Beyond being one of human history’s most brilliant visual storytellers, Stanley Kubrick also mastered the ability to make viewers use critical thinking. His films dig deep inside our brains and pinch every last nerve to ensure we walk away thinking endlessly about what we just saw, and what it could possibly mean.

And somehow, even though he passed away over two decades ago, Kubrick is still toying with us and provoking our thoughts, forcing us to question our realities and everything we thought we believed.

As we’ve made our way through three of his most impactful works this past month, I’ve rewatched these timeless classics through a new lens, now older and (somewhat) wiser than when I originally experienced them. And they’re more striking now than ever. The parables Kubrick laid forth all those years ago still hold immense weight now.

If it’s possible to be the opposite of dated, Kubrick has achieved that, constantly speaking to the problems we face today, either directly or through deep and dark tunnels of metaphorical maneuvering that I have to spend hours digging through Reddit to fully understand — or at least get to a point where I can tell myself I get it, though I may never fully grasp his underlying point.

A couple of weeks ago, when we shined a spotlight on The Shining, I rewatched the terrifying psychological thriller in the midst of a pandemic quarantine, feeling isolated and trapped much like Jack and his family. You could say it hit home, as I became hyper-aware of my persistent writer’s block and how much I was pacing in my apartment all day, feeling like I was going absolutely insane. Quite a way to close out Mental Health Month.

In anticipation of our next Kubrick release, a collection paying tribute to one of the filmmaker’s most polarizing pictures, A Clockwork Orange, I revisited the dark and sadistic thrill ride recently. Little did I know, it would offer a great deal of foreshadowing for this past week.

In the first 15 minutes of Clockwork, we find Alex and his Droogs wreaking havoc all over the city, fucked up on drugs and having the time of their life at the expense of everyone else’s. From beating up an old homeless man in an alley to getting in fights with rival gangs, from invading homes to gang-raping women, these demons used the guise of civil unrest to carry out their deepest and darkest desires, taking advantage of an unfortunate situation to satisfy their thirst for evil.

A few hours after watching the movie, which is somehow both mesmerizing and, at points, extremely difficult to watch, I found myself still obsessing over it. The decompartmentalization of a psychopath terrorist group was astounding. The Droogs could, over the course of a few hours, commit every heinous crime in the books, but also get mad at one of their own for simply bullying another brother within the crew.

“No more picking on Dim, brother. That’s part of the new way.”

It baffled me that this gang of brazen idiots could feel so empowered to roam the city so freely, leaving carnage and despair everywhere in their path, without a care in the world. Of course, the laced milk they guzzled at Korova didn’t help the situation, but the Droogs still knew exactly what they were doing. The drugs simply amplified the hate in their hearts, their complete disregard for humanity.

Little did I know, I’d see a live rendition of the Droogs’ ignorance and savagery just a few nights after I watched A Clockwork Orange.

On that first night of protests after the world had seen the horrific video of four Minneapolis police officers killing George Floyd in broad daylight, my friend and I decided to go join the fight for justice. It sounds cliche, but historically, protesting and rioting is the only way to hold police accountable for their brutal and murderous tendencies. There was only so much donating and retweeting I could do before I felt like I wasn’t doing as much as I could. So, off we went.

We went to the intersection of 6th and Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles, where a massive crowd had gathered to voice their disdain for the violence carried out by police departments across the country since, well, forever. As we approached, the chants became louder and I got chills up and down my entire body. You read about and see archival footage of massive protests but none of it prepares you for the feeling of actually being a part of a new chapter in history.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

What began as peaceful quickly turned violent as LAPD showed up, first with what seemed like a half-dozen helicopters flying lower than I’ve ever seen helicopters fly anywhere outside of Grand Theft Auto, shining their blinding lights down on us to disorient and distract us from the looming assault on the ground.

The smell was something I’ll never forget, a mix of spray paint, burning embers, and the peppery aroma of tear gas. I still hear the sounds, mostly because they haven’t stopped in the past week. The cycle of broken glass, explosions, helicopters, then sirens, then rubber bullet guns popping off, then screams.

I couldn’t help but think of the Droogs.

The mangy crew of outlaws from Clockwork were the most entitled, despicable, reprehensible examples of white privilege I’d seen on film, acting out with abandon sans fear of repercussion. These riot police were Droogs in darker uniforms, hiding behind a badge and shield while they carried out assaults on civilians for simply taking umbrage with those very assaults on civilians. There was no fear of retaliation because they know that we know that attacking a police officer will find us locked up for years, if not decades. Well, if you’re a person of color, that is.

There were some in the riot that did not have that trepidation inside them. There were some in the horde of protestors who clearly possessed no fear of what would happen if they retaliated or committed crimes against the police or the city. And guess what those people looked like.

That’s right, more Droogs.

As the vast majority of the protestors carried signs and cell phones to document history in the making, white teens with a hammer in one hand and beers in the other ran around DTLA smashing window after window, running inside businesses big and small to see what they could get away clean with. Now, I’m not going to lose sleep over a smoked out Starbucks, and neither is Starbucks, honestly, because it was probably fixed and looking brand new the next day. But it was the immense privilege puffing its chest out that shocked me–on both sides, police and rioters.

While millions of dedicated protestors worldwide are standing up to peacefully fight for freedom from the shackles that have bound Black people for almost half a Millenium, white assholes on both sides of the fight saw it as an opportunity to let out their internal rage and inflict physical, emotional, and financial pain on those that had done literally nothing to them.

Droogs, all of them.

And they can act this way because there is no fear of a life spent behind bars. No fear of being beaten. No fear of being shot.

Once the Droogs finally turned on their leader, Alex, and he was arrested for his crimes and sent to prison, he couldn’t accept his punishment and pay the price. No, Alex tried to finesse his way out taking the easy road, getting out of prison early by taking part in a psychological experiment he knew he’d get selected for because of how he looked. And it worked, he got out of prison in just two years. *cough* Brock Turner *cough*

And even after the procedure destroyed his human nature and rendered him futile, Alex persisted and found a way to have it reversed, so that he could be “cured” and return to his nefarious ways, just as the police have been able to brush countless crimes of their own doing under the rug and out of the history books, going on to live their lives without regret as the rest of the victimized population is left to pick up the pieces.

After seeing Kubrick’s film adaptation in 1971 and witnessing what he viewed as copycat crimes being committed around the world in its vein, Clockwork author Alex Burgess had a revelation about the story and decided to follow it up with a sequel. Called The Clockwork Condition, Burgess wanted to further explore the human condition, including crime, punishment, and our place in society as cogs in a machine, as well as our inevitable desire to escape said machine.

Burgess wrote a roughly 200-page manuscript before realizing that he was more storyteller than a philosopher and abandoned the story to instead write an autobiography. But it was later found in a pile of papers inside his house after it was sold following his death in 1993, and transferred to The Burgess Foundation archive in Manchester, England.

While I don’t know if The Clockwork Condition story will ever see the light of day with a wide release, it’s inspiring to know that even if it doesn’t, we’re living in a time in history where we can examine the crimes of our past, analyze what went wrong, and rectify them for the future. There is always still time to get better and get on the right side of history.

You don’t have to be a Droog forever.