In Defense Of SPRING BREAKERS

Grinding half naked bodies, excessive amounts of alcohol, a Skrillex song chaotically blaring – this could easily be your worst nightmare. Instead it’s the opening to Harmony Korine‘s unintentional masterpiece: Spring Breakers (2012).

This movie’s been described to “…make audiences ridiculously uncomfortable with its realistically graphic scenes of adolescent sex and substance abuse.” Reviews also claim its disturbing nature is hard to get past, and the partying and overall violence is excessively pointless. So why are there people, including myself, who loved it and are claiming that Spring Breakers gives an accurate portrayal of the modern day American Dream?

A Misunderstood Cult Classic

Harmony Korine, whether planned or not, made a fever dream period piece about 2012, and maybe the reason why everyone found the movie disturbing is because the year 2o12 was a fever dream in itself. Need I have to remind everyone that there were people who genuinely believed that the world was going to end in 2012? You can even take out the fact that Spring Breakers takes place in Florida, a fever dream breeding place for movies (The Florida Project, Magic Mike, Cars 3… I can go on), and just hear the words KONY 2012 and automatically be transported back into a very specifically weird time.

Now I’m not here to convince you that Spring Breakers is a masterpiece (it is), or that director Harmony Korine is a genius (he is) – rather I want to help explain why such a “disturbing” movie is just a very misunderstood take on the modern American Dream.

The American Fever Dream

Throughout each generation, the American Dream has been immensely distorted. The American Dream has always symbolized a way to obtain a “better life”, and while the conceptual idea may still be the same, the fascination with what a “better life” means to the modern generation has changed dramatically.

In Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine was able to incapsulate our obsession with modern standards of self-importance that coincides with a sort of video game approach to the way we treat other people. In the year 2012, and even now, there is a weird fascination with extreme violence and becoming a self-made millionaire through SoundCloud rapping.

I am in no way criticizing what may appeal to someone. In fact, can you blame the way our generation views the American Dream? Raised on social media that desensitizes the way we view the world along with the upbringing of a violent America that would rather showcase brutality in film, instead of the human body.

While this doesn’t include our entire generation (I don’t have the urge to do random acts of violence), Harmony Korine very smartly keyed into the fact that while many of us don’t plan on committing crimes for fun, there’s a general appeal that our society attributes to people who successfully do.

A Comedic Profound Experience

James Franco’s character, ‘Alien’, is one of the most bizarre character portrayals I’ve ever seen successfully pulled off. Alien is a ridiculously eccentric drug dealer that “raps” – he’s covered in tattoos, with a grill that obnoxiously gleams along with his childish grins. He’s manipulative and his lifestyle is straight out of a GTA video game.

And yet he remains the most realistic character in the entire movie. Whether you are horrified by his actions or amused by his sheer dedication to his lifestyle – Alien seems genuinely real. James Franco is fully committed to the role, making a relatively un-redeeming character worthy of our attention. Sure it was easy to laugh at him, which I did a lot, but all of his comedic actions were true to his character’s nature.

If you’ve ever seen Spring Breakers, you are likely to remember the Britney Spears montage. The dreamy but passionate song “Everytime” plays over clips of the characters in bikinis strapped with guns – brutally terrorizing other people. This scene is inherently disturbing, but the usage of the pop icon’s song transforms it into a comedic masterpiece.

We are able to laugh at ridiculously over-the-top characters and alarming scenes like that because they seem so far removed from reality. The only way this movie works is that the very premise is that it’s supposed to feel like a fever dream. If it were shot in a lucid realistic way, the amusing elements go away and we’re just stuck with really frightening imagery.

Seeing Spring Breakers in 35mm Film is Life-Changing

The first time I watched Spring Breakers I was around 14 years old. My viewing experience consisted of watching it off of a terrible quality YouTube upload on my iPod Touch at around 3AM. Needless to say the fever dream feeling was amplified to the max. Once the movie ended I didn’t really know what to feel at the time, all of the different elements seeming very confusing.

It wasn’t until 5 years later, when I was 19, that I decided to give it another chance. I had the amazing opportunity to watch it in 35mm film with people who boldly loved the movie.

I couldn’t believe not only how amazing the imagery was, but also how unironically profound the social commentary is. What once had seemed disturbingly harsh, now seemed brilliantly necessary. Whether intentional or not, Harmony Korine had something to say. We live in a time where we equally discredit and idolize the lifestyle of glorified crime.

Sure, there may be people who went into the movie solely to see women topless and shoot stuff up – however, the majority of people who loved Spring Breakers found a deeper meaning to latch onto. The American Dream is constantly changing into whatever the new generation wants, but for now it’s Spring Break forever bitches.

What are some other movies that are often misunderstood?