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List of cultural references to A Clockwork Orange

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Still from "A Clockwork Orange"
Still from "A Clockwork Orange"

Popular culture references to Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) and Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film adaptation have been wide-ranging, from popular music and television to movies and other media.[1][2] Some references are based on themes central to the story, such as the use of Nadsat words or phrases, whilst others have incorporated visual elements from the film. The film made Kubrick one of the most influential artists of the 20th century,[1] and the film has become a cult classic.[3]

Fashion

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  • The film version influenced bands' fashion styles.[4]

Films

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  • The film version of A Clockwork Orange immediately revolutionized the science fiction film genre, opening the way for other films to portray elaborate dystopian narratives and to intelligently analyze social dilemmas. Many film directors have borrowed themes and cinematic techniques from the film.[1] The film is an essential part of modern cinema and films often reference it,[5] with examples of films using similar cinematic techniques to A Clockwork Orange including THX 1138 (1971), Westworld (1973) and A Boy and His Dog (1975).[1] The June 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly named A Clockwork Orange the second most controversial film of all time, after The Passion of the Christ.[6]
  • The Filipino film Batch '81 (1982) contains several visual references to A Clockwork Orange while also echoing similar themes. During pre-production of Batch '81, director Mike de Leon had the creative team watch several foreign films, including A Clockwork Orange.[7]
  • The torture scene in Reservoir Dogs (1992), set to "Stuck in the Middle With You", was described by Quentin Tarantino in an interview as a direct reference to the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex kicks the writer and rapes his wife to the tune of "Singin' in the Rain". A Clockwork Orange is also referenced at the beginning of the film when all the men are walking in slow motion, as Alex and his droogs did.[8]
  • In Trainspotting (1996), director Danny Boyle referenced the bar Alex and his droogs sit in during the opening scene, where a club has similar text-based wall art.[9]
  • In Gangster No. 1, a 2000 British crime film, Malcolm McDowell, who played Alex in the film, plays the protagonist gangster as a sort of older version of Alex.[10]
  • The protagonist in Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) is named Alex, and the film features a furniture-shifting scene set to a sped-up synthesized version of the "William Tell Overture".[11]
  • In Richard E. Grant's film Wah-Wah (2005), the main character, Grant himself as a child, takes comfort in watching a late-night screening of the film.[12]
  • In the film Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (2006), Jack Black, while trying to sleep on a park bench, is assaulted by a gang dressed as the droogs.[13]
  • Heath Ledger said he was inspired by Alex DeLarge to play the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008).[14] While preparing for the film, he kept a journal containing many images, notes, and dialogue excerpts on A Clockwork Orange.[15]
  • The 2021 film Space Jam: A New Legacy features multiple background extras dressed as the Droogs among a crowd with many other unrelated characters. The revelation of this cameo caused some controversy due to the earlier-announced exclusion of Pepe Le Pew from the film for his sexual misconduct within his cartoons, despite Alex and company being guilty of far worse.[16]
  • The Spanish-French film Murder in a Blue World (1973) takes some cuts.
  • The Mexican film Un Mundo Maravilloso (2006) has a scene that mimics the one where Alex is fed by the politician.[17][18]

Literature

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The original Chinese title of A Perfect Crime (下面我该干些什么?) by Chinese author A Yi (translated by Anna Holmwood) was based on the opening line of A Clockwork Orange: "What's it going to be then, eh?"[19][20]

Music

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Róisín Murphy, the singer from dance act Moloko who are named after the nadsat word for milk
Róisín Murphy, the singer from dance act Moloko who are named after the nadsat word for milk
Lana Del Ray Ultraviolence logo
Lana Del Ray Ultraviolence logo

Periodicals

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Television

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  • In the Get a Life episode "Houseboy 2000" (10 March 1991), Chris is restrained in a chair with his eyes bound open by his friend Larry who then forces Chris to watch a video during which "March from A Clockwork Orange (Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement, Abridged)" plays, in an attempt to break Chris of his conditioning.
  • The Simpsons contains frequent references to the film.[49][50] In the episode "Dog of Death" (12 March 1992), Mr. Burns brainwashes the Simpsons' dog Santa's Little Helper into being one of his attack dogs by using the Ludovico technique. In the episode "A Streetcar Named Marge", Bart speaks in a British accent and says "Can I slog off school tomorrow? Got a pain in me gulliver", similarly to how Alex says "Bit of a pain in the gulliver, mum" as an excuse to miss school. In the episode "Treehouse of Horror III" (29 October 1992), Bart dresses up as Alex DeLarge from the film. Also, in the episode "Duffless" (18 February 1993), as a result of Lisa's electroshock therapy, Bart experiences difficulty in reaching for the cupcakes after dinner, in a manner similar to the effects of Alex's therapy; in particular, one shot parodies the film, with Bart looking up at the cupcakes on the table, in the same way Alex looks up to a naked woman's breasts after his therapy. In the episode "Treehouse of Horror XXI", at the end of a segment titled "Master and Cadaver", Maggie is seen wearing Alex's hat and eyelash. She drinks milk from her bottle with the film's theme song playing. On 19 October 2014, the show parodied the film with a segment titled "A Clockwork Yellow" in the episode "Treehouse of Horror XXV".[51]
  • There have been many references to the film on South Park (when asked to name something he considered a mind-altering work of art, series co-creator Trey Parker said, "It's super cliché, but A Clockwork Orange really did fuck me up".)[52] In the show's controversial 201st episode, "201" (2010), Mitch Connor (Cartman's hand-puppet) pretends to be a black man and asks to use the telephone at someone's house, alluding to the similar scene in A Clockwork Orange. In episode 206, "Coon 2: Hindsight" (2010), the scene where the Coon attacks the rest of his gang was reminiscent of the scene in which Georgie of Alexʼ Clockwork Orange droogs insists things be run in a "new way" that entails less power for Alex, who responds by attacking them while walking in order to re-establish his leadership.[53]
  • In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!" (2009), the militaristic reform school the boys are sent to after getting busted uses the Ludovico technique in order to stop Phineas and Ferb from using their imagination.[54]
  • In the Archer episode "A Going Concern" (3 February 2011), Archer takes measures to stop the sale of ISIS, including using the modified Ludovico technique.
  • In "Contorno", the fifth episode of season 3 of Hannibal (2015), the same section of Gioachino Rossini's The Thieving Magpie (as used in A Clockwork Orange) was played on a record player during a fight between Jack Crawford and Hannibal Lecter in Florence, Italy. Executive producer Bryan Fuller described the scene as "a full-on homage to Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange" on Twitter.[55]
  • In Zoku Owarimonogatari (an installment of the Monogatari Series), episode 5 (2019) contained a scene in which the character of Yotsugi was asked to look for a location that was etched onto the back of the main character, Koyomi Araragi. When she lifted his shirt, she discovered that there were no markings and the two characters had a skit together which featured the aforementioned Koyomi with the same machine on his head that was used by Alex DeLarge in the infamous Aversion Therapy scene. The following scene then switched between shots of Koyomi with the machine on his head as well as Yotsugi in the well known "droog costume" as she whips the air around her.
  • In season 2, episode 1 of Clone High, the characters that had been frozen for the previous 20 years undergo an "A Clockwork Orange style montage" (as quoted in the show) in which they're forced to watch a presentation, put on by Principal Scudworth, explaining everything that had happened in the time they were frozen. This scene is inspired by the "Ludovico Technique" therapy that Alex undergoes.

Sports

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Video games

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Thill, Scott (2002). St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Gale Group.
  2. ^ Melanya Burrows (28 January 2005). "Addicted to Droogs". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 14 August 2007.
  3. ^ Hills, Matt (2002). Fan Cultures. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24024-7.
  4. ^ Collins, Karen (2005). "Dead Channel Surfing: The commonalities between cyberpunk literature and industrial music". Popular Music. No. 24. pp. 165–178.
  5. ^ Russel, Catherine, 1995, Narrative Mortality: Death, Closure, and New Wave Cinemas, University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0-8166-2485-2.
  6. ^ a b c d Collins, Clark (2 June 2006). "Like Clockwork". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 27 April 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  7. ^ Gomez, Jerome (2017). Bacth '81: The Making of a Mike de Leon Film. Singapore: Asian Film Archive.
  8. ^ Richards, Jeffrey, 1997, Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad's Army, Manchester University, ISBN 0-7190-4743-9.
  9. ^ a b Burgess, Anthony (2012), "Foreword", in Biswell, Adam (ed.), A Clockwork Orange, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, pp. xx
  10. ^ Nelmes, Jill, 2003, An Introduction to Film Studies, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-26268-2.
  11. ^ "A Brief Survey of 'A Clockwork Orange' in Pop Culture". Flavorwire. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  12. ^ "Wah-Wah (2006)". BBC. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  13. ^ Jones, J.R. "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
  14. ^ Reagan, Gillian (23 March 2012). "For Joker, Heath Ledger Channels Sid Vicious, A Clockwork Orange | The New York Observer". Observer.com. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
  15. ^ Phillips, Ian. "Here's a peek at the incredibly detailed diary Heath Ledger kept to play the Joker in 'The Dark Knight'". Business Insider. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  16. ^ Langmann, Brady. "The Internet Is Confused By The AClockwork Orange Cameo in Space Jam: A New Legacy". Esquire. Esquire. Retrieved 23 July 2021.
  17. ^ ✂️ Referencia a Naranja Mecánica, retrieved 2 September 2022
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  20. ^ Eric Abrahamsen (18 June 2015). "Read Paper Republic: Who's Speaking Please?". Paper-republic.org. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  21. ^ O'Leary, Chris (5 May 2010). "Suffragette City". Pushing Ahead of the Dames. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
  22. ^ Bethea, Charles (9 January 2016). "The Beautiful Meaninglessness of David Bowie". The New Yorker. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  23. ^ Adams, Chris Adams (24 July 2002). Turquoise Days: The Weird World of Echo & the Bunnymen. ISBN 9781887128896.
  24. ^ a b Janjatović, Petar (2024). Ex YU rock enciklopedija 1960-2023. Belgrade: self-released / Makart. p. 237.
  25. ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. pp. 248–249. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  26. ^ "100 Best Albums of the 80s". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  27. ^ Tannenbaum, Rob (2011). I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-1469204147.
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  29. ^ "Single 027". U2wanderer.org.
  30. ^ a b Wyeth, Wyndham (24 April 2011). "23 Band Names Inspired by Literature". Paste. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  31. ^ James, Martin (16 June 2000). "How to milk Blondie for all they're worth". The Independent. Archived from the original on 14 December 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2012.
  32. ^ Gallagher, Robyn (26 October 2012). "5000 Ways To Love You". Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  33. ^ "Biography of Cage". Definitive Jux. Archived from the original on 12 September 2008. Retrieved 9 September 2008.
  34. ^ "Rob Zombie Storms Hollywood, Revisits 'Clockwork Orange'". MTV. 27 December 2001. Archived from the original on 7 November 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
  35. ^ "Montreal *Mirror - Rockin' and rollin' in sad, dark Poland". Montrealmirror.com. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
  36. ^ Williams, Ben. "Influences: Gnarls Barkley". New York. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  37. ^ "Max Cavalera Says Sepultura Guys Didn't Like 'A Clockwork Orange' Movie". blabbermouth.net. 16 January 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  38. ^ Henderson, Alex. List of cultural references to A Clockwork Orange at AllMusic. Retrieved 2011-06-28.
  39. ^ "'A Clockwork Orange' Author's Reps Are Into Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence". MTV. 30 May 2014. Archived from the original on 2 June 2014. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  40. ^ "Arjen Anthony Lucassen's Star One's "Victim of the Modern Age" Release Information". 14 December 2010. Retrieved 30 December 2013.[permanent dead link]
  41. ^ "In bold color, My Chemical Romance returns to Sayreville". The Star-Ledger. 9 May 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2014 – via NJ.com.
  42. ^ "Catching Up With The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys Writer Gerard Way". pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  43. ^ Ryzikde, Melena (23 December 2010). "Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  44. ^ "A Clockwork Orange: The droog rides again". The Guardian. 11 May 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  45. ^ Hogan, Marc (23 December 2011). "Watch Rihanna's 'Clockwork Orange'-Inspired 'You Da One' Video". Spin. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  46. ^ "Arctic Monkeys 'Suck It and See' Album Named After Graffiti in A Clockwork Orange". FeelNumb.com. 10 May 2016. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  47. ^ "Marilyn Manson's most chilling beauty looks". Dazed Beauty. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  48. ^ Mad June 1973 issue #159 contents and cover image
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  51. ^ Fowler, Matt (26 July 2014). "SDCC 14: The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror Doing Clockwork Orange, Weird Al to Perform for the Show, More". IGN. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  52. ^ "Trey Parker, Matt Stone South Park team". Exclaim.ca.
  53. ^ Modell, Josh (27 October 2010). "The Coon 2: Hindsight". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 1 November 2010.
  54. ^ "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted! (Parts 1 & 2) Episode Allusions". TV.com. Archived from the original on 23 August 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2009.
  55. ^ "Bryan Fuller on Twitter: "@leogormano Rossini's "The Thieving Magpie"".
  56. ^ Orejan, Jamie (2011). Football/Soccer History and Tactics, McFarland. p. 117.
  57. ^ "TNA Wrestling results – March 3, 2005". Online World of Wrestling. 3 March 2005. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
  58. ^ Clevett, Jason (25 August 2004). "Alex Shelley: Next Generation superstar". Archived from the original on 31 July 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2010. I got the Alex part from the main character of A Clockwork Orange.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
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  60. ^ Ryan, Jeff (2011). Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America. New York: Penguin Group D. ISBN 978-1591845638.
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Further reading

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  • McDougal, Stuart Y. Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Cambridge University Press, 2003 ISBN 0-521-57488-9
  • Marrone, Gianfranco. Ludovico's Cure. On Body and Music in "A Clockwork Orange". Legas publisher, 2009
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