The Contradictions of Chaos and Order
The film SLC: Punk! follows a group of friends taking part in the Punk movement during the year 1985 in the religiously oppressed Salt Lake City as they attempt to create and spread chaos. Chaos, which the characters in the film use almost interchangeably with anarchy, is the only rule they live by. However, living by anarchy as their one rule, a contradiction in itself since anarchy means no rules, is just one of the many contradictions in the punk belief system. The characters who participated in the punk movement sought to defy the social norm and rebel against “the system” by listening to new different forms of music, having unnaturally colored hair, and dressing wildly. The main character, Steve-O (Matthew Lillard), starts off in the opening scene narrating about how he is a fully devoted Punk who does not believe in the system and wants to cause as much chaos and disorder as possible just like any other punk. Yet, there are many holes and contradictions between chaos and order, such as, the fact that true chaos can never exist since everything has some sort …show more content…
For example, one of the next stills displays Hitler with the Nazi army saluting him as Steve-O goes to state that government is war and war is fighting and since wars are fought to inflict rules or ideals on other people, even if the ideal is chaos or freedom, it is still a rule which is not anarchy. The reason behind the Nazi army frame is to display that even though what the Nazi army was doing during World War II, murdering innocent people based off religion or skin color, seemed like cruelty and chaos they were following a set of rules and ideals which means what they were doing was not anarchy or chaos. Steve-O’s realization that true anarchy cannot exist leads him to begin questioning everything he believed