTerry Southern gave Kubrick a copy of the novel, but, as he was developing a Napoleon Bonaparte-related
project, Kubrick put it aside. Kubrick's wife, in an interview, said
she had given Kubrick the novel after having read it. Kubrick said: "I
was excited by everything about it: the plot, the ideas, the characters,
and, of course, the language. The story functions, of course, on
several levels: political, sociological, philosophical, and, what's most
important, on a dreamlike psychological-symbolic level." Kubrick wrote a
screenplay faithful to the novel, saying: "I think whatever Burgess had
to say about the story was said in the book, but I did invent a few
useful narrative ideas and reshape some of the scenes." Kubrick based the script on the shortened US edition of the book, which omitted the final chapter.
Direction
Thamesmead South Housing Estate where Alex knocks his rebellious droogs into the lake
Kubrick was a perfectionist who researched meticulously, with
thousands of photographs taken of potential locations, and many scene
takes. He was so meticulous that McDowell stated: "If Kubrick hadn't
been a film director he'd have been a General Chief of Staff of the US
Forces. No matter what it is—even if it's a question of buying a shampoo
it goes through him. He just likes total control."
Filming took place between September 1970 and April 1971. Technically,
to achieve and convey the fantastic, dream-like quality of the story, he
filmed with extreme wide-angle lenses such as the Kinoptik Tegea 9.8 mm
for 35 mm Arriflex cameras.
Alex is fanatical about Ludwig van Beethoven in general and his Ninth Symphony in particular, and the soundtrack includes an electronic version specially arranged by Wendy Carlos of the Scherzo and other parts of the Symphony. The soundtrack contains more music by Rossini
than by Beethoven. The fast-motion sex scene with the two girls, the
slow-motion fight between Alex and his Droogs, the fight with Billy
Boy's gang, the drive to the writer's home ("playing 'hogs of the
road'"), the invasion of the Cat Lady's home, and the scene in which
Alex looks into the river and contemplates suicide before being
approached by the beggar are all accompanied by Rossini's William Tell Overture or The Thieving Magpie Overture.
Reception
Critical reception
On release, A Clockwork Orange was met with mixed reviews. Vincent Canby of The New York Times
praised the film: "McDowell is splendid as tomorrow's child, but it is
always Mr. Kubrick's picture, which is even technically more interesting
than 2001. Among other devices, Mr. Kubrick constantly uses what
I assume to be a wide-angle lens to distort space relationships within
scenes, so that the disconnection between lives, and between people and
environment, becomes an actual, literal fact." The following year, after the film won the New York Film Critics Award, he called it "a brilliant and dangerous work, but it is dangerous in a way that brilliant things sometimes are". The film also had notable detractors. Film critic Stanley Kauffmann commented, "Inexplicably, the script leaves out Burgess' reference to the title". Roger Ebert gave A Clockwork Orange two stars out of four, calling it an "ideological mess". In her New Yorker review titled "Stanley Strangelove", Pauline Kael
called it pornographic because of how it dehumanised Alex's victims
while highlighting the sufferings of the protagonist. Kael noted the
Billyboy's gang extended stripping of the woman they intended to rape,
claiming it was offered for titillation.
In a retrospective review, Leslie Halliwell
described it as
“A repulsive film in which intellectuals have found acres of social and
political meaning; the average judgement is likely to remain that it is
pretentious and nasty rubbish for sick minds who do not mind jazzed-up
images and incoherent sound.”
John Simon
noted that the novel's most ambitious effects were based on language
and the alienating effect of the narrator's Nadsat slang, making it a
poor choice for a film. Concurring with some of Kael's criticisms about
the depiction of Alex's victims, Simon noted that the character of Mr
Alexander, who was young and likeable in the novel, was played by Patrick Magee,
"a very quirky and middle-aged actor who specialises in being
repellent". Simon comments further that "Kubrick over-directs the
basically excessive Magee until his eyes erupt like missiles from their
silos and his face turns every shade of a Technicolor sunset".
Over the years, A Clockwork Orange gained a status as a cult classic. For The Guardian, Philip French
stated that the film's controversial reputation likely stemmed from the
fact that it was released during a time when fear of teenage
delinquency was high. Adam Nayman of The Ringer wrote that the film's themes of delinquency, corrupt power structures and dehumanisation are relevant in today's society. Simon Braund of Empire praised the "dazzling visual style" and McDowell's "simply astonishing" portrayal of Alex. Roger Ebert softened on the film years after first viewing it, declaring on his talk show
that while he still thought the film had "all head and no heart", he
felt Kubrick's detachments from the violence more so than he did in the
first viewing.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 88% based on 80 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Disturbing and thought-provoking, A Clockwork Orange is a cold, dystopian nightmare with a very dark sense of humor". Metacritic gives the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on reviews by 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Box office
The
film was a box-office success, grossing $41 million in the United
States and about $73 million overseas for a worldwide total of
$114 million on a budget of $1.3 million.
The film was also successful in the United Kingdom, playing for over a year at the Warner West End
in London. After two years of release, the film had earned Warner Bros.
rentals of $2.5 million in the United Kingdom and was the number three
film for 1973 behind Live and Let Die and The Godfather.
The film was the most popular film of 1972 in France with 7,611,745 admissions.
The film was re-released in North America in 1973 and earned $1.5 million in rentals.
Controversies
American version
In the United States, A Clockwork Orange was given an X rating
in its original release in 1972. Later, Kubrick replaced approximately
30 seconds of sexually explicit footage from two scenes with less
explicit action to obtain an R rating re-release later in 1972.
Because of the explicit sex and violence, The National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures rated it C ("condemned"), a rating which recommended against Roman Catholics
seeing the film. In 1982, the office abolished the "condemned" rating.
Subsequently, films deemed to have unacceptable levels of sex and
violence by the Conference of Bishops are rated O, "morally offensive".
British withdrawal
Although it was passed uncut for UK cinemas in December 1971, British authorities considered the sexual violence
in the film to be extreme. In March 1972, during the trial of a
14-year-old boy accused of the manslaughter of a classmate, the
prosecutor referred to A Clockwork Orange, suggesting that the film had a macabre relevance to the case. The film was linked to the murder of an elderly vagrant by a 16-year-old boy in Bletchley,
Buckinghamshire, who pleaded guilty after telling police that friends
had told him of the film "and the beating up of an old boy like this
one". Roger Gray, for the defence, told the court that "the link between
this crime and sensational literature, particularly A Clockwork Orange, is established beyond reasonable doubt". The press also blamed the film for a rape in which the attackers sang "Singin' in the Rain" as "Singin' in the Rape". Christiane Kubrick, the director's wife, has said that the family received threats and had protesters outside their home.
The film was withdrawn from British release in 1973 by Warner Bros at the request of Kubrick. In response to allegations that the film was responsible for copycat violence Kubrick stated:
To
try and fasten any responsibility on art as the cause of life seems to
me to put the case the wrong way around. Art consists of reshaping life,
but it does not create life, nor cause life. Furthermore, to attribute
powerful suggestive qualities to a film is at odds with the
scientifically accepted view that, even after deep hypnosis in a
posthypnotic state, people cannot be made to do things which are at odds
with their natures.
The Scala Cinema Club went into receivership in 1993 after losing a legal battle following an unauthorised screening of the film.In the same year, Channel 4 broadcast Forbidden Fruit, a 27-minute documentary about the withdrawal of the film in Britain. It contains footage from A Clockwork Orange. It was difficult to see A Clockwork Orange
in the United Kingdom for 27 years. It was only after Kubrick died in
1999 that the film was re-released theatrically, on VHS, and on DVD. On 4
July 2001, the uncut version premiered on Sky TV's Sky Box Office, where it ran until mid-September.
Censorship in other countries
In
Ireland, the film was banned on 10 April 1973. Warner Bros. decided
against appealing the decision. Eventually, the film was passed uncut
for cinema on 13 December 1999 and released on 17 March 2000.
The re-release poster, a replica of the original British version, was
rejected due to the words "ultra-violence" and "rape" in the tagline.
Head censor Sheamus Smith explained his rejection to The Irish Times: "I believe that the use of those words in the context of advertising would be offensive and inappropriate."
In Singapore, the film was banned for over 30 years, before an
attempt at release was made in 2006. However, the submission for an M18 rating was rejected, and the ban was not lifted. The ban was later lifted and the film was shown uncut (with an R21 rating) on 28 October 2011, as part of the Perspectives Film Festival.
In South Africa, it was banned under the apartheid regime for 13 years, then in 1984 was released with one cut and only made available to people over the age of 21. It was banned in South Korea and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Nova Scotia. The Maritime Film Classification Board also reversed the ban eventually. Both jurisdictions now grant an R rating to the film.
In Brazil, the film was banned under the military dictatorship
until 1978, when the film was released in a version with black dots
covering the genitals and breasts of the actors in the nude scenes.
In Spain, the film debuted at the 1975 Valladolid International Film Festival under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. It was expected to be screened in the University of Valladolid
but, due to student protests, the university had been closed for two
months. The final screenings were in the commercial festival venues,
with long queues of expectant students. After the festival, the film
went into the arthouse circuit and later in commercial cinemas
successfully.
In Malta, a ban on the film was lifted in 2000, when it was shown in local cinemas for the first time.
The film was brought up during the compilation of evidence on the rape
and murder of Paulina Dembska, which took place on 2 January 2022 in Sliema, for the accused attacker compared himself to Alex during police interrogation.
Novelist's response
Burgess had mixed reception about the film adaptation of his novel, publicly saying he loved Malcolm McDowell and Michael Bates, and the use of music. He praised it as so "brilliant" that it might be dangerous. He was concerned that it lacked the novel's redemptive final chapter,
an absence he blamed upon his American publisher and not Kubrick. All
US editions of the novel prior to 1986 omit the final chapter. Kubrick
called the missing chapter "an extra chapter" and claimed that he had
not read the original version until he had virtually finished the
screenplay, and that he had never seriously considered using it.
In Kubrick's opinion – as in the opinion of other readers, including
the original American editor – the final chapter was unconvincing and
inconsistent with the book.
Burgess reports in his autobiography You've Had Your Time (1990)
that he and Kubrick at first enjoyed a good relationship, each holding
similar philosophical and political views and each very interested in
literature, cinema, music, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Burgess's novel Napoleon Symphony
(1974) was dedicated to Kubrick. Their relationship soured when Kubrick
left Burgess to defend the film from accusations of glorifying
violence. A lapsed Catholic,
Burgess tried many times to explain the Christian moral points of the
story to outraged Christian organisations and to defend it against
newspaper accusations that it supported fascist dogma. He also went to
receive awards given to Kubrick on his behalf. He was in no way involved
in the production of the film. The only profit he made directly from
the film was the initial $500 that had been given to him for the rights
to the adaptation.
Burgess's own stage adaptation of the novel, A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music
(1984), contains a direct reference to Kubrick. In the final moment of
the play Alex joins in a song with the other characters. In the script's
stage directions it states that while this happens: "A man bearded like
Stanley Kubrick comes on playing, in exquisite counterpoint, 'Singin’ in the Rain' on the trumpet. He is kicked off the stage."
Kubrick's
film is relatively faithful to the Burgess novel, omitting only the
final, positive chapter, in which Alex matures and outgrows sociopathy.
While the film ends with Alex being offered an open-ended government
job, implying he remains a sociopath at heart, the novel ends with
Alex's positive change in character. This plot discrepancy occurred
because Kubrick based his screenplay on the novel's American edition, in
which the final chapter had been deleted on the insistence of its
American publisher.
He claimed not to have read the complete, original version of the novel
until he had almost finished writing the screenplay, and that he never
considered using it. The introduction to the 1996 edition of A Clockwork Orange says that Kubrick found the end of the original edition too blandly optimistic and unrealistic.
Critic Randy Rasmussen has argued that the government in the
film is in a shambolic state of desperation, whereas the government in
the novel is quite strong and self-confident. The former reflects
Kubrick's preoccupation with the theme of acts of self-interest masked
as simply following procedure. One
example of this would be differences in the portrayal of P. R. Deltoid,
Alex's "post-corrective advisor". In the novel, P. R. Deltoid appears
to have some moral authority
(although not enough to prevent Alex from lying to him or engaging in
crime, despite his protests). In the film, Deltoid is slightly sadistic
and seems to have a sexual interest in Alex, interviewing him in his
parents' bedroom and smacking him in the crotch.
In the film, Alex has a pet snake. There is no mention of this in the novel.
In the film Alex's prison number is 655321, in the book his prisoner number is 6655321.
In the novel, F. Alexander recognises Alex through several careless
references to the previous attack (such as his wife then claiming they
did not have a telephone). In the film, Alex is recognised when singing
the song 'Singing in the Rain' in the bath, which he had hauntingly done
while attacking F. Alexander's wife. The song does not appear at all in
the book, as it was an improvisation by actor Malcolm McDowell when
Kubrick complained that the rape scene was too "stiff".
Home media
In the US, the film has been widely available on home video since 1980 and was re-released several times on VHS. It was first released on DVD in the US on 29 June 1999.
In the UK, the film was eventually released by Warner Home Video
on 13 November 2000 (on both VHS and DVD), individually and as part of The Stanley Kubrick Collection DVD set.
Due to negative comments from fans, Warner Bros re-released the film,
its image digitally restored and its soundtrack remastered. A
limited-edition collector's set with a soundtrack disc, film poster,
booklet, and filmstrip followed, and was discontinued. In 2005, a
British re-release, packaged as an "Iconic Film" in a limited-edition
slipcase was published, identical to the remastered DVD set, except for
different package cover art. In 2006, Warner Bros announced the
September publication of a two-disc special edition featuring a Malcolm
McDowell commentary, and the releases of other two-disc sets of Stanley
Kubrick films. Several British retailers had set the release date as 6
November 2006. The release was delayed and re-announced for the 2007
Holiday Season.
An HD DVD, Blu-ray,
and DVD version was re-released on 23 October 2007, alongside four
other Kubrick classics, with 1080p video transfers and remixed Dolby
TrueHD 5.1 (for HD DVD) and uncompressed 5.1 PCM (for Blu-ray) audio
tracks.
Unlike the previous version, the DVD re-release edition is
anamorphically enhanced. The Blu-ray was reissued for the 40th
anniversary of the film's release, identical to the previously released
Blu-ray, plus a Digibook and the Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures documentary as a bonus feature.
In 2021, a 4K restoration was completed with Kubrick's former assistant Leon Vitali working closely with Warner Bros. It was released in the US on 21 September 2021 and 4 October 2021 in the UK.
A Clockwork Orange remains an influential work in cinema and other media. The film is frequently referenced in popular culture, which Adam Chandler of The Atlantic
attributes to Kubrick's "genre-less" directing techniques that brought
novel innovation in filming, music, and production that had not been
seen at the time of the film's original release.
In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the world's greatest films, A Clockwork Orange was ranked 75th in the directors' poll and 235th in the critics' poll. In 2010, Time magazine placed it 9th on their list of the Top 10 Ridiculously Violent Movies. In 2008, Empire ranked it 37th on their list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time", and in 2013, Empire ranked it 11th on their list of "The 100 Best British Films Ever". In 2010, The Guardian ranked the film 6th in its list of 25 greatest arthouse films. The Spanish director Luis Buñuel praised the film highly. He once said: "A Clockwork Orange
is my current favourite. I was predisposed against the film. After
seeing it, I realised it is only a movie about what the modern world
really means".
A Clockwork Orange was added to the United States' National Film Registry in 2020 as a work considered to be "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.
A skinhead or skin is a member of a subculture that originated among working-class
youths in London, England, in the 1960s. It soon spread to other parts
of the United Kingdom, with a second working-class skinhead movement
emerging worldwide in the late 1970s. Motivated by social alienation and working-class solidarity, skinheads are defined by their close-cropped or shaven heads and working-class clothing such as Dr. Martens and steel toe work boots, braces, high rise and varying length straight-leg jeans,
and button-down collar shirts, usually slim fitting in check or plain.
The movement reached a peak at the end of the 1960s, experienced a
revival in the 1980s, and, since then, has endured in multiple contexts
worldwide.
The rise to prominence of skinheads came in two waves, with the
first wave taking place in the late 1960s in the UK. The first skinheads
were working class youths motivated by an expression of alternative values and working class pride, rejecting both the austerity and conservatism of the 1950s-early 1960s and the more middle class or bourgeoishippie movement and peace and love ethos of the mid to late 1960s. Skinheads were instead drawn towards more working class outsider subcultures, incorporating elements of early working class mod fashion and Jamaican music and fashion, especially from Jamaican rude boys. In the earlier stages of the movement, a considerable overlap existed between early skinhead subculture, mod subculture, and the rude boy subculture found among Jamaican British and Jamaican immigrant
youth, as these three groups interacted and fraternized with each other
within the same working class and poor neighbourhoods in Britain.
As skinheads adopted elements of mod subculture and Jamaican British
and Jamaican immigrant rude boy subculture, both first and second
generation skins were influenced by the rhythms of Jamaican music genres
such as ska, rocksteady, and reggae, as well as sometimes African-Americansoul and rhythm and blues.
The late 1970s and early 1980s saw a revival or second wave of
the skinhead subculture, with increasing interaction between its
adherents and the emerging punk movement. Oi!, a working class offshoot of punk rock,
soon became a vital component of skinhead culture, while the Jamaican
genres beloved by first generation skinheads were filtered through punk
and new wave in a style known as 2 Tone.
Within these new musical movements, the skinhead subculture
diversified, and contemporary skinhead fashions ranged from the original
clean-cut 1960s mod- and rude boy-influenced styles to less-strict punk-influenced styles.
During the early 1980s, political affiliations grew in significance and split the subculture, demarcating the far-right and far-left strands, although many skins described themselves as apolitical. In Great Britain, the skinhead subculture became associated in the public eye with membership of groups such as the far-right National Front and British Movement. By the 1990s, neo-Nazi skinhead movements existed across all of Europe and North America, but were counterbalanced by the presence of groups such as Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice
which sprung up in response. To this day, the skinhead subculture
reflects a broad spectrum of political beliefs, even as many continue to
embrace it as a largely apolitical working class movement.
History
Origins and first wave
In the late 1950s the post-war economic boom led to an increase in disposable income
among many young people. Some of those youths spent that income on new
fashions; they wore ripped clothes and would use pieces of material to
patch them up as popularised by American soul groups, British R&B bands, certain film actors, and Carnaby Street clothing merchants. These youths became known as mods, a youth subculture noted for its consumerism and devotion to fashion, music, and scooters.
Working class mods chose practical clothing styles that suited their lifestyle and employment circumstances: work boots or army boots, straight-leg jeans or Sta-Presttrousers,
button-down shirts and braces. When possible, these working class mods
spent their money on suits and other sharp outfits to wear at
dancehalls, where they enjoyed soul, ska, and rocksteady music.
Around 1966, a schism developed between the peacock mods (also known as smooth mods), who were less violent and always wore the latest expensive clothes, and the hard mods (also known as gang mods, lemonheads or peanuts), who were identified by their shorter hair and more working class image. Hard mods became commonly known as skinheads by about 1968.
Their short hair may have come about for practical reasons, since long
hair could be a liability in industrial jobs and streetfights. Skinheads
may also have cut their hair short in defiance of the more middle class
hippie culture.
In addition to retaining many mod influences, early skinheads were very interested in Jamaicanrude boy styles and culture, especially the music: ska, rocksteady, and early reggae (before the tempo slowed down and lyrics became focused on topics like black nationalism and the Rastafari movement).
Skinhead culture became so popular by 1969 that even the rock band Slade temporarily adopted the look as a marketing strategy. The subculture gained wider notice because of a series of violent and sexually explicit novels by Richard Allen, notably Skinhead and Skinhead Escapes. Due to largescale British migration to Perth, Western Australia, many British youths in that city joined skinhead/sharpies gangs in the late 1960s and developed their own Australian style.
By the early 1970s, the skinhead subculture started to fade from
popular culture, and some of the original skins dropped into new
categories, such as the suedeheads (defined by the ability to manipulate one's hair with a comb), smoothies (often with shoulder-length hairstyles), and bootboys (with mod-length hair; associated with gangs and football hooliganism). Some fashion trends returned to the mod roots, with brogues, loafers, suits, and the slacks-and-sweater look making a comeback.
In the late 1970s, the skinhead subculture was revived to a notable extent after the introduction of punk rock.
Most of these revivalist skinheads reacted to the commercialism of punk
by adopting a look that was in line with the original 1969 skinhead
style. This revival included Gary Hodges and Hoxton Tom McCourt (both later of the band the 4-Skins) and Suggs, later of the band Madness. Around this time, some skinheads became affiliated with far right groups such as the National Front and the British Movement. From 1979 onwards, punk-influenced
skinheads with shorter hair, higher boots and less emphasis on
traditional styles grew in numbers and grabbed media attention, mostly
due to football hooliganism. There still remained, however, skinheads who preferred the original mod-inspired styles.
Eventually different interpretations of the skinhead subculture
expanded beyond Britain and continental Europe. In the United States,
certain segments of the hardcore punk scene embraced skinhead styles and developed their own version of the subculture.
Bill Osgerby has argued that skinhead culture more broadly grows strength from specific economic circumstances.
In a BBC interview, he remarked "In the late 70s and early 80s, working
class culture was disintegrating through unemployment and inner city
decay and there was an attempt to recapture a sense of working class
solidarity and identity in the face of a tide of social change."
Germany
By the 1980s street fights regularly broke out in West Germany between skinheads and members of the anti-fascist, and left wing youth movements. German neo-nazis, led among others by Michael Kühnen, sought to expand their ranks with new young members from the burgeoning skinhead scene. On the other side of the Berlin Wall, in East Germany,
the skinhead youth movement had developed two different styles: one was
more focused on rebellious youth fashion styles while the other camp
often dressed in regular clothes and focused more heavily on political
activity. These groups were infiltrated by agents of the Stasi
and did not last long in East Germany. After a group of skinheads
attacked a punk concert at Zion's Church (East Berlin) in 1987, many
skinhead leaders fled to West Germany to avoid arrest.
Style
Hair
Late 2000s female skinhead with 1960s-style extensions
Most first wave skinheads used a No. 2 or No. 3 grade clip guard
cut (short, but not bald). From the late 1970s, male skinheads
typically shaved their heads with a No. 2 grade clip or shorter. During
that period, side partings were sometimes shaved into the hair. Since
the 1980s, some skinheads have clipped their hair with no guard, or even
shaved it with a razor. Some skinheads sport sideburns of various styles, usually neatly trimmed.
By the 1970s, most female skins had mod-style haircuts. During
the 1980s skinhead revival, many female skinheads had feathercuts (The Chelsea, a fringedbob from the front yet from the back it is an undercut). A feathercut is short on the crown, with fringes at the front, back and sides.
Many skinheads wore Sta-Prest flat-fronted slacks or other dress trousers; jeans (normally Levi's, Lee or Wrangler);
or combat trousers (plain or camouflage). Jeans and slacks were worn
deliberately short (either hemmed, rolled or tucked) to show off boots,
or to show off bright coloured socks when wearing loafers or brogues.
Jeans were often blue, with a parallel leg design, hemmed or with clean
and thin rolled cuffs (turn-ups), and were sometimes splattered with bleach to resemble camouflage trousers (a style popular among Oi! skinheads).
Many traditionalist skinheads wore braces (suspenders), in
various colours, usually no more than 1" in width, clipped to the
trouser waistband. In some areas, braces much wider than that may
identify a skinhead as either unfashionable or as a white power skinhead.
Traditionally, braces were worn up in an X shape at the back, but some
Oi!-oriented skinheads wore their braces hanging down. Patterned braces –
often black and white check, or vertical stripes – were sometimes worn
by traditional skinheads. In a few cases, the colour of braces or flight
jackets were used to signify affiliations. The particular colours
chosen have varied regionally, and had totally different meanings in
different areas and time periods. Only skinheads from the same area and
time period are likely to interpret the colour significations
accurately. The practice of using the colour clothing items to indicate
affiliations became less common, particularly among traditionalist
skinheads, who were more likely to choose their colours simply for
fashion.
Traditionalist skinheads sometimes wore a silk handkerchief in
the breast pocket of a Crombie-style overcoat or tonic suit jacket, in
some cases fastened with an ornate stud. Some wore pocket flashes
instead. These are pieces of silk in contrasting colours, mounted on a
piece of cardboard and designed to look like an elaborately folded
handkerchief. It was common to choose the colours based on one's
favourite football club. Some skinheads wore button badges or sewn-on
fabric patches with designs related to affiliations, interests or
beliefs. Also popular were woollen or printed rayon scarves in football
club colours, worn knotted at the neck, wrist, or hanging from a belt
loop at the waist. Silk or faux-silk scarves (especially Tootal brand)
with paisley
patterns were also sometimes worn. Some suedeheads carried closed
umbrellas with sharpened tips, or a handle with a pull-out blade. This
led to the nickname brollie boys.
Female skinheads generally wore the same clothing items as men,
with addition of skirts, stockings, or dress suits composed of a
three-quarter-length jacket and matching short skirt. Some skingirls
wore fishnet stockings and mini-skirts, a style introduced during the
punk-influenced skinhead revival.
Footwear
Most skinheads wear boots; in the 1960s army surplus or generic workboots, later Dr. Martens boots and shoes. In 1960s Britain, steel-toe boots worn by skinheads and hooligans were called bovver boots; whence skinheads have themselves sometimes been called bovver boys. Skinheads have also been known to wear brogues, loafers or Dr. Martens (or similarly styled) low shoes.
In recent years, other brands of boots, such as Solovair, Tredair Grinders, and gripfast have become popular among skinheads, partly because most Dr. Martens are no longer made in England. Football-style athletic shoes, by brands such as Adidas or Gola,
have become popular with many skinheads. Female or child skinheads
generally wear the same footwear as men, with the addition of monkey
boots. The traditional brand for monkey boots was Grafters, but nowadays
they are also made by Dr. Martens and Solovair.
In the early days of the skinhead subculture, some skinheads
chose boot lace colours based on the football team they supported.
Later, some skinheads (particularly highly political ones) began to use
lace colour to indicate beliefs or affiliations. The particular colours
chosen have varied regionally, and have had totally different meanings
in different areas and time periods. Only skinheads from the same area
and time period are likely to interpret the colour significations
accurately. This practice has become less common, particularly among
traditionalist skinheads, who are more likely to choose their colours
simply for fashion purposes.
Suedeheads sometimes wore coloured socks (for example, red or blue rather than black or white).
The skinhead subculture was originally associated with black music genres such as soul, ska, R&B, rocksteady, and early reggae. The link between skinheads and Jamaican music led to the UK popularity of groups such as Desmond Dekker, Derrick Morgan, Laurel Aitken, Symarip and The Pioneers. In the early 1970s, some reggae songs began to feature themes of black nationalism, which many white skinheads could not relate to.
This shift in reggae's lyrical themes created some tension between
black and white skinheads, who otherwise got along fairly well. Around this time, some suedeheads (an offshoot of the skinhead subculture) started listening to British glam rock bands such as Sweet, Slade and Mott the Hoople.
The most popular music style for late-1970s skinheads was 2 Tone, a fusion of ska, rocksteady, reggae, pop and punk rock. The 2 Tone genre was named after 2 Tone Records, a Coventryrecord label that featured bands such as The Specials, Madness and The Selecter. Some late-1970s skinheads also liked certain punk rock bands, such as Sham 69 and Menace.
In the late 1970s, after the first wave of punk rock, many skinheads embraced Oi!, a working class punk subgenre. Musically, Oi! combines standard punk with elements of football chants, pub rock and British glam rock. The Oi! scene was partly a response to a sense that many participants in the early punk scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic ... and losing touch". The term Oi! as a musical genre is said to come from the band Cockney Rejects and journalist Garry Bushell, who championed the genre in Sounds magazine. Not exclusively a skinhead genre, many Oi! bands included skins, punks and people who fit into neither category. Notable Oi! bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s include Angelic Upstarts, Blitz, the Business, Last Resort, The Burial, Combat 84 and the 4-Skins.
American Oi! began in the 1980s, with bands such as U.S. Chaos, The Press, Iron Cross, The Bruisers and Anti-Heros. American skinheads created a link between their subculture and hardcore punk music, with bands such as Warzone, Agnostic Front, and Cro-Mags.
The Oi! style has also spread to other parts of the world, and remains
popular with many skinheads. Many later Oi! bands have combined
influences from early American hardcore and 1970s British streetpunk.
Among some skinheads, heavy metal is popular. Bands such as the Canadian act Blasphemy, whose guitarist is black, has been known to popularise and merchandise the phrase "black metal skinheads". As the group's vocalist recounts, "a lot of black metal skinheads from the other side of Canada" would join in on the British Columbian
black metal underground. "I remember one guy... who had 'Black Metal
Skins' tattooed on his forehead. We didn't hang out with white power
skinheads, but there were some Oi skinheads who wanted to hang out with
us." National Socialist black metal
has an audience among white power skinheads. There was a record label
called "Satanic Skinhead Propaganda" that was known to specialize in
neo-Nazi black metal and death metal bands. Black metal pioneer and right-wing extremist Varg Vikernes was known to adopt a skinhead look and wear a belt with the SS insignia while serving time in prison for the arson of several stave churches and the murder of Øystein Aarseth.
Although many white power skinheads listened to Oi! music, they developed a separate genre more in line with their politics: Rock Against Communism (RAC). The most notable RAC band was Skrewdriver, which started out as a non-political punk band but evolved into a neo-Nazi band after the first lineup broke up and a new lineup was formed.
RAC started out musically similar to Oi! and punk, but has since
adopted elements from other genres. White power music that draws
inspiration from hardcore punk is sometimes called hatecore.
The early skinheads were not necessarily part of any political
movement, but as the 1970s progressed, many skinheads became more
politically active and acts of racially-motivated
skinhead violence began to occur in the United Kingdom. As a result of
this change within the skinheads, far right groups such as the National Front and the British Movement saw a rise in the number of white power skinheads among their ranks.
By the late 1970s, the mass media, and subsequently the general public,
had largely come to view the skinhead subculture as one that promotes
racism and neo-Nazism. The white power and neo-Nazi skinhead subculture eventually spread to North America, Europe and other areas of the world. The mainstream media started using the term skinhead
in reports of racist violence (regardless of whether the perpetrator
was actually a skinhead); this has played a large role in skewing public
perceptions about the subculture. Three notable groups that formed in the 1980s and which later became associated with white power skinheads are White Aryan Resistance, Blood and Honour and Hammerskins.
An image of a crucified
skinhead, a symbol used to convey a sense of societal alienation or
persecution against the skinhead subculture. According to the Anti-Defamation League,
it is used by both racist skinheads as well as anti-racist skinheads,
and it can be considered a hate symbol in certain contexts.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, many skinheads and suedeheads in the United Kingdom rejected both the far left and the far right. This attitude was musically typified by Oi! bands such as Cockney Rejects, The 4-Skins, Toy Dolls, and The Business. Two notable groups of skinheads that spoke out against neo-Nazism and political extremism—and instead spoke out in support of traditional skinhead culture—were the Glasgow Spy Kids in Scotland (who coined the phrase Spirit of '69), and the publishers of the Hard As Nailszine in England.
In the late 1960s, some skinheads in the United Kingdom (including black skinheads) engaged in violence against South Asian immigrants (an act known as Paki bashing in common slang).There had, however, also been anti-racist skinheads since the beginning of the subculture, especially in Scotland and Northern England.
On the far left of the skinhead subculture, redskins and anarchist skinheads take a militant anti-fascist and pro-working class stance. The phrase "all cops are bastards" was popularized among some skinheads by The 4-Skins's 1982 song "A.C.A.B." In the United Kingdom, two groups with significant numbers of leftist skinhead members were Red Action, which started in 1981, and Anti-Fascist Action, which started in 1985. Internationally, the most notable skinhead organization is Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, which formed in the New York City area in 1987 and then spread to other countries.
_Photo_Paolo_Villa_FOTO9260.JPG)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
