When Kubrick banned the film in England, he basically confirmed that nobody *got it*

Rating: 10/10 (27 October 2005)

The idea that films are really about other films, that films "fold" the ideas from other films into the story much like you fold bell peppers into a plain omelet to make it more interesting, is not an original one. However, it is an idea that I have stumbled across, or perhaps I knew it all along subconsciously, I just didn't have the reference to make the connection.
Films are essentially about other films, but life can be about films. For example, it is well known that thugs don't feel like a thug unless they affect some kind of film clichÃ©. DePalma's "Scarface" didn't really become popular until it was released on VHS and every gangster wanna be was buying a copy of it, and quoting the films dialogue to no end.
I do get the sense here that Kubrick is trying to make the audience connect to the idea that while films do not cause people to be violent, they can influence people to become violent. The entire movie works on several layers: The gangs wear costumes, Alex's gang fights another gang on a stage, Alex picks up a couple of groupies with a "performance" and the sex scene is shown in an exaggerated fashion (like most movie sex scenes are), the writer who gets beaten is the author of the story (the guy who wrote the book was in Ceylon, I think, when several American GI's broke into his home, beat him, and raped/murdered his wife).
How do they attempt to "cure" Alex? They show him a movie! Albeit, they force him to watch it, but they have also drugged him to associate a visceral reaction with Beethoven and the images. And this is what filmmakers do to us as well. It took my own maturity to finally comprehend some of these ideas, but in college, and looking back much to my chagrin, I watched this movie repeatedly because I thought it was a wicked black comedy. There is nothing funny about this movie, aside from a couple of winks from Kubrick. I think he is trying to put across the idea that movies can condition an audience to think/feel a certain way, and the results are not always for the best.
Violence is never "cool" despite Hollywood throwing mind-numbing amounts of violence at us every year. "We" are Alex, in a nut-shell. We, well maybe not you and I, but vast numbers of children are being conditioned to behave a certain way, think a certain way, talk a certain way. Maybe not in the fashion of Alex, who is forced to watch with his eyelids stapled open, but how many times have you seen a child sit 3 feet from a TeeVee set, tuned out like a zombie?