August 26 marks the 30th anniversary of the release of "Natural Born Killers" in North America. With the turn of the century, technology has evolved, and media has undergone tremendous changes. The television networks criticized in this highly controversial film have long since declined, along with other traditional media like newspapers and radio, giving way to the pervasive and constant personal livestreams of the mobile internet era. There is no longer media authority; everyone is a media outlet and even a game player. As the display and dissemination of violent events have become unprecedentedly easy, the world has become more violent and chaotic. Every indiscriminate killing or mass shooting on social media reminds me of Oliver Stone's classic 1994 film and its supervillain couple who kills without principle. Of course, in a fictional movie, they may be captivating, but in the grim reality, it's best that such wanton killers do not exist.
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I remember I watched "Natural Born Killers" for the first time in my college dormitory. The scenes where the killers randomly select shooting targets, killed a bike trainer during their escape in a car, and utterly defeat the police before making their getaway, appeared on our computer screens and shocked then-inexperienced viewers like young students. A usually serious and studious classmate was furious, exclaiming, "How can this be!?" His worldview was completely overturned. Another mischievous guy was unusually excited and said, "Awesome! This is revolutionary romanticism," as he saw a whole new unrealistic adult fairy tale world.
The couple consisting of Mickey and Mallory Knox gets married in Las Vegas. Standing on a bridge spanning the Grand Canyon, they take out a knife and make a blood pact. This might indeed be a form of revolutionary romanticism, but their subsequent escape and killing spree are merely the film's deliberate exaggeration of an "alternative romance." Furthermore, it carries a strong media critique of anti-romanticism. It is the media, hungry for sensational news, and the audience, craving blood and sex, that fuel these romanticized killings.
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Remember the first scene, the massacre in a fast-food restaurant? After responding to a police officer's sexual harassment of Mallory with a gunshot - just as the audience expects a story of punishing evil and avenging wrongs - this bloodthirsty couple starts playing a game of random selection in the restaurant. Whoever gets pointed at by them becomes their next innocent victim . The ferocious song "Shitlist" by the iconic grunge band L7 of the rock music era starts playing, and its lyrics perfectly echo the couple's random and brutal killings: "When I get mad and I get pissed, I grab my pen and I write out a list of all the people that won't be missed. You've made my shitlist." Juliette Lewis, who successfully portrayed Mallory's crazed character, later became an even more uninhibited rock singer, forming a band called "Juliette and the Licks." Embracing the destructive style of grunge music, she ran and screamed wildly on stage, venting the anger that couldn't be fully unleashed in the film.
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Lewis had a rebellious youth, having been arrested at 16 for illegally entering a bar. Woody Harrelson, who played her lover in "Natural Born Killers," came from a criminal background in Texas. His father, Charles Harrelson, was a legitimate professional hitman who worked on contracts for crime organizations. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a federal judge. The script for "Natural Born Killers," written by Stone with contributions from Quentin Tarantino and others, crafted the backstory for this killer couple as coming from violent families with unfortunate childhoods marked by abuse and even sexual assault. This background naturally provides them with the motive to seek revenge on society in a twisted, game-like manner.
As students watching "Natural Born Killers," we were overwhelmed by its incredible impact, and superficially assumed that it glorified killing without understanding the creators' underlying critique. Rewatching it as adults, the criticisms become immediately apparent to us and we can barely find any artistic rhetoric, as seen in the headless man in the TV show called "American Maniacs". The killer couple's rampage and escape attract the equally bloodthirsty media. The producers of the TV show hastily devise a plan to have the host Wayne Gale, played by Robert Downey Jr., continuously follow and report on the couple, turning their happenings into a gripping drama.
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The film premiered on August 26, 1994. However, as early as June 17 of the same year, the entire American audience had already witnessed its "real-life trailer" through a live telecast. At that time, the California State Police were chasing rugby star O.J. Simpson, who was suspected of murdering his wife and her friend, on the highway. Television stations used helicopters to follow the pursuit from the air, and this livestream scored the highest viewership in American TV news history.
Film enthusiasts often say that "Natural Born Killers" borrows from the 1967 New Hollywood classic "Bonnie and Clyde." In the latter, the titular protagonists, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, gather other partners to form a gang that is ultimately destroyed by the police. In “Natural Born Killers,” influenced by the couple, Wayne gets involved in a prison riot and experiences an inexplicable thrill from killing. He fantasizes about becoming a close partner and helper to Mickey and Mallory, or at worst, surviving to tell their story. He questions, "Wait! Don't Mickey and Mallory always leave one person alive to tell the tale?"
"We are, your camera," the killers respond.
Mickey's lines during an earlier interview with Wayne can be seen as Stone's extremely negative view of contemporary media, which he criticizes for always peddling fear.
"You'll never understand, Wayne. You and me, we're not even the same species. I used to be you, then I evolved. From where you're standing, you're a man. From where I'm standing, you're an ape. You're not even an ape. You're a media person. Media's like the weather, only it's man-made weather. Murder? It's pure. You're the one [who] made it impure. You're buying and selling fear."
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After the release of "Natural Born Killers," the DV era followed, making it easier to create personal works. A friend of mine, a documentary filmmaker, once returned to his hometown to film a local gang collecting protection money. What was supposed to be a routine turned into a display of exaggerated brutality because the presence of the camera made the low-level thugs eager to show how evil they could be, resulting in them beating up the unfortunate shopkeepers. As smartphones became more portable and easier to use for filming, the same desire to perform in front of the camera, especially among teenagers who had not yet developed a clear sense of right and wrong, significantly fueled incidents of school bullying.
Can we say that Mickey and Mallory, the "natural born killers," would have a negative impact on young people who are inexperienced and unaware of the film's critique of the media? I don't think so, because the influence of movies and traditional media has been steadily declining, especially in the present era where drones can be readily deployed to livestream battlefields.
From the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 to the Utøya island massacre in Norway in 2011, from the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest festival shooting in 2017 to the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, we see that these more brazen mass murderers are greatly influenced by online shooting games. They may have some incredulous social grievances, but they often choose to broadcast their killing sprees as if they were livestreaming their games.
As for "Natural Born Killers" and its supervillain couple from 30 years ago, how many of these aforementioned real-life perpetrators have actually seen or even heard of them?
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