Another Crime, Another Cultural Scapegoat

So now we have a case where Stanley Kubrick is going to be blamed for a violent crime. Three teenagers, obsessed by A Clockwork Orange, set fire to a homeless woman. The woman died in a hospital. Here are the questions that I would like to know and that should be asked of the 16 year old referred to as Juan Jose and the two 18 year old kids, Ricard Pinilla and Onol Pinilla.

  • How were they raised by their parents? And why is there nothing here in the article on this?
  • Do these three kids have any history of violent behavior? Given the fact that they publicly boasted about the crime, was this a savage cry for attention?
  • How does recording violent attacks on a mobile phone and exchanging pictures by email have anything to do with A Clockwork Orange or Counterstrike? It suggests to me instead a pathological impulse that originates from within. (Further, the homeless man in A Clockwork Orange is stabbed and beaten up and there is no gasoline poured on anyone throughout the movie. Could it be that they developed the burn-someone-with-solvent idea from their own minds?)
  • Why even have a sidebar devoted to Kubrick’s wishes to withdraw the film when the crime is still being investigated and the corollaries are so flimsy?

Have today’s journalists removed themselves from doing the proper legwork? Here, not even the London Times can support the thesis, much less shine the arc into some of those pivotal gray areas. Or maybe the Times would rather sell papers than perform an investigation into the factors that cause juveniles to commit crimes.

1 Comments

  1. I actually don’t see Stanley Kubrick blamed anywhere in the article. In fact, the last three paragraphs about rising violence in Spanish gangs seem to place blame (such as it is) elsewhere. The sidebar, was, perhaps, added by an editor? Probably the same person who wrote the headline….

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