Singing in the Rain

In 1952, Singing in the Rain was a happy musical number. It featured a pleasant, happy-go-lucky guy, who was outdoors during a storm, with his umbrella, singing and dancing in the streets, not caring about the rain falling around him. It was a song about happiness and enjoying oneself in any circumstances. In 1971, with the movie A Clockwork Orange this song was used in a violent rape scene. I do not think the purpose was to change the meaning of this song, but rather to add irony to the situation. The group of adolescent Psychopaths chose what I believe to be a random woman, and beat her and her husband up to the rhythm/melody of this tune. They enjoyed participating in the ultra violence, and used this song as a means to make the situation more disturbing. They chose to sing about happiness while ruining someone's life. I'm sure this was to make the act much more disturbing by sporting a happy carefree attitude during the rape; they wanted to show the woman that they enjoyed it, and her loss of dignity and a regular life meant nothing to them. They weren't going to acknowledge to the woman the horror of the act they were doing; they wanted to act as if it were nothing, ensuring to portray a lack of remorse, to make the situation even worse for her. So what happened between the family friendliness of the first movie and the extreme violence of the second?

This is a very difficult bog for me to write for many reasons. To begin with, I have not seen either movie. On top of that, I also do not watch very many movies and know little of movie history or what characterizes movies that belong to certain periods of time. But more importantly, I am and have always been extremely sensitive to violence. It's not that I would prefer to remain sheltered; I suppose I am abnormally empathetic. When watching violence on television or in movies, I cannot help to try to put myself in the victims shoes. I am constantly upset about how much violence occurs in our world, and even when it is a fictional character, I get sick to my stomach, and after seeing something extremely violent, it takes me a while to recover, and I am disturbed for days. When studying history, and watching the news, I am always amazed at the evilness that human beings are capable of. There are a lot of horrid things that happen daily throughout the world that we merely turn a blind eye to. As much as I wish that there were a way to fix this, it bothers me that sometimes signing a petition or donating money to a cause is the most that one can do, and does not always accomplish what was hoped. For this reason, while I have not read A Clockwork Orange, I think that books/movies like that, that analyze society and violence and try to make some sort of statement about it are important. One can hope that such works of art could maybe inspire at least someone to steer away from the direction of violence. I don't think it's easy to determine how much that is the case. However, I have read that after the release of this movie, a teenager was raped to a few guys singing Singing in the Rain and a young girl was beat by someone wearing the same clothing as the main character. I suppose the message of such stories merely goes over some people's heads. One can only hope that the book has raised more awareness of violence, or possibly even stopped more violence than that created by those who chose to pervert the overall meaning of the story. Either way, I do not enjoy seeing such scenes in movies. (oops! widow!)

Since I do not know that much about film history, I will admit that I had to do research to be able to answer the question of what happened in between the two movies (which I will credit to www.filmsite.org, in case anything needs to be sited. It is a very lengthy, in depth website of the history of film decade by decade, which I highly recommend.) From what I read, the fifties were influenced by post-war affluence, more leisure time activities, middle class values, and the rise of modern jazz. I feel that these influences can be seen in the movie Singing in the Rain, due to its carefree feeling. So the question becomes what happened afterward? However, I think that Singing in the Rain may not have been created if it were not due to censorship. Censorship had forced movies to be very tame at the time, making Singing in the Rain a very fun, interesting movie for many. Since the mid thirties, films had exhibited a seal showing they were in compliance with a certain code. In 1950, this code was revised to ban subjects like drugs, abortion, prostitution, and kidnapping, putting a big limit on what material would be shown in movies. While movies could be released without the seal, my guess is that they were not due to the fact that they thought it might affect profits. However, had controversial material not been so discouraged at the time, it is possible that a movie like Singing in the Rain would not have gotten so much attention or been so successful.

In the fifties, the youth became an important market for the film industry. However, Hollywood began to realize that it might be better to portray the youth as more rebellious than happy-go-lucky, as they were shown in the past. Since television aired a lot of family friendly material, the film industry had the option to explore making movies that were geared towards an older audience. For these, and other reasons, I am guessing that video began to leave its "harmless" state (as seen in movies like Singing in the Rain, from the early fifties) and move into other territory. Later on in the decade, films were portraying things like drugs, slang, fights, sex, and homosexuality, which may not have been the most harmful material, but were still a step towards the direction of later films like A Clockwork Orange. The production code, which movies had to pass to get the seal of "appropriateness," was weakened as the fifties progressed. By the sixties, film censorship was slowly being abolished, and began to feature more explicit sex, violence, and nudity. In 1966, the Production Code Administration was no more. The lessening of censorship definitely allowed films in the seventies to have more freedom, as in A Clockwork Orange. Graphic violence became more prominent, and even pornography (such as Deep Throat) became more mainstream. Finally, aside from just a loosening of censorship, my guess is that the book and movie of A Clockwork Orange might have been a reflection of the time as well. While I have not read or seen the movie, I can guess that during the sixties and seventies, when hippies were widespread and promoting anti-violence, it is pretty likely that this would have influenced someone to write a book or screenplay against violence. I am not sure if that is the case or not, but if so, it is interesting that someone would use such extreme violence to protest it. However, I suppose that often times extreme portrayals of the worst case scenarios can be the best way to get one's point across.