“I’ll never leave your side, my dear Clyde. I’ll ride till I die.” Bonnie Parker’s words, spoken in the 1967 film named after the infamous duo, are quite literal when studying the criminal couple genre. No matter how much they love each other, the road will always be the double-edged sword of freedom - at some point, the rest of the world will catch up with you. Starting with the film “You Only Live Once” (1937), through “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), and continuing to this day, the romanticization of crime has been too irresistible for filmmakers to pass up. Despite the shared time period of the narrative within the movies, the fact that they were made thirty years apart allowed the genre to grow and change. These criminal couple genre shifts
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Rebellion meant the loosening of morals; suddenly violence and sex weren’t so bad if Bonnie and Clyde were doing it. The intense political atmosphere created a shift in the genre, and it’s likely we’ll see another rendition soon, given the current resistance with a voting system that no longer feels democratic. Another revolution is on the rise, and Hollywood won’t pass up the possibility of a duo that challenges current values, turns them on their head, and shoots them in the eye. The genre has much more room to grow - what if the couple wasn’t heterosexual and white, or what if they did something besides rob banks? What if they gained follows? To a certain extent, they already have. Who knows if the real Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow had the picnic conversation where the latter thanks the former for telling his story, but it’s certainly survived throughout time. The genre evolved so drastically in thirty years, who can predict what it will look like in the upcoming eighty year mark since its filmic beginnings in “You Only Live Once”. The question remains, however, will the infamous couple ever overcome their inevitable end? If we, the audience, know going in that “despite the thrill of acceleration, escape is illusory, and the drive into the sunset takes you right back where you started”, why do we watch? Rarely in genre films can we predict the exact fate of a protagonist. The answer is simple: We continue to watch, decade after decade, despite the genre shift, in hopes it will end differently. Maybe one day, Bonnie and Clyde will continue to drive uninterrupted, free from time, reality, and the system that once held power over the rebellious
Rebellion meant the loosening of morals; suddenly violence and sex weren’t so bad if Bonnie and Clyde were doing it. The intense political atmosphere created a shift in the genre, and it’s likely we’ll see another rendition soon, given the current resistance with a voting system that no longer feels democratic. Another revolution is on the rise, and Hollywood won’t pass up the possibility of a duo that challenges current values, turns them on their head, and shoots them in the eye. The genre has much more room to grow - what if the couple wasn’t heterosexual and white, or what if they did something besides rob banks? What if they gained follows? To a certain extent, they already have. Who knows if the real Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow had the picnic conversation where the latter thanks the former for telling his story, but it’s certainly survived throughout time. The genre evolved so drastically in thirty years, who can predict what it will look like in the upcoming eighty year mark since its filmic beginnings in “You Only Live Once”. The question remains, however, will the infamous couple ever overcome their inevitable end? If we, the audience, know going in that “despite the thrill of acceleration, escape is illusory, and the drive into the sunset takes you right back where you started”, why do we watch? Rarely in genre films can we predict the exact fate of a protagonist. The answer is simple: We continue to watch, decade after decade, despite the genre shift, in hopes it will end differently. Maybe one day, Bonnie and Clyde will continue to drive uninterrupted, free from time, reality, and the system that once held power over the rebellious