Kids: A wake-up call to the world?

I had never heard of the movie Kids before it was discussed in Being Bad last week, so I didn’t know what to expect. After the lecturer introduced the film, I was expecting the worst… but still, I was surprised by just how bad some events in the film are. Watching those young kids recklessly doing what they do every day would shock almost any viewer, and this was the intention of the film- to shock, and to warn.

Says the Rolling Stone review of Kids:
“[Director Larry] Clark, a former druggie who in the mid-'70s spent 19 months in prison for shooting a man, is now a father of two who sees his film as a wakeup call.”

But is the warning effective? I don’t think so. I suspect the audience of this film includes mostly college students and educated adults who follow arty or controversial films, not at-risk kids or their parents. Is the film eye opening? Yes, very much so. But as a call to action, I think in reality it is pretty ineffective. All I can hope is that it inspired a few people to get tested.