Based
on the cult 1978 novel of the same name, The Basketball Diaries (1995)
follows the teenage travails of Jim Carroll (Leonardo DiCaprio), as he sinks
from star sports player to smacked-up down-and-out, ultimately finding redemption
through his writing. His experiences range from abuse at the hands of paedophilic
Catholic priests, the death of his best friend from leukemia, being thrown out
by his mother, and trying to rent out his own body to stay alive. It's not a
happy film, but its sensitive portraits of disaffected teens struck plenty of
chords in its audience: it deals with abusive authority figures, escapism through
drugs and masturbation on a rooftop. It contains explicit scenes of drug abuse,
as Jim and his friends graduate from solvent highs to heroin lows. It received
a mixed response from critics, some of whom felt it was just too realistic,
but DiCaprio was fêted for his performance as a strung out, DT-ridden
junkie who still manages to retain the audience's sympathy despite the depths
he sinks to.
Reviews
It
also contains a scene where Carroll daydreams in class about bursting through
the door, dressed as an anachronistic Terminator (considering this is meant
to be 1960 something) and blasting his annoying classmates and sadistic teacher
away with a pump action shotgun. This scene is shot in blood drenched slow motion,
with every kill telescoped out into a series of grotesque moments, as Carroll
is cheered on by his friends. This dream sequence is the scene cited in a number
of school shooting cases as triggering violent actions in those who watched
it. This scene is what had the makers of the movie, along with the creators
of video game Doom named in a $33million lawsuit (later dismissed)
brought by the relatives of those killed by 14 year old Michael Carneal in Paducah,
Kentucky in 1997.
"It
was like I was in a dream, and I woke up."
— Michael Carneal (attrib) as he waited for police to arrive
In the media storm
which followed the Paducah shootings, The Basketball Diaries was repeatedly
named as the film which triggered Carneal's actions. He apparently mentioned
it to police when arrested. However, his friends state he had never actually
seen the movie as he "hated DiCaprio". It will never be proven how
much of an influence, if any, this movie had on Carneal - it is part of his
whole media experience, which, scarily enough, seems fairly typical of an unhappy
teenage boy who spent long hours without any adult supervision, watching TV
and playing video games in his bedroom.
This is a classic
example of a moral panic: a tragic event happens and politicians, parents and
the media cast about for some sort of scapegoat to contextualise it (occurence
and signification). The Basketball Diaries, dealing as it
does with the darkness of youth culture, was the chosen target. Public attention
was focused on the key dream sequence, and, despite later denials by Carneal
and his friends that he had never seen the movie, his alleged remark to police
("Yes, I have seen this done in `Basketball Diaries") was seen as
proof of direct influence. The Basketball Diaries gains the status
of dangerous text (Warner Bros offer full refunds to any video store wishing
to remove it from its shelves) and the wider social implications
are endlessly discussed in the newspapers. In an effort to enforce social
control, the relatives of the victims seek legal redress against the
creators of the text. Unfortunately, this is a moral panic which looks set to
repeat itself whenever a school shooting occurs, as in the subsequent cases
in Littleton, Colorado and Springfield, Oregon.
Columbine
Links were also
made between the Littleton, Colorado shootings in 1999 and The Basketball
Diaries. The appearance of the Trenchcoat Mafia echoed Carroll's in the
movie.
Further
Reading