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'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

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Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#31

Post by ljf »

sevagh wrote: post #16

Tangential: I remember reading a criticism about the South Park ginger episode leading to redheads getting bullied. I was curious (and still haven't wrapped my head around) what blame can be placed, if any. 1. Shitty people had latent bullying and cruelty instincts and South Park gave them the idea of diverting that to redheads 2. People were just chilling until South Park taught them to be cruel and bully gingers

It is hard to know. My old work colleague took great efforts to keep his son from watching any TV, films or cartoons - they did loads of art, listened to music and went to the theatre a little. He was a pretty chill kid when I met him.

One day his son played at a friend's house when he was 3, nearly 4, and ended up watching a hulk cartoon. He spent the next 3 weeks running around the house screaming 'hulk smash' and hitting things with pillows.

Did the cartoon make him that way, or just tell him it was OK to act that way?

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#32

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

h2odragon wrote: post #23
simmerup wrote: post #8

I feel like the moment you put any idea out there you have the potential to influence people unexpectedly, and be at peace with that. I saw a youtube interview of an addict who said he started taking painkillers regularly because he saw House doing it. Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid in suburban America up for addiction by giving him that mannerism

> Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid in suburban America up for addiction Ya think? I disagree. It was product placement at the time . Now, it's hard not to call it outright drug pushing.

I hadn’t heard this point of view before but it doesn’t seem too unlikely. The homage to Holmes is an effective way to hide it. That’s some good plausible deniability.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#33

Post by bediger4000 »

drakenot wrote: post #14
teekert wrote: post #2

I can understand how he feels. But haters gonna hate, criminals gonna crime. He threw some new thoughts into the world, he made people think. surely he did not demagnetize people's moral compasses. It reeks of illusions of grandeur. Sure it is a nice piece, but he overestimates the influence imho. Similar to William Gibson thinking he is the father of things Steam Punk ever. Edit: Indeed I meant cyber punk.

William Gibson is the father of Cyberpunk, not Steam Punk. Though if Gibson is the father, I might say Bester is the grandfather.

Alfred Bester has fallen into obscurity for sure. How do you figure Bester and not Lem as the grandfather?

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#34

Post by danjoredd »

flohofwoe wrote: post #15
vsnf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steam Punk Cyber Punk?

Probably a typo, but Gibson also co-authored The Difference Engine, which is as Steam Punk as it gets :) (and according to Wikipedia "...is widely regarded as a book that helped establish the genre conventions of steampunk.")

Im going to have to read that now. Loved Neuromancer, and Steam Punk is one of my favorite genres

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#35

Post by coliveira »

simmerup wrote: post #8

I feel like the moment you put any idea out there you have the potential to influence people unexpectedly, and be at peace with that. I saw a youtube interview of an addict who said he started taking painkillers regularly because he saw House doing it. Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid in suburban America up for addiction by giving him that mannerism

Not only that, House was the inspiration for a whole generation of drug addicts by providing a character that they could empathize with. The same way that Wall Street created a whole generation that wanted to become crooked stock operators.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#36

Post by mc32 »

blindriver wrote: post #20

Kubrick’s version was a failure because he missed the most important part and the last few pages of the book. In the book at the very end Alex decides out of his own free will to stop being violent. Which is the entire point of the book: free will vs being forced to do something. It’s so powerful, I don’t think any book affected as much as that did at the time. Kubrick focused on the violence and the rapes and by lea…

They made me watch it in Highschool. So, "they" were right, schools subversively expose pupils to porn.

According to the votes, on the one hand it's not pornography, but on the other hand it is. It just isn't when you want to point it out as being soft porn, but if you want to critique the movie vs the book, it's okay to critique it as soft porn... hrrrm

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#37

Post by llm_nerd »

sevagh wrote: post #16

Tangential: I remember reading a criticism about the South Park ginger episode leading to redheads getting bullied. I was curious (and still haven't wrapped my head around) what blame can be placed, if any. 1. Shitty people had latent bullying and cruelty instincts and South Park gave them the idea of diverting that to redheads 2. People were just chilling until South Park taught them to be cruel and bully gingers

The world has loads of shitty, stupid people who will embrace something without understanding nuance or "good humor". South Park deserved blame for that because they operated as if everyone was in on the joke, when there are loads of people who took it literally as a message that it was "fair game" and targeting people was socially acceptable. Another reply notes that kids are cruel, and this simply isn't generally true: Kids are cruel in an environment where cruelty is their "in", or where they think cruelty will save themselves from cruelty. Having an easy, socially prevalent way to target some subgroup is a lazy option to be cruel, and South Park helpfully served one up.

There are loads of situations like this where people have an over the top rhetoric that is based upon the notion that everyone is in on the joke, when some subsection of the population simply isn't.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#38

Post by coliveira »

dageshi wrote: post #26
h2odragon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid in suburban America up for addiction Ya think? I disagree. It was product placement at the time . Now, it's hard not to call it outright drug pushing.

House was at least in part based on Sherlock Holmes who infamously had his 7% Cocaine solution. It's not entirely unreasonable to think the writers of House would update that to be pills. Not everything is some vast conspiracy...

Except that this was such a small detail on Sherlock Holmes novels that few people remember it.

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#39

Post by lkdfjlkdfjlg »

blindriver wrote: post #20

Kubrick’s version was a failure because he missed the most important part and the last few pages of the book. In the book at the very end Alex decides out of his own free will to stop being violent. Which is the entire point of the book: free will vs being forced to do something. It’s so powerful, I don’t think any book affected as much as that did at the time. Kubrick focused on the violence and the rapes and by lea…

[flagged]

Re: 'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''

#40

Post by StableAlkyne »

bonton89 wrote: post #12
simmerup wrote: post #8

I feel like the moment you put any idea out there you have the potential to influence people unexpectedly, and be at peace with that. I saw a youtube interview of an addict who said he started taking painkillers regularly because he saw House doing it. Surely the writers didn’t know they were setting up some kid in suburban America up for addiction by giving him that mannerism

Always seemed odd to me that House was even able to think clearly while high all the time, much less do his job at such a high level.

House drew a lot of inspiration from Sherlock Holmes - both get cases nobody else can solve, Wilson / Watson are their close companion who are essential to solving many cases, etc. It's something acknowledged in interviews by people involved in the show.

The drug use is another thing - Sherlock used cocaine and morphine. House used Vicodin. Morphine and Vicodin are both opioids.

If they had him abuse cocaine, it would be too unrealistic. If they had him abuse Adderall, it might not be obvious to audiences that he has a substance abuse problem - people could write it off as him using it to focus. A prescription opioid is something audiences understood were abused at the time, and maintains the Sherlock connections the writers were going for.

Plus it gives plenty of plot hooks to explore the effects and consequences of addiction to someone we believe to be very successful (success is happiness, right?) in season 1

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