A Clockwork Orange (1971)

[00:00:20] Speaker A: Hello, everyone. [00:00:21] Speaker B: Welcome back to the final girl on 6th Avenue podcast. My name is Carolyn Smith Hillmer, and. [00:00:28] Speaker A: I am 6th Avenue's very own final girl. [00:00:32] Speaker B: And today, y'all, I just. [00:00:38] Speaker A: I don't know. You know, when the seasons change and. [00:00:41] Speaker B: You'Re just, like, not really feeling yourself. [00:00:43] Speaker A: And. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Maybe, like, you start losing passion. [00:00:47] Speaker A: About the things that you are normally. [00:00:49] Speaker B: Really passionate about, or you, I don't. [00:00:53] Speaker C: Know, get a little sad because there's. [00:00:55] Speaker B: Less daytime hours where the sun is. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Out, XYz, this, that, and the third. [00:01:01] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Sometimes when I get in those, you know, frames of mind, the only thing that can pull me out is, honestly not by watching something new. It's by watching something that I've already seen. So when I sat down to record today's episode, I just thought to myself, like, what am I going to watch? Like, what am I even going to talk about? Right? Because I didn't want to watch anything new. So I thought, what better thing to talk about than a clockwork orange? And on any other day, I might. [00:01:44] Speaker C: Argue that there are far more important. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Topics to talk about in the horror genre, and there are far more important films to discuss. And no, a clockwork orange isn't necessarily a horror film. But it is terrifying. It's terrifying in every sense of the word, specifically because of the dystopian universe that it takes place in. So for that very reason alone, I think it's terrifying. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. The clockwork orange. I hope that those of you out there have seen it that are listening to this. If you have not. I recently found out that it's not available on any streaming services I have, but I was able to purchase it on Amazon prime for only $5. Is it hd? No. Is it sd? 100%. Does it look that bad? Not really. [00:02:49] Speaker B: So I. [00:02:50] Speaker A: You know, it wasn't too bad. [00:02:52] Speaker B: And for $5, I'm happy to buy. [00:02:53] Speaker A: A movie that I know I'm gonna. [00:02:54] Speaker B: Watch over and over again, because I have seen this movie many times, and I don't think I'm gonna get tired of it anytime soon. [00:03:01] Speaker A: And we don't need to talk about how inherently problematic Stanley Kubrick is. You know, that's not really the point of today. I will tell you that I am a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick's films, and this is probably. This one is tied for one. This one is tied for number one with 2001 A Space Odyssey. I absolutely fucking love that movie. Talk about another different kind of terror. And honestly, if I focused on anything on, like, space terror, if I did, like, a sub series within this show, I would absolutely talk about that movie because of the implications of having a type of AI like Hal. Although Hal is kind of a g. But anyways. Stanley Kubrick. [00:03:49] Speaker C: Yes. [00:03:50] Speaker A: Problematic. We can just get it out of the way. He's problematic. Was not, you know, necessarily known for being a particularly nice person to work with. He also didn't have a lot of great things going on with the film Lolita. And I encourage you to read up on those things if you so wish. I think it's an important thing to talk about. But when it comes to a clockwork orange, I just truly feel that this is such a masterpiece specifically because of the source material that it came from. So Clockwork Orange is a 1971 release written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the book of the same name from 1962, written by Anthony Burgess. Its runtime is 2 hours and 16 minutes because why would any Stanley Kubrick film be less than 2 hours? And it is rightfully so. Rated R. Starring Malcolm McDowell, Patrick McGee, Adrian Corey, and Miriam Carlin. This is just. I mean, even IMDb can't even describe it entirely, but it does so in the. In the best and honestly, most simple way possible. Alex Delarge and his droogs bourbonize a decaying nearest future. So our film opens with Alex and his friends, and they're dressed in various shades of off white. This is their sort of, you know, gang affiliated, friendship affiliated uniform that they. [00:05:35] Speaker C: All choose to wear. [00:05:36] Speaker A: And it includes, you know, I presume that at one point, all of these clothes were actually white. They're just not anymore. So they all wear a sort of white top with white pants, and they have suspenders. They have also a element around the waist that is similar to, but is not a chastity belt. It's a very interesting dress code. Not one that I would particularly like to partake in. So Alex and his friends are dressed in these quote unquote uniforms, drinking milk in a black room with all white female mannequins as decor. They are the furniture. They are the dispensers of the milk. They are the tables. They are the chairs. They are everything. The milk that they are drinking has a sort of narcotic in it. We are not privy to specifically what type or what exactly this drug is, but Alex is our narrator, and he lets us know that this milk, spiked with whatever narcotic is in it, makes you ready for ultraviolence. Not just regular violence, but ultraviolence so Alex and Gangdez find a drunk homeless man after they leave the milk bar, singing under a bridge. And they decide, well, this looks like a great time to enact or start to enact our series of ultraviolets. So they find this man, and the man is complaining that there's no law and order anymore. It's a lawless place to live. He's not safe. Nobody's safe. He's not necessarily proud of, you know, where he lives. And they let him go on for a little bit with his, you know, with his feelings. But anyways, they decided they're gonna torture him, so they beat the shit out of him with these long sticks. Then at an empty theater near a casino, a quasi rival gang is shown tearing the clothes off of a screaming woman about to perform what Alex, the narrator, refers to as the old in out, in out, which is his way of saying rape. They're. They're gonna. They're gonna rape her, is the goal. When Alex Yang shows up, the two gangs have a brawl. The woman escapes, Alex's gang wins, and they run from the cops, leaving Billy boy and his fellows to wait for the police. They run off to a rich, rich, rich home. Like, insanely cool, very, very seventies, very kubrick decor, very, like, off the wall interesting, and, like, almost non functional pieces of furniture. And they try to come into the house, and they want to come in saying that they need to use the phone. So they say, oh, there was an accident. We're badly injured. I need to use a phone. And the wife that comes to the door is like, no, I'm sorry. Like, we don't have a phone. They obviously have a phone. She's like, we don't have a phone. Sorry, I can't help you. Blah, blah, blah. She goes to her husband, who's writing at a table, and he's like, well, if there was an emergency, then you should let them in. Guys, if somebody ever. If you are one of those people out there listening that has a landline still never, ever open the door for somebody claiming that there is an emergency unless you can visibly see that they are in, like, a sore, a sort of honest distress, or they are bloody from head to toe. Like, I would not encourage you helping anyone. And even at that point, maybe you still don't want to let them in your house. I understand. You may call the authorities on their behalf, which is something that none of the characters in this film offer to do. They never say, oh, well, why don't you stay outside, and I'll call you know, emergency services for you? No. They just say, no, you can't use our phone. Sorry. Have a nice night. But after the husband says, let them inside, Alex and his friends beat him, tape him up, you know, tie him up, tape his mouth closed, the ball gag and rape his wife while they force him to watch. All while Alex sings, singing in the rain. I admit that every time I see this scene, it is longer than it was the time before. Like, for whatever reason, every time I watch this. And of course, the runtime of the scene actually never changes. But to me, when I'm watching it, it just feels longer and longer every single time. After they're done with their ultra violence for the night, they go back to the milk bar where they have a nightcap and see a group of, you know, tv execs and high society, upper class people in a group there. It's men and one woman. And the woman begins to sing. Her voice is beautiful. Alex just so happens to have a profound appreciation for classical music and opera and music in general. Odd that someone committing such violent crimes has this interest that is so prominent in his life. But I digress. Pete, one of Alex's friends, starts to be rude and is sort of interrupting and removing Alex's focus from the woman's singing. So Alex starts to hit him. And the woman obviously stops singing because there's some commotion. And for the first point, like, right in this movie, we're seeing Alix interact with a woman where he is, like, respectful, right? She's performing, not necessarily to Alex and. [00:12:46] Speaker B: His friends, but just performing. And he's interested. [00:12:48] Speaker A: And so he, rather than raping her like he did the last woman that he encountered decides that he wants to listen to this woman sing. It's almost as though he only sees women as humans if they're doing something that he wants. So anyways, this starts a little quarrel between the gang and Alex. And they start saying, like, we don't want to be your brother anymore. And Alex is just kind of like, well, I think you're probably just tired. I don't think you say what you mean. And so they kind of walk it back and let it go. That night, Alex goes home to sleep at his parents house, which I find hilarious, because then it's the first point in the movie where you're like, wait, how old is this guy? He goes to sleep in his parents house and is, like, the only thing that could top off this marvelous night is a little bit of Ludwig van. Again, he has a great appreciation for classical music. Now, while this is playing. There's a rather intense focus from the camera on a series of. It's one, you know, decorative piece, and it is a figure of four. Four Jesus Christs all standing next to one another with their right arm wrapped around the consecutive person, and they all have signs of stigmata and Thorn crown and are bleeding, and there's very heavy focus on this. And you're almost thinking, wow, why does a man or boy who just enacted such violence have a religious figure anywhere near him? I have no fucking idea. But it got me thinking. The next morning, his mom wakes him up to go to school, and he pretends to be sick to get out of going. And she's like, well, you haven't been all week. And he's like, well, you know, I'm not feeling too great right now, but let me just. Let me just rest for this morning, and then maybe after lunch I'll feel a little bit better and I'll go. She goes to work, and, well, actually, before she leaves, this is important. Before she leaves, her and her husband. So Alex's parents are downstairs at the breakfast table, and they're talking about Alex and his whereabouts. His mom and dad are wondering, like, where does he go at night? What does he go do? Why doesn't he, like, tell us about the things that he goes and does? And his mom is like, well, you know, he says he's probably doing exactly what he says he's doing. He's doing odd things, like helping out, whatever that means. [00:15:53] Speaker B: Once everybody leaves for work and Alex. [00:15:55] Speaker A: Thinks that he's home alone, rest assured he is not, because he gets a visit from Mister Deltoidgest. That is just the most hysterical name. I don't know why his name is Mister Deltoid. I don't even know if that's something I ever caught before. But Mister Deltoid is a member of local law enforcement who got a key to the house from Alex's mom on her way to work. And he tells Alex he knows what he and his friends did the night before and wants him to stop. He warns him. He then proceeds to drink a glass of water next to Alex's parents bedside table, where they're having our discussion. That is a set of dentures in a glass of water Alka Seltzer. So pretty gross little comic relief. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Alex later goes to a record store. [00:16:53] Speaker A: Because he placed an order for one and is wondering where it is. And while he's there, he finds two young women that are at the counter sucking on a sort of lollipop. I believe it is. Or maybe a popsicle. But anyway, they're phallic in nature and this is intriguing to him. So the three of them go back to his parents house and have vigorous sex with one another. And then Alex must have realized that he's running late because he goes to meet up with his friends who interrogate him about where he's been. They've been waiting on him. Where were you? We were supposed to meet up at this time because this is the time that you said we were meeting up and you haven't been here. Well, he was busy getting laid, so he didn't really think that through and doesn't really have much of an excuse or, like, a reason as to why he's late. So they've decided as group in Alex's absence that Georgie has taken over the role as general from Alex. And Alex is so pissed that he starts a brawl with his own mates and wins, securing his position as general of the group again. At a bar, Alex presses George until he, like, basically reveals this plan that he had. So I guess whenever he was, you know, general for five minutes, he came up with this plan and he was bragging about it to Alex. And Alex wants to know what it is. So the plan for the night that he had was essentially this. They're gonna go to a health farm. A health farm? Not a gym. A farm where a woman lives alone with a fuck ton of cats, okay? And she's, like, exercising and she has these cats everywhere. And it looks like she runs like a sort of, like, health and wellness area, you know, facility. I'm not sure entirely. But anyway, she's there by herself, so we can only assume that she lives alone. So the gang come to the door and they ask if they can use the phone. She's like, no, I'm sorry. I don't open the door for people past, you know, dark. Like, I'm sorry. There's a phone about a mile down the road if you want to go use that one. And so the guys are like, no. Like, our friend is. He's bleeding very, very badly in the street. And she's like, still suspicious. And so she says no. So after her complete refusal to let them in, they devise a plan to scale. Like, partially scale anyway, the side of her home to get to a second story window that they see is open. They don't, I guess, want to just break a window and enter, like a normal breaking and entering they'd rather just like. And then. And what's weird is that they're not like, opposed to the destruction of property. They just don't want to do it this day. I digress. So all the while, while they're, you know, trying to get Alex, because he's like, I'm going to go in first, you know, and I'll come unlock the front door, and then you guys can come in. She gets on the phone with the police and she calls and she's like, hey, somebody suspicious just really came to my door. And they're, you know, saying that they are, were in an accident and there's somebody injured and that they need to use the phone. And she points out the similarities of that conversation and what the gang said to her, to exactly what was said to the neighbors the night before. So this is the health farm. This health farm is right next door to the place that they were the previous night where they raped a woman while they made her husband watch. So the police offered to send somebody out, and she's like, eh, no, it's okay. Like, I don't know. And she hangs up. Well, as soon as she hangs up, Alex has found his way in. And so he's in the same room as her, and he notices that there is a giant penis figurine figure. I don't want to call it. It's not a statue, it's a piece of decor. Her entire house is full of, like, paintings of women and their breasts and their vaginas and, like, it's all really cool and beautiful. So I can only imagine she has, like, a lot of female clients. But for someone like Alex, this is something to absolutely set him off. So he keeps fucking with this penis, you know, figure. And she's asked him to stop because it's very expensive. Why she paid money for that, I'm not entirely sure. But she asks him to stop. And so they start to fight. They start to try to fight one another. And she gets one hit on him. And that's pretty much it. I mean, he gets her on the ground, she starts to scream, and he takes the giant penis statue figure thing and shoves it into her mouth, slash face. And all the while, he never did open the door for his friends like he promised. So when he comes outside, they hit him over the head with a glass bottle of milk and basically like, leave him there. So he's like, stunned. And they leave him there with the copse. The cops ended up coming. Alex gets arrested in jail. While he's in his holding cell, he gets in a fight with the other people that are in the cell with him because they are upset with him for what he did to these women. They're upset with him for his crimes against women. And in order to prove a point, they start to kind of get in a fight. Whenever Alex is finally, you know, trying to talk to the law enforcement officers that are there, he tries to throw his friend under the bus, like, oh, it wasn't me. This was their idea. Like, I didn't have anything to do with it and. But he was the only one there. He was the only one left at the scene, so what the fuck else did he think? Anyways, Mister Deltoid has made everyone aware, including Alex at this point, that now they've got him for murder. And Alex is like, okay, but I didn't kill her. Like, when I left last night, she was breathing, so that doesn't make any sense. So Mister Deltoid is like, nope, she died in the hospital. I just came from the hospital. She's dead. And Alex is like, okay, but I mean, you're just trying to scare me. Like, she's not dead. Like, this is ridiculous. Like, just please, let's just get over this. And they're like, they're not buying it. They're fucking fed up. So anyways, he gets sentenced to 14 years in prison. And upon his arrival, he receives a very thorough strip search, which I'm sure was just delightful. And during his time there, the prisoners attend a church. Like they have church inside of the or chapel, I guess you should say, inside of the prison. And Alex, model prisoner Alex, all of a sudden, right, is playing the piano for the service. This is about two years into his sentence. [00:25:10] Speaker B: So while all the other prisoners are. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Out in the crowd and they're being. [00:25:13] Speaker B: Disrespectful and they're yelling and, you know, laughing and making noise during the service. [00:25:17] Speaker A: Alex is just up there playing the fucking piano like he's the godliest boy that's ever lived. The preacher, minister. Guys, I didn't really go to church that much. I don't know who it is. The religious figure that leads the chapel and is, you know, in the facility of the prison to serve as a liaison, likes Alix a lot. And he's taken an interest in him because Alex has taken such an interest in the Bible and has been reading it and doing lots of studying about it. And like we, we said, he's been playing the piano for the services. So he kind of talks a little bit about how he got into this and how he became interested and what he finds so interesting about it, and he talks about how he imagines himself during, you know, a war. [00:26:23] Speaker C: Or, you. [00:26:24] Speaker A: Know, bloody fight surrounding the crucifixion of Christ. And it's very much that he's focused on the violence. He's not focused on, like, the story of the crucifixion. He's focused on having been part of the violence aspect of it. And so we know that he really hasn't changed his interests that much. So while they. One day, while he's in the library, he's like, he approaches the preacher, minister, religious person, to talk in private. And the guy is like, oh, my God. We can talk about whatever you want. Like, I understand if you have, like, worldly desires, meaning, like, you want to have sex, things get lonely in here. And Alex is like, actually, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to talk to you about this new treatment that I've been hearing about that gets you out of prison and make sure you never go back in again, and it makes you good. Anybody who spent any time in a philosophy department in any capacity will know that the meaning of the word good in terms of morality has a thousand different ways that that can go. And the religious figure says something very similar. He's like, okay, look, like, first of all, how do you know about that treatment? Because you're not supposed to know about it. Second of all, just because you do the treatment won't, it doesn't mean. It doesn't guarantee that you'll be wholly good. So it's not necessarily a promise for that. The only way to become morally good, you know, is to be patient, continue your sentence, pray, have relationship with God. So Alex leaves a little bit disappointed from that, but is like, okay, all right, I understand. Not long thereafter, the prisoners are in the courtyard, and they are told to stop exercising and line up against the wall. And they get a visit from the new minister of the interior, who is sort of responsible for this new program that Alex had previously discussed with the chapel. And this new program is focused on, like, behavioral reform. So. [00:28:56] Speaker B: The minister of the interior kind of makes some comments while he's there, kind of like, they're not good, right? Like, he clearly doesn't believe that this form of punishment is working and that it's beneficial in any capacity. [00:29:10] Speaker A: So he's like, this just isn't worth it anymore. And Alex is one of the only prisoners to speak up because he'd like to obviously be noticed. He knows about this treatment, and he knows that this is a way to get out. So the prison guards don't agree with this method. But the minister of the interior decides, like, yeah, this is a good candidate. Like, let's. Let's take him if he wants to go. Like, yeah, we'll do it. And the people of the workers of the prisoner, like, they believe that criminals should face eye for an eye punishment, like, rather than any type of behavioral reform. And, like, I can understand wanting, you. [00:29:54] Speaker B: Know, eye for an eye does, like, make sense a little bit, but also, like, if you don't actually change anybody's behavior or psyche, then there's literally not a way to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Like, if I just get to go to prison and just hang out, then. [00:30:15] Speaker C: Like, who the fuck cares? [00:30:18] Speaker B: Like, what stops me from leaving and just going and doing it again? [00:30:25] Speaker A: Are you listening? American prison system. So anyways, Alex, he's gonna sign this paperwork that is basically his release for the treatment, number one. And number two for it's the agreement to commute the rest of his sentence for participation in the treatment. And the treatment is called the Ludovico technique. So he leaves, and upon his arrival in the hospital facility, he's given a shot of something. He's not entirely sure what it is. And the doctors basically tell him that it's for his apparent and evident malnourishment, which, like, he didn't look particularly malnourished, but, I mean, he did look thin. And the doctor explained to him that the treatment would involve a lot of film and, like, cinema watching, which he's excited by. So the next time we see Alex, he is sat down in a theater where he is the only person there. And there are doctors that are behind the end observers that are behind the glass that are controlling the projector and the film reels. And his eyes are locked open with these sort of, like, lid locks. So he think, like, if you've ever seen Lasik, the procedure get done. They have to lock your eyes open so you can't blink. And so that's exactly what these are. They keep his eyes open. His head is locked in position in a chair, and he is basically completely secured to this chair. And he's also wearing a straight jacket so that he cannot escape. And a doctor regularly comes by to put drops into his eyes because he can't blink, so he cannot wet his eyes first. He's shown a film of a man getting beat up, and he makes comments about how he enjoyed it and that it was, like, really well done, and the sound design was good. Like, he's, like, talking like he's a fucking film critic. And so he's like, yeah, that one was good. Then he gets shown another film, and the next film was the gang rape of a woman by a group of men. And by the time they get to the 6th or 7th man, Alex starts to panic. He claims that he feels sick. He says he wants to throw up. He's uncomfortable. He's, like, clearly in distress. And then we see him back in his, you know, his regular room, which the doctor talks to him about his experience and says that this is how the treatment works. It's a type of aversion therapy. And with aversion therapy, you will start to not find enjoyable things that you used to have enjoyed, essentially. And he talks to her about how he used to participate in these sorts of things, and they've never bothered him, even when he was the one participating. [00:33:42] Speaker B: But now that he's watching, this is incredibly bothersome. [00:33:47] Speaker A: So the doctor concludes that that is how the treatment works and that it appears to be working with Alex. [00:33:56] Speaker B: She also lets Alex in on a little secret that he's gonna have to go through two sessions of that the next day. And so he's a little worried. But he's like, okay, like, if I did it once, I can do it two more times. It's fine. [00:34:13] Speaker A: So the next day, he's shown footage of nazis and World War two and I war footage. And the only sound that is playing during these films and footage is not the sound from the actual footage. They're playing music. And they're playing none other than Mister Ludwig van Beethoven. The 9th Symphony, fourth movement, to be. Exactly. And so they are clearly, through this treatment, gonna ruin this music for him, which is his absolute favorite. So he screams out that this is a sin and he loves Beethoven and that, you know, Beethoven didn't hurt anybody. All he did was make music. And that this is a shame and that this is not fair. And he had. He tries to say, like, oh, I'm cured. [00:35:14] Speaker B: I've been cured. [00:35:16] Speaker A: I understand now, like, why all this ultra violence is wrong. I understand why what I did was wrong. I understand now that it's bad for society, this violence, and that everybody deserves to live a safe and healthy life and blah, blah, blah. But really, really, this is because of the music. He just wants the music to stop. Because now, forever, this music will be associated with this sort of violence that he is developing this aversion through. Through the therapy. The doctors basically say, all right, I don't know. [00:35:57] Speaker B: I don't know what to tell you. So. [00:36:02] Speaker C: Like, this is part of the. [00:36:03] Speaker B: Punishment aspect, and I think the minister. [00:36:05] Speaker A: Will be, will be pleased. [00:36:08] Speaker B: So this is basically just a consequence of the treatment. [00:36:16] Speaker A: They also tell him that he will be fine, okay? Which is hilarious. He's gonna be fine and he's gonna be free, actually, he's gonna be released soon, actually, in like two days. So on the final day, Alex has one more test which will be completed in front of a group of observers, those from the prisoner, the minister, staff of the treatment facility, like, people that have known him, you know, throughout his criminal history. And the, basically that they go on a long speech, okay, the minister, he. [00:37:05] Speaker B: Goes on a long speech about how violence and criminality is soon to be a thing of the past because now that this treatment is here, and then there's really, like, no reason to not reform people with this aversion, you know. [00:37:26] Speaker A: Technique and that the prison system has never worked for them and that this is a far better and far more effective approach and that his party as a whole had promised to make, make that, make the environment safer. They had promised to restore law and order and make the streets safe to be walked again. So with that said, alex is about to encounter his final test, which will be done with no drugs, nothing in his system. And he's up on a stage and he doesn't know yet what this test will have in store. But rest assured, we already know what this is going to entail. He's going to have to encounter violence and his right now in person. [00:38:22] Speaker B: So the first encounter is a man who comes out onto the stage with Alex and tells him that he smells bad. And Alex is like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm sorry. [00:38:35] Speaker C: I took a shower this morning. [00:38:37] Speaker B: Like. [00:38:39] Speaker C: And the guy is like, okay, well, are you calling me a liar? [00:38:41] Speaker B: And Alex says, no, of course not. So then the man just starts attacking him physically. He starts to, he slaps him, he, you know, pinches him, he kicks him. He has it down on the ground with his foot on Alex's chest and. [00:39:00] Speaker A: Is asking Alex to become violent and fight back. Alex absolutely doesn't want to. And in fact, he claims that he's going to be sick at the thought of even fighting back with this mandev. He tells his attacker that he'd like to stand up and asks him to stop. [00:39:24] Speaker B: And so the man puts his shoe over Alex's mouth and says, you can get up once you do something for me. Lick the bottom of my shoe. And through Alex's gagging, he manages to stick his tongue out and lick the bottom of that shoe. And he doesn't do it just once. And so he is really, really committed to not being violent now that that one's over. Okay, that's not enough. We gotta have another one just in case, because you never know. Right? So the next or second portion is an absolutely gorgeous woman comes out onto the stage in low lighting. And the lighting, the spotlight is essentially, basically just on her and her body. And she's, like, over the top beautiful. And as she walks out, she is. [00:40:36] Speaker C: Naked pretty much everywhere, except she does. [00:40:38] Speaker B: Have a pair of underwear on, but that's it. And she walks towards Alex, who had been on the ground on his hands and knees, still retching from the previous encounter he had with the man. [00:40:52] Speaker A: And as she approaches Alex, Alex, in his narration, says that she is beautiful. And as soon as she approached, all he could think of was wanting to have sex with her very badly, like, right then and there. And so she stops in front of him. And as he reaches up from, you know, his kneeling position at this point to touch her breasts, he starts to gag again. He literally starts to gag again. So at that point, they're like, oh, fuck. I mean, he's cured. 100% cured. Everything is fine. [00:41:40] Speaker B: Like, we just did some weird shit. [00:41:42] Speaker C: But all is well. [00:41:43] Speaker A: Even the prison. People from the prison in the audience are clapping, and they're like, no fucking way. Can't believe this works. But, yeah, I mean, it's. It's a small shame that Alex would never be able to have a form of, like, sexual relationship in the future again with a woman, specifically because of this. But due to his crimes of rape, I don't know that he should even be trusted with a woman anymore. [00:42:10] Speaker B: He goes on to ask the minister if he did well and did he pass, essentially, this test. And he's told that, yes, he did great. And they basically explain it a little. [00:42:26] Speaker C: Bit further, which is to say that. [00:42:29] Speaker A: Anytime now, from here on out, that he is accompanied with violence or any violent, violent thought. Even those thoughts will be accompanied by physical distress. And so, in an effort to not experience this physical distress, he must not have the. These violent thoughts. [00:42:52] Speaker B: Okay, we're all on the same page. [00:42:55] Speaker A: Everything's cool. Except the. The chaplain from the chur from the prison has now decided that he has a problem with this and that his problem is that Alex no longer has any choice. He cannot make choices, moral choices, on his own anymore. He has been robbed of that very thing because now he cannot solely rely on his cognitive processing to make decisions for himself. [00:43:33] Speaker B: He has been to the chaplain plagued by this treatment. And so the very essence of being good, morally good, has essentially been taken from him such that he cannot make the conscious choices that someone who chooses to be morally good can make. The minister kindly tells the chaplain to fuck off because we're not concerned. We're not concerned with ethics. We're not concerned with the, you know, symptoms that are related or are quasi related to this type of treatment. We're only concerned with cutting down crime by whatever means necessary, including a treatment like this, including robbing someone from their decision making. So the very next day, Alex is. [00:44:39] Speaker A: Freed from the treatment facility, and he is returning home. And he just kind of walks in and finds his parents and another man in the living room reading the morning paper. And there is discussion of his treatment and his release subsequently in the paper. So when he walks into the living room to find the three of them together, he is not greeted with the. [00:45:07] Speaker B: Type of warm affection that you would anticipate him having been greeted with. And his parents are like, well, we really wish you would have called us because, like, it's not that we're not. [00:45:20] Speaker A: Happy to see you. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Like, we just didn't know. And you can tell that they're a little afraid of him still, which I think is warranted. And essentially they're like, well, we just found out about all this shit this morning. [00:45:36] Speaker C: So, like, this is all a lot for us. [00:45:41] Speaker A: And Alex is like, okay. He kind of shrugs it off. Then he goes over to his dad, and he's like, dad, there's a strange. [00:45:50] Speaker B: Man sitting on the couch by mom. Who the fuck is that? And he. [00:46:01] Speaker A: This man, his name is apparently Joe. And Joe is a lodger. [00:46:08] Speaker B: He's renting a room. So he's not a complete stranger, but. [00:46:12] Speaker C: He is to Alex. [00:46:15] Speaker B: But Joe's not just renting any room. Joe is renting Alex's room. [00:46:21] Speaker A: And so Alex approaches Joe and is like, nice to meet you. [00:46:27] Speaker B: How's the room? [00:46:28] Speaker A: Are you enjoying it? Everything comfortable? And Jo gets up in his face and says, I know who you are. I know the things that you've done. And now you're just returning here to make your parents lives miserable again. And I've been more like a son to them than you ever have been. And this angers Alex. And as soon as he goes to put his fist up to, like, throw a punch at Joe, he starts to gag. And everybody's all concerned. But his mother, having read the morning paper, knows that that is the impact that the treatment has had on him. So she encourages everybody to be quiet and kind of just let him sort it out until it stops. And so he does. And it's nice to see the treatment working. It's nice to see it in practice, obviously. I'm sure that makes his parents feel a little bit better. And he then proceeds to ask about. [00:47:35] Speaker B: All of his old stuff. Where is it? His dad lets him know that there's new regulations in place regarding the victims of, you know, said crimes and that basically all of his stuff was taken and sold as compensation. [00:47:51] Speaker A: And when it comes to the topic of his snake that he had the snake's name was Basil. [00:48:00] Speaker B: His father lets him know that there was an accident and that the snake is dead. [00:48:04] Speaker C: I dead. [00:48:06] Speaker B: When it comes down to the discussion of whether Alex will have his room back or not his father says, well, it would be wrong to kick Joe out. You know, Joe has a job contract and it lasts two years and that's why he is, you know, living here. And he's already paid next month's rent. So it really wouldn't be fair for us to take our own son back into the house when this man is paying rent. And I don't really understand that logic but I guess I'm not in that situation anyhow. Joe says that he has an obligation as well and his obligation is to ensure that, you know, Alex's parents are protected from him and that basically none of them should be fooled by his facade of, you know, having been treated because he's just gonna go back to carrying on in the way that he used to. And Alex, you know, just lets everybody know that he suffered not. He's not just a little. He suffered a lot as well during his treatment and that everybody just wants him to continue to suffer and so he will be on his merry way. So once Alex leaves, he goes over, you know, he's like, I'm gonna make my own way. It's fine. Everybody wants me to continue to suffer. I'm just gonna go. So he makes his way to, like, a little park area and he encounters a man who's asking for, like, some spare change or money. And Alex is like, okay, you know. [00:49:52] Speaker C: Give you what I have. [00:49:53] Speaker B: Basically the man immediately recognizes him. And wouldn't you know it? It is the same man that him and his friends beat up at the beginning of the film. There was the alcoholic man singing under the bridge. And so this man goes and gets all of his other friends that are under the bridge and rallies them up and tells them, like, I never forget a face. This is the man. Him and his friends they beat me. They kicked me, they punched me. Like, this is not a good man. [00:50:27] Speaker C: After the. [00:50:29] Speaker B: The pals under the bridge take it upon themselves to try to. I'm not sure if they're trying to beat him up, but it looks like they are. It's broken apart by a police officer. And wouldn't you know it, during Alex's time in treatment and in prison, his friends have become law enforcement officers. I am not going to comment much further on the fact that I would be. It would be wrong of me not to take the opportunity to recognize that previously violent Menta in their lives had decided to become law enforcement officers, to continue to be violent, but in a way that they are protected. I would not expand further on that, and I think I've said everything I need to say. So two of his old pals, who are now police officers, have decided that they're gonna take him out and have him prove he really has been cured. So they handcuff him and walk him to a trough of water in the middle of some, you know, wooded area. And they beat him with a baton, one does, while the other holds his head under the water in the trough. [00:52:01] Speaker C: I have to give it up for. [00:52:03] Speaker B: Malcolm McDowell, for this scene, particularly, because I am not certain that I am capable for holding my breath under the water as long as he did. And it is quite a long time. Like maybe about a minute. When they've decided he's had enough, they unhandcuff him, and they leave him for him to catch his breath and mock him and tell him that this will not be the only run in that they have with each other. Later that night, it starts to pour and storm, and all Alex can think about is how he has no home and no money. And where does someone with no home and no money go? We don't know. Right. Presumably you could stay outside. Not that that's a safe option. And never, you know, it's not a safe option. But along his walk through this wooded area where he is, he finds a sign for a house and walks up to the house, not recognizing that this very house is the house that he and his friends invaded in the first, you know, 20 minutes of the film in which he raped a woman and had the husband watch. And this is where he turns up again. Alex approaches the door of this home, and he rings the doorbell a few times. And I. Frank, who is the writer, the husband, right. Is now accompanied by a younger man named Julian. And Julian is Frank's bodyguard. And Frank is typing while Julian is working out and Julian says, hey, I'll go get the door, as Frank is now also confined to a wheelchair. So Alex collapses as soon as the door opens and Julian carries him in. And Frank immediately recognizes Alex, but not in the way that you think he recognizes Alex because he has been reading the papers and Alex's face has been all over them. So he asks Alex what happened to him? And Alex says, I was beat up by the police. And Frank immediately has sympathy for him and empathy for him. You know, you were tortured by, you know, the police. You were tortured with this new experiment technique, and now you are tortured again, still by the police, even when you're not in their care or not in their captivity any longer. And so he immediately is kind of excited. He asks Julian to draw a bath for Alex and put him in so that he can tidy himself up. And Frank immediately sits down to phone a colleague while Alex is in the bath to talk about how, you know, this isn't the first time that, you know, someone has come asking for help from them at their home because it's very common that police officers bring people to the outskirts of, you know, the land that they live on to torture people. And so that, like, basically Alex is not the first and he certainly won't be the last, but that he's excited because he can use Alex while he's in the confines of Frank's home to essentially use him as an interview subject and to write an article about him or write a series of articles about him that will sway people away from voting for this side of government again in the next election. And he basically has a political agenda, and he wants Alex to be his. His hacky sack or his ball for playing this game. So after he hangs up the phone, he hears Alex in the bathtub singing. And, of course, Alex had to choose no other song than singing, singing in the rain. And it is at that point, finally, when Frank realizes that, yes, this is the Alex from the papers, and, yes, this is also the Alex who raped his wife. Yep. Then is when he discovers. So previously, when Alex had been in the home with his friends, they had all been wearing masks, so it was slightly more difficult to discern that this was Alex and who was the same man as the man being discussed in the papers. But as soon as Frank is cognizant of this, he is immediately frightened and perplexed. So Frank sets out with a new plan. Fuck the article. Fuck the writing. No, thank you. Not in the way I had originally planned it, but maybe in a different way. So Alex has served a nice warm meal, a plate of spaghetti with some red wine and fresh clothes, might I add. Frank is very hospitable. Frank and Julian come downstairs to join Alex. And it appears as though Julian has been briefed on who Alex is. And Frank angrily accompanies Julian to the table with Alex. And he's so angry that he's become hostile, but he really can't. He has a different plan. Okay, so he forces Alex to drink an entire glass of wine and forces him to drink another. And it is at this point that Alex is becoming incredibly suspicious and extraordinarily uncomfortable with what is transpiring. Frank can't even contain it anymore. So he starts to go off on Alex about how. My wife used to do everything with me. I, um. She used to do everything for me. She left me to my writing. She was my everything. This, that, and the third. And Alex is like, oh, well, where is she? Is she away? And Frank says, no, she's dead. She was very badly raped. And so Alex is kind of like, okay, like, understood. I'm sorry to hear about that. And Frank is like, yeah, she was a victim, another victim of the modern age, and so are you. And she was gang raped by a group of young hoodlums. And they left me very badly beaten. So much so that I have been confined to a wheelchair. And by the way, Alex, whenever you were in the bath, I had. I found some friends that are going to come here to help you. He says that they're very important people and that, yes, they're coming to help you. They're very interested. And the doorbell rings. And what do you know it? There's some Beethoven, a little bit. Now it's different. It's the Fifth Symphony. Frank stays while the doorbell rings. Julian goes to answer and forces Alix to drink yet another glass of wine. And when the folks come in through the door, it is none other than two of Frank's co conspirators, a man and a woman. And they sit down at the table to ask Alex if he can answer a few questions about what they've heard in the papers and being interested in his case and that they want to help him. And, you know, that's. They just want to interview him. Essentially, the woman asks, or tells, rather, that it was reported that within your treatment, you have now become. You've now developed an aversion to acts of violence and sex, but additionally acts of music as well. And he explains that like he was watching a film of a concentration camp when he was in treatment. And the background music that was playing was Beethoven. And so now he has the same reaction to sex, violence and Beethoven. Basically, it's not all music, and it's not all of Beethoven's music. It's only the 9th symphony. He explains that when he hears the 9th Symphony, he wants to die. That's all he can think about is that he wants to die, but he wants to die peacefully with no pain. And that he still feels very miserable and very much down in the dumps and down in spirit, but not necessarily suicidal. He just feels low on himself, presumably for all the actions that he's committed. And he feels that he can't see, you know, too far into the future and that he constantly feels like something terrible is going to happen. And just as that occurs, he falls face first into the plate of spaghetti that he had previously been eating. You see, Frank's plan had changed after he found out who Alex Washington and worked with his co conspirators to essentially stage an attempt to. He basically wants Alex to kill himself. That's what he wants. So they take Alex and lock him in a top story of a home in a bedroom that he cannot unlock the door of. And with massive, massive speakers and massive amounts of volume, play Beethoven's 9th Symphony on repeat as loud as they can, which obviously elicits a less than positive reaction from Alex as he bangs his head against the floor and runs around the room and tries and begs and pleads for the music to stop. Now, in his state of distress, he spots a window in the bedroom. And given that there was not really any other way out of the situation, he opens that window and takes a jump. But don't worry, dear listener, because he does not die from impact. You see, Alex lives after a, what he describes as a long, long, long black nap and gap within his memory. He wakes up in the hospital, presumably he was in a coma, unconscious, and he is visited later in the hospital by his parents, who he asks, why do you think that you're welcome here? Which I think is a valid question. And they said, well, of course, we read about you in the papers again, because now all the papers are flooded with what Frank had also anticipated, which is that he wanted to write about how this sort of treatment is bad. It's coming from the government. It's bad. The government's bad for inflicting this form of treatment and that it's so bad and the consequences are so dire that even Alex tried to do himself in over this treatment. Um, so Frank did get essentially what the article that he wanted, but just in a different, different way. So while Alex is in the hospital, of course he has to be evaluated by a psychiatrist for his previous action that landed him in the hospital. [01:04:35] Speaker C: So a psychiatrist comes in to visit Alex and he is asking her about dreams. She says she knows a little bit about dreams. And he tells her that he's been having this dream that while he was in a coma that the doctors were tinkering around in his brain and sort of, like, rewiring everything. And her face at the beginning of the scene goes from, like, really positive and cheery. You know, I'm a psychiatrist. This isn't something to be afraid of to this utter look of, like, oh, my God, is he saying what I think he's saying? So she shakes it off and she tells him that this is not uncommon due to the brain injuries that he sustained and alleviates his stress basically by just dismissing what he said. So then she says, you know, here's the real reason why I'm here. She's going to show him a series of slides and there's going to be two or more people in each slide, each with a speech bubble. Now, one of the speech bubbles will be filled in with dialogue and he has to tell her what the first response is that he can think of for the other person to say. Basically, what she's looking for is to analyze his responses. And, dear listeners, your humble narrator Alex has, in fact, not been cured at all. He's shown, for example, a slide of someone showing another person a nest of eggs. And he says that his response would be that he would like to smash them. He's also shown a photo of a woman speaking to two men. And the woman says, that boy you always quarrel with has fallen ill. And Alex says that the men in the slide would say, I'm gonna smash your face in. So he evidently has reverted back to violence. Later, he's visited by the minister of the interior during a meal time and the nurse feeding Alex because he, like, can't use his arms. The nurse feeding him leaves. And the minister starts to talk to him about his recovery and the suicide attempt. And he ends up taking over feeding Alex because Alex tried to feed himself and spilled the food all over himself because he can't move his arms. So he explains to Alex that he and the government are terribly sorry about all of this and that their true intentions were to help Alex recover. He also admits that they had followed recommendations for treatment that had turned out to be incorrect and assures Alex that there will be an investigation conducted to find out who exactly is to blame. The minister goes on to say that the government wants to be friends with Alex and they still want to help, but that there are others out there that want to hurt Alex, such as Frank, the writer who has since been placed in prison for his subversive writing and political agenda. And in a final effort to protect the image of the current government, he tells Alex that the government is going to take good care of him after he's discharged from the hospital, providing him with a good job at a good salary. And they'll see to everything, basically to correct the reputational damage that Alex has done with his treatment and subsequent suicide. Suicide attempt. Finally, he admits that he has a surprise for Alex, which includes two giant speakers being rolled into the room in enormous flower arrangements, followed by photographers taking photos of the minister and Alex Together. The speakers are playing none other than Beethoven's 9th Symphony. And that is where we end. So you might be thinking, is this the part where she tells us what it all means? And to that, I say, I'm gonna try. Let's talk first about the therapy. The Ludovico technique is a therapy practice that was inflicted onto Alex, obviously. And I. While we know that this is essentially a type of aversion therapy, there's a little bit more to it than that, because Alex is injected with a drug prior to his therapy sessions. You know, the ones where he listens to music and watches ultra violence on film. And the drug is hard to see on the screen when you're watching it, but it's called serum 114. And this is a lovely cheeky reference by Sir Stanley Kubrick to another one of his own works. There is a device in Doctor Strangelove called CRM 114. He also keenly placed a 2001 Space Odyssey record in the frame, very visibly in the scene when Alex goes to the record store. So do with that what you will. Ludovico is a variant of the name Ludwig. So this is an obvious reference to Beethoven. And is this truly what aversion therapy looks like? The long and short of it is kinda. It's a pretty. It's not a far fetched example. Aversion therapy is a psychotherapy designed to cause a patient to reduce or avoid an undesirable behavior pattern by conditioning the person to associate the behavior with an undesirable stimulus. I'm going to link for you in the show notes, the Encyclopedia Britannica page about this, because I think that that is, like, the greatest aggregator of information, and most typically, the chief stimuli used are electrical, chemical, or imagined aversive situations. Using electrical stimuli in therapy may look like giving the patient a painful yet light shock when the undesirable behavior is displayed, such as in sexual deviation therapy. Chemical therapy is commonly used for alcoholism, in which a patient is administered a drug that, when interacting with alcohol, causes nausea and possible vomiting. Covert conditioning might look like showing a smoker images of smoking and pairing that image with another, showing aversive stimuli like nausea or physical distress in a systematic way that reduces the positive cues associated with the behavior of smoking. And it's really interesting because you can see an example of this anytime you want. If you're in Europe, if you go buy a pack of cigarettes in the eude, call me and tell me what the image is on your carton. Like all the times that I've seen cigarettes to buy in the EU or seen someone with a pack of cigarettes, there's an image on it that they're ranging from various things like photos of throat cancer, lung cancer, children coughing, like children using inhalers, etcetera. Aversion therapy can also be used for instances like nail biting. They can take, like, a substance, like a spicy ingredient, or like a bitter tasting oil and paint that essentially onto the nails to make them taste bad. It has been used for obesity. It's been used for gambling addiction. It's been used for very unfortunately, in the LGBTQ community. And the American Psychological association declared the use of aversion therapy to treat homosexuality dangerous in 1994. And today, I will have you know for some peace of mind that using aversion therapy to alter someone's sexual orientation is now a violation of conduct. So it is not something that should be used any longer today. And if it is, please, please, please take every opportunity to report those physicians, because that is entirely unethical. Now, here's the kicker. Aversion therapy has to be consensual. If it is applied in a non consensual way, then it is considered to be inhumane. At the Judge Rotenberg Educational center, as an example, the staff of the center were performing non consensual aversion therapy to behavior modify, basically the students, and it was part of the applied behavioral analysis program of the educational center. And luckily, the center has been condemned by the UN for torture. So I give them up. Give it up for that. But that is where we ultimately stand right now. Alex's understanding of this treatment was that it was just a treatment. And he goes in, he comes out, it's just a treatment center. Like, he's not going to be bad anymore. He does not know that he is going to be taking part in aversion therapy or what that actually means. When he gets to the treatment facility, they tell him he's going to be watching films. They don't say what kind they give him. They inject him with a medicine, and he is like, oh, what's this for? And they say, oh, it's for your malnourishment. So all of this was done without his consent. And therein lies the problem. So the whole point of the film, in my opinion, with all that being said, and others will say that it's about prison reform, is if you're incapable of committing bad or violent acts, does that make you actually good? The removal of Alex's choice and free will simply does not make him morally virtuous or good. A morally superior individual is one that is capable of doing bad things but actively chooses not to. Alex is not morally virtuous given this argument. Additionally, the therapy has a negative and possibly unintended externality, which is that he can no longer defend himself when he's attacked by drunken men under the bridge and later by his former friends that have turned into police officers. He's not able to fight back to protect himself. And so an individual like him has become a target for exploitation by society and his peers. And again, had he possibly known and consented to the therapy, knowledgeable, right, informed consent, he likely would have asked a question about this. Well, given that I won't be able to be violent anymore, what will that mean if I need to protect myself? Valid question. Free will is the capacity or ability to choose between different possible courses of action. And that is why the chaplain from the prison had such an issue with this. And that's why he made the comment to Alex when Alex approached him in the library about the program. The concept of free will and its limitations and true meaning have been the debate of philosophers for as long as philosophy has existed. So essentially, since the beginning of time, the beginning of human time, not humanoid time, or any other version of homo sapien that came, any other version of the homo genus that came before us. And the reason that free will is so important is because of the two components of it, freedom of action and moral responsibility. And I have a few sources linked in the show notes for you that you can read up more on this, because I think that this is incredibly important to the understanding of the film. Freedom of action would be like, as an example, not wanting to go to dinner with your friend for their birthday because it's raining outside. So you can choose to either go to the dinner and uphold the commitment and the plans that you made to your friend, or you can stay home. You have that choice. This is under normal circumstances, where no one has a gun to your head and no one is forcibly taking your body and moving it to go. This is just you making the choice on your own. Moral responsibility would be that you are responsible for the outcome, whether that be the praise or the blame for an action or inaction, and being held liable for those decisions. So if you didn't go to dinner with your friend for her birthday, the moral responsibility would be that your friend is upset with you for canceling plans with them on such an important day. You would be held responsible for that decision. If you did go to dinner with your friend, they may praise you by thanking you for your attendance because of the decision that you made to go. So it appears that the general consensus which I subscribe to is that you cannot have moral responsibility without freedom of action. Additionally, you may have free will without having freedom of action. For example, you're going to go to dinner with your friend, and let's say you have plans with them, and you decide that you are going to go. All right? While you're getting ready to go to dinner, a blizzard strikes, okay? And you can't open the doors to your home anymore, or your windows, and your car is covered in snow, and so you can't even get to it. You can't access or leave your home. That's an unforeseen circumstance. But sometimes these things happen. In this example, you have the free will to choose. You have the freedom of choice to choose to attend dinner with your friend. But you have been robbed of that freedom of action to actually attend the dinner because of the weather conditions. And this is where the film comes back into play. Alex, after his therapy, has been robbed of the freedom of action. Free will is entirely dependent on freedom of action. Alex no longer has the freedom of action because every time he's put into a potentially dangerous situation or a situation where he is upset, he literally cannot express his emotions or defend himself because his brain has been conditioned through this therapy technique in such a way that he is no longer capable of performing these actions. So even though Alex can make the choice to hit Joe in the face when he disrespects him in front of their parents upon his discharge from the hospital, he cannot execute the action. Therefore, Alex does not have free will. He does still have some sense of moral responsibility, though, right? His moral responsibility lies in his previous actions. In his previous actions prior to the prison and the therapy, he was able to say, I could go to school or I could go out and rape women I'm going to pick to go out and commit crime. And he has to live with the moral responsibility of that decision, which is that he committed a crime and he's disgusting and a piece of shit. So all in all, the treatment didn't even work. If it did, right? Because some people will argue that it did anyway. But if it did, okay, how in the fuck, at the end of the movie, would he be able to listen to Beethoven's 9th without freaking out? This is the same song that was playing when he threw himself out of the window. So he's accepted this assistance from the government in exchange for his silence on the matter of the treatment and whether or not it was effective to further drive political agenda. And Alex has been used as a pawn in this game of politics the entire time, which is not, like, a totally uncommon tactic. Like, sometimes individuals are used as pawns in political game. So it's not entirely out of the question. But again, the treatment didn't work. Now, I don't know if it's implied this is based on how you want to read the film. It could be that from his discussion with the psychiatrist that the doctors did actually somehow undo this therapy, this treatment, on his behalf. But it, you know, it's not. It's not something that, like, we have a concrete evidence of. So whatever happened after he threw himself out of the window, the treatment no longer works. And that is a very bad image for the government, which is why they say, okay, you just don't talk about it. And, you know, if people try to. [01:24:20] Speaker B: Get you to talk about it, we're. [01:24:22] Speaker C: Gonna put them in prison. Wink, wink. So we'll take care of everything. We're gonna put you up in an apartment. We're gonna get you good job with a good salary, and all you owe us, basically, is your loyalty. If at this point you're asking yourself, does aversion therapy even work? I think that's a very valid question. And again, the answer is sort of. Healthline has a pretty good summary of this, and so I'll link that as well. And in their summary, it's basically saying that it's somewhat effective for treating alcohol use disorder. And recent research found that participants who enrolled in the treatment that had reportedly craved alcohol prior to the therapy had reported also avoiding alcohol between 30 and 90 days after treatment. So, like, the short term impact seems really great. The long term impact, not so great. So in that same study, 69%, roughly, of the participants of the study were reported to be sober still one year after treatment. And that was pretty much where it ended. So we didn't need to follow up with those people anytime after that. And I would consider a year probably still pretty decently short term. But in comprehensive research in the 1950s, it was noted that basically the abstinence of alcohol use was not something that lasted long term. In that study done in the 1950s, after one year, 60% remained sober, but 51% were sober after two years, 38% after five years, and 23% after ten or more years. So it kind of seems to be something that works maybe like while you're in the treatment, like, or very shortly after, but that's kind of where it goes away. If the stimulus is not continuously applied or introduced into the habit, then. [01:27:03] Speaker B: It. [01:27:03] Speaker C: Doesn'T really make sense. Like, if I'm a smoker and I go smoke in the treatment facility and you shock me every time I take a drag from my cigarette, or you give me a medication that makes me feel sick when I smoke a cigarette, then when I'm not in the facility anymore, I can smoke the cigarette without anybody shocking me or anybody giving me medicine that's going to make me throw it up. It's been also reportedly unhelpful for smoking in that same vein. Especially, like, if you ask somebody to rapidly smoke, like, if you ask somebody to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in a short time, they may feel ill, but really all that does with something that has such a tolerance like that is it if I can smoke a whole pack and be fine, but feel like kind of nauseous, then now my tolerance has just increased because now I know again that I can just keep smoking and like, nothing bad is going to happen to me. And that's why I think, like those, it's kind of cliche, but I did know people that did this in high school, their parents did this with them, but they would be like, oh yeah, like, you want to drink alcohol? Okay, I'm gonna buy you a 24 pack. You've never had alcohol, by the way. I'm gonna buy you a 24 pack and you're gonna drink the whole thing in like 2 hours. It's like, okay, well, that's dangerous. Number one, because you might risk your child dying, and how would you like to be responsible for that? But on the other hand, all it does is teach you that, like, you didn't die because you drank alcohol. Like, you're fucking fine. Your hangover might suck, but then just don't drink 24 in 2 hours next time. If you're smoking, just don't smoke the whole pack in one sitting. Like, it almost makes more sense for the treatment to work to teach you moderation rather than total abstinence. And I did mention earlier that it was considered and probably attempted for treating obesity, but, like, that is fucking hard. Okay? You basically have to generalize all food to make somebody not eat it. And then they can only eat the food that's available to them while they're in the treatment. But then when they leave the treatment facility, like, there's other foods other than the ones that were available to you. So it just doesn't really make a lot of sense. I'm sure in some capacities it might work, but the bottom line is that the results are mixed. It kind of sort of works, doesn't really work long term. And because aversion therapy is a type of counter conditioning, a second, you know, form of treatment, like using exposure therapy might be combined with it for a better outcome. Exposure therapy basically is when you expose somebody to things that they are fearful of. This can work sometimes in phobias, but I'm going to be so honest, if I'm already having aversion therapy done on me, then exposure therapy would probably put me over the edge. So, yeah, it can be used still, and it might be used still, but if it is used, it probably shouldn't be used alone for actual effectiveness. To close our discussion, I want to briefly pinpoint the, you know, the concepts and the. The theme throughout, which is that you have this sort of totalitarian government that comes in and sort of tries to change everything. And I'll get into the actual meaning of the term a clockwork orange. But I really feel strongly that the underlying messaging is pretty much solely about free will and the concept of free will, and that the underlying message and the one that. Or, sorry, the overlying message, the one that is, like, the most obvious to the watcher, is obviously the one about the government. And I don't know that it, like, wants to discuss government as, like, inherently bad or inherently evil. It very well could be, but the institution of a government in this film is one that seeks to suppress free will in favor of the state. Right. It says, well, we can just give everybody this treatment, and then, because everybody gets it, then there won't be any bad people anymore. And on the surface, that sounds really great. That's not actually necessarily true, first of all, like, you could still obviously, like, fly under the radar and, like, never be caught and, like, never get the treatment. So what you could do as a government is make sure that everybody, 100% of the population, get the treatment. And again, it may not work. It may not work for everybody, or it might. And the concept of taking away someone's free will just because it makes life better for everyone else is nothing morally responsible in and of itself. The government is so conscious of its image in this film, and it seeks to systematically, as a whole, reduce crime through very drastic and unethical measures, as we've discussed, because not consensual, but also because if you have no free will, then you really don't have anything. Having the agency that you have as a human to make decisions and to decide things about your life is like the whole purpose of personhood as a concept, particularly in philosophy. When you think about the term a clockwork orange, you might be thinking, I have no fucking idea what that means. Well, the Oxford English Dictionary does a phenomenal job of doing this for you. And so there are a few definitions, and it's british. So if you're like me, and you often don't understand british slang or terminology, then you may be in the same position where you want to look that up. So the first, there's a couple definitions, and the first one is used in similes and comparisons denoting a person or thing considered to be extremely peculiar. One B is a person who lacks free will and whose actions are determined purely by social or behavioral conditioning. So there you have it. That is why the film and the book are called what they are called. And we can all rest easy at night knowing that. And I could talk about this for, I don't know, probably eight or 9 hours. But because I tried to not have. [01:35:22] Speaker B: Long form content in that way, we're. [01:35:24] Speaker C: Going to stick with our normal between one and an hour, 45 minutes episodes. And so I am going to wrap it up and, excuse me, excuse myself from this topic for now. Before I let you go, I have to remind you that the final girl on 6th Avenue is part of the morbidly beautiful network. Morbidly beautiful is your home for horror. And if you love horror in any way, shape or form, then you're welcome at morbidly beautiful. And you can find my podcast and many others like it, as well as film reviews and merch and a lot, a lot of things. If you enjoyed the show, you can find this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and Pocketcasts. And it would mean the world to me if you left me a five star review and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. For any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, or requests, you can email me at finalgirlon sixmail.com, or you can send me a message on Instagram at Final Girl on six. All sources and information will be linked in the show notes. And if you, you know, find yourself sitting at night thinking about broader social topics and implications of free will and different types of treatment in the world, and you've never seen a clockwork orange, it might be therapeutic. Free you. Thanks for listening and never forget that I am 6th Avenue's very own final girl and I will talk to you very soon.