The Ludovico Technique
Taken from A Clockwork Orange, this was the name of the morally dubious "aversion therapy" undergone by the Villain Protagonist to "cure" his sadism. This procedure involved him being drugged and strapped to a chair with his eyes forced open and forced to watch hours of violent scenes while his favorite song, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony played in the background. Although in the original novel and film, the end result was that Alex felt extreme discomfort whenever he thought about committing violent acts (or whenever he heard Beethoven's Ninth), the scene has been subject to much Popcultural Osmosis, often ironically as a form of Mind Rape to foster psychopathic behavior.
See also Restraining Bolt.
Not to be confused with the Industrial Metal band of the same name.
Examples of The Ludovico Technique include:
Anime and Manga
- A one-time character in Kino's Journey was entered into an experiment of this type after arrest for a violent crime. The researchers endeavored to remove all his greed and violent tendencies. It actually worked, surprisingly enough — but he also lost the will to work, eat, or otherwise preserve himself on a basic physical level.
Film
- Similar in premise to A Clockwork Orange, the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques' used on the protagonist in The Ipcress File film is pretty close to this. He is subjected to sleep deprivation and bombarded by bright lights and loud noises as part of a procedure also used to give kidnapped scientists complete amnesia of any scientific knowledge.
- The Street Fighter film had a human character transformed into the monstrous Blanka in a scene evocative of this. However, the scientist in charge snuck in good images and sounds as well, like children playing and MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech, to subvert the brainwashing.
- Spoofed in Igor, where Eva is strapped down in this manner and forced to watch gory scenes in order to turn her evil, but the channel on the TV gets changed to an episode of Inside the Actors Studio, and she becomes an aspiring actress instead.
- Referenced in Zoolander during the brainwashing sequence.
Live-Action TV
- Used in a sketch on The Armstrong and Miller Show, against someone who threatens to reveal that half-price pots aren't actually half-price because you never seem them anywhere for full-price. The images flashed up are all of pots marked "For Sale! Half Price!". He even gets to squeeze a shard of pottery in his hand until he bleeds (which I assume is a reference to the film, although I haven't actually seen it).
- On Lost, an Other named Karl is being subjected to this kind of treatment as a punishment, in what seemed to be a direct homage, but we don't actually know what it was for.
- It was because Ben didn't want Karl getting his daughter pregnant. Yeah... there's Overprotective Dad, and then there's Ben Linus.
- Considering that pregnant women on the island all get sick and die, it's a bit more understandable, but still.
- They revealed later in "A new man in charge" that the purpose of this treatment was to erase the memories of the subject, after being subjected to interrogation.
- It was because Ben didn't want Karl getting his daughter pregnant. Yeah... there's Overprotective Dad, and then there's Ben Linus.
- In an episode of Alcatraz this technique combined with electroshock therapy is used to turn a wrongly imprisoned man into a psychotic killer who keeps trying to recreate the crime he was wrongly convicted for.
Video Games
- In Destroy All Humans! 2, Ponsonby threatens Crypto with this. One of the response options prompts Crypto to remind him that he has no eyelids to begin with.
- In the 2010 Back to The Future game, this happens to the alternate, Big Brother-esque Doc Brown at the hands of his wife, who's the real villain.
Western Animation
- In The Simpsons episode "Dog of Death", Smithers props Santa's Little Helper's eyes open and forces him to watch a sequence of destructive scenes set to Beethoven's 9th Symphony, a la the Ludovico Technique. Santa's Little Helper transforms from playful and friendly to vicious and violent, the opposite reaction of Alex.
- In Teen Titans, Malcolm McDowell (who portrayed Alex DeLarge in the film) voiced Mad Mod, a recurring villain who used technological illusions and brainwashing techniques. His appearances have included several nods to A Clockwork Orange, including a scene in the episode bearing his name where Starfire was attempting to resist a brainwashing that was strongly similar to the Ludovico Technique; her eyes were held open by the chair restraining her in front of a hypnotism screen.
- This may be what the Robot Chicken intro with the Mad Scientist placing the chicken in front of the TVs with its eyes forced open is referencing. I'm not sure.
- Happens in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force with Shake and Meatwad, though it's used more to teach them trivia than for brainwashing.
- This happens to the Brain in his backstory in one episode of Pinky and The Brain. It's part of the explanation for why the dark side made him forget.
- IIRC,[please verify] this was used in Codename: Kids Next Door.[context?]
- In Tiny Toon Adventures, Hampton is strapped to such a machine so that he'd stop eating hamburgers. By the end of the episode he is so disgusted by the Nausea Fuel-inducing informative video about how burgers get made that he even imagines vegetables crying out to him.
- The Parents' Day episode of Invader Zim had Zim trying to do this with a wall of TVs on his robot parents so that they'd act normal. Then GIR changed the channels for the TVs...
- Lampshaded in Archer, where the team use a "modified Ludovico" (along with a mind-control chip) to convince Len Trexler not to marry Mallory and buy ISIS.