An evaluation of Surface, Sociopaths, and Spring Breakers

An evaluation of Surface, Sociopaths, and Spring Breakers

            Jeffrey Sconce, a media educator from the United States of America, in his article titled Surface, Sociopaths and Spring Breakers discusses Harmony Korine’s movie Spring Breakers and its place in the world of cinema. He claims that in a rightful world the film should have been considered for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category; but, Hollywood would never do such thing as the point of the film is to show the moralistic decay of the country. He sums his argument up by stating that ”Harmony Korine's sublimely ugly and mean-spirited takedown of American awesomeness will likely go unnoticed, a film that in its own way says [...] nothing could stop America's manifestly obscene destiny to become a nightmare of beer funnels, breast implants, blow, and Skrillex.”

            The article in most ways is successful in backing up its premise. The bulk of the arguments come from dissecting various scenes throughout the film and using them as an example to further prove its point, all made more hard-hitting by the usage of rather colourful language. Not much fault can be found in the logic the piece employs to support its arguments, as analyzing the scenes are rather straightforward due to the film not allowing much room for interpretation. 

            That being said, the article is not without its share of faults. Some of the arguments used are rather weak, because they are so self-explanatory that there is no need to dwell on it, and as such the author does not take time to elaborate on them. The analysis of the opening scene, which consists of the depiction of “normal” spring break behaviour by drunk and often topless college students, is a perfect example of this, as all it proceeds to do is explaining what the sequence is about, without offering any insight into how that ties into the point.

Another weak point of the article is its lack of organization. It starts out by going through the scenes in a chronological order, but it soon abandons it and the paragraphs start to follow each other without any real cohesion. Between some of the paragraphs that discuss the actual plot of the movie and what they represent, there are randomly thrown in mentions of the cinematographic style, overarching themes and technical aspects. This makes the article lose most of its cohesion, and makes for a chaotic article to follow along. It is also worth noting, that even though the topic statement presents the problem of why is this film overlooked, it does not answer in the end and just dwells on the themes of the film.

            Overall the article does accomplish its goals though. Even though the text has some rather glaring faults, including its sometimes lacking support, focus and construction, the author’s usage of strong language, clear points and overall understanding of the topic still make for an enjoyable and informative read on a film that has more layers to it than most people think.