“Terrible”: the movie criticism Woody Harrelson found hard to deal with
While Woody Harrelson has never managed to get his hands on an Academy Award, he’s come close on a number of occasions. For his efforts in The People vs. Larry Flynt, The Messenger and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Harrelson received three Oscar nominations, proving his reputation among his Hollywood peers.
After coming into the public eye for his role in the sitcom Cheers, the Texas-born actor established himself as a star of notable worth. He committed his talents to some truly brilliant movies, including The Thin Red Line, No Country for Old Men and Seven Psychopaths, as well as one of the greatest TV shows ever made: True Detective.
However, like any actor, Harrelson has occasionally had to deal with negative criticism of his work. The mid-1990s saw Harrelson give one of his most iconic performances as Mickey Knox in Oliver Stone’s romantic crime film Natural Born Killers, originally written by Quentin Tarantino.
The film focuses on two victims of difficult and traumatic childhoods who find love for one another and become mass murderers while being glorified by the mass media. Starring Juliette Lewis as Mickey’s wife, Mallory, Natural Born Killers saw praise for the cast’s performances and the story, but many found its violence in poor taste, especially when some felt that it had subsequently inspired a series of real-life crimes.
In an interview with Fade In, Harrelson admitted that the negative criticism of Natural Born Killers was “terrible”. He said, “I always know when there’s been a school shooting. I’ll see them play a scene from Natural Born Killers on the news. And I’m always like, ‘Oh, boy.’ Then they’re talking about violence in the media.”
Harrelson felt that the media had not shown the true realities of school shooters on the news. For instance, “they don’t show any images of antidepressants, and people don’t widely know that without exception, every one of those kids involved in those school shootings is on antidepressants”.
Interestingly, the actor pointed out the fact that there had been a number of controversies around his other films, The People vs. Larry Flynt and Money Train. The later movie saw a scene in which “fuel was injected into the ticket booth in the subway, lighting it on fire”. When a real-life crime occurred shortly after, Harrelson could not help but be wrapped up in the news for all the wrong reasons.
In the case of The People vs. Larry Flynt, which focuses on the titular pornographer and his dealings with legal and religious institutions, the film had been subject to criticism from prominent figures. Second-wave feminist and journalist Gloria Steinem told women “to make sure they don’t see it and to make sure their husbands don’t see it”.
That resulted in Harrelson feeling “hurt”, with the actor noting, “You want people to see the movies”. The 1990s was a period in which Harrelson felt he couldn’t catch a break, but the fact that he starred in a series of movies that garnered widespread controversy and criticism explains his difficult period.
While Natural Born Killers was indeed the target of some negative criticism, the truth is that it’s just a movie and should not have been held responsible for some of the real-life crimes that occurred. If anything, the movie is ironic in the way the lives of Mickey and Mallory Knox are blown up by the media, which is precisely what happened with the film in real life.
