Badlands Blog Post

Badlands was a very interesting movie. It was received with mixed signals by the class, which is very understandable. It was a strange and confusing movie, which just made it all the more interesting. Badlands is the story of murdering bad boy and the girl he brought along for the ride. Kit was a 25 year old garbage man, and Holly was a 15 year old shy little girl. Against her father's wishes, Holly beings a relationship with Kit, and when he finds out, punishes her by killing her dog. When Kit tries to argue his case to the sign painter and is rejected, Kit goes to Holly's house with a gun and threatens her father. After Kit isn't taken seriously, he shoots Holly's father dead, gathers Holly and her things, and burns the house down. After hiding out in the forest for a while Holly and Kit are found by bounty hunters, and Kit kills all of them while Holly runs away. After this, the pair finds one of Kit's old friends and he offers to help. Kit thinks that the friend is going to sell him out, so he shoots him in the gut. As Holly tries to help the man, the owners of the house come and try to talk to the man that Kit shot, so he brandishes a gun, and forces them into the tornado shelter before shooting a few rounds inside, hoping to kill them, locks it, and then steals their car and flees with Holly. They then go to a rich man's house to raid it, stealing some of his clothes and food, but not before talking to the old man (at gunpoint) for a while. After stealing his car and taking off into the badlands, Kit decides to escape to Canada, but Holly has begun to lose interest. After an engagement with the police, Holly leaves Kit and goes into police custody, but Kit keeps running. After a high speed chase, Kit finally pulls over, and shoots his tire to make it look like he popped it on a rock, and goes willingly with the police. They bring him and Holly to an airbase and Kit is treated like a celebrity, much like James Dean, who he is constantly compared to. Kit is given the death sentence, and Holly is put on probation.

This movie was another look into the apparent problem of celebrity in criminality in American culture. After Kit is taken in, the police practically idolize him, get all sorts of souvenirs from him, get him to sign things, ask him all sorts of questions, even the chief of police talks about how swell of a person he is. But that last one brings up another interesting thing about Badlands, that good people can do bad things, but are they still good people? Kit did all that he did, in his own mind, for Holly, and it just got out of control. A good question to ponder after watching this movie, is after all that happened, are Kit and Holly good people, or bad?