Study Guide to Popcorn

Key Concepts
Ethics, moral responsibility, society; film violence
Summary
Bruce Delamitri is a film director who makes very violent but stylish movies. Bruces movies
are hip. Post-modern cinematic milestones, dripping with ironic juxtaposition. His killers
are style icons. They walk cool, they talk cool. Getting shot by one of them would be a
fashion statement (from the book cover).
Wayne and Scout are psychopaths who are killing people without apparent reason. Many
people consider Bruces films to be the cause of the violence. As a way of avoiding the death
penalty they decide that Bruce must take responsibility. They break into his house on Oscars
Night and a terrible siege begins.
After the final bloodbath the arguments continue over who is responsible for a violent
societyand this violence in particular.
WARNING: Contains strong language; violence; sex
Cultural significance
Popcorn stayed at the top of the hardback best-seller lists for quite some time before being
released in paperback and has been translated and published widely around the world. It is
also a successful West End play now at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1
(directed by Laurence Boswell).
Ben Elton has said I dont think balanced people can be driven to be any different from
what they are The suggestion is that those who are open to anti-social behaviour may be
seduced into believing it is the norm I feel slightly exposed here because I am putting a
point I dont entirely believe. (The Daily Telegraph, July 29th 1996).
Biographical background
Ben Elton was born in South London and studied Drama at Manchester University. His
numerous television writing credits include The Thin Blue Line, Blackadder, The Young Onesand The
Man from Auntie. He has written two hit West End plays and three previous internationally
bestselling novels. His plays and novels have been widely translated. He tours occasionally
as a stand-up comedian. Popcorn is his fourth novel. He is going grey, is married to Sophie
Gare and lives in Notting Hill.
Other books by Ben Elton
Ben Elton, Batchelor Boys The Young Ones Book
spin off of the TV series which Elton co-wrote with Rik Mayall and Lise Meyer
Ben Elton Stark (1989)
His first novel which sold massively in Britain and Australia. It was reprinted 23 times in its
first year of publication, and sold over a million worldwide.
Ben Elton, Gasping (1990)
Based on his successful West End play starring Hugh Laurie
Ben Elton, Gridlock (Warner Books 1991)
Ben Elton, Silly Cow (1993)
Ben Elton, This Other Eden (Simon and Schuster 1993)
Overview
The book opens with the narrative switching between Bruce Delamitri being interviewed by
the police and him being interviewed by Oliver and Dale on Coffee Time USA the morning
before. Most of the book is the events that took place in the intervening 24 hours.
On Coffee Time USA he is quizzed over a series of killings that had taken place, apparently
copying killings depicted in his latest film Ordinary Americans. He is expected to receive the
Oscar for Best Director that night but a controversy is raging over whether or not his films
have given rise to this violence or whether they merely show life as it is. Bruce maintains that
it is the latter.
The narrative then moves to switching between Bruces appearance on Coffee Time USA and
the movements of Wayne and his pretty waif-like girlfriend Scout. They are known as the
Mall Murderers and have been killing people across America in exactly the same way as the
couple in Ordinary Americans.
Bruce protests in strong terms that the association between his films and these killings is an
invention of news editors; he maintains that people arent influenced in such a direct way by
what they see. He insists that artists dont create society, they reflect it. And if you dont like
that, dont change us, change society (p. 14). Wayne and Scout are watching this in their
motel room hatching a plan.
Bruce spends the afternoon before the Oscars addressing the film studies course at the
University of Southern California where he himself studied. He impresses the students but
not the dusty old Prof. Chambers who asks some very penetrating, critical questions and
gets the better of a very angry Bruce.
Bruce arrives at the Oscars in a limo which crawls through the heavy traffic. He watches the
crowds staring and straining to see whos inside. They couldnt see anything: all the limos
had mirrored windows, so all they could see was themselves That was it! The whole truth
in one startling image. Why were Bruces movies so successful? Because people saw
themselves reflected in them. Maybe better-looking and a little cooler but none the less
themselves, with their fears, their lusts, their most secret desires and fantasies He was a
mirror. He did not create a world for people to watch; they created a world for him to film (p.
54).
His acceptance speech at the Oscars is embarrassing waffle. At the same time, Wayne and
Scout are moving on having murdered two people at the motel.
At the post-Oscars party Bruce drinking hard. He is rude to everybodyespecially to a
young woman named Dove who he accuses of making up the terrible emotional abuse
shed suffered. Bruce claims to have an addictive personality and therefore was not
responsible for his drinking. He rants about the victim culture and the lack of responsibility.
Then he sees a Playboy model/aspiring actress who he takes home intending to sleep with
her.
What they do not realise until they start to undress is that Wayne and Scout are in the house.
Some hours later Bruces almost ex-wife, Farrah and their daughter Velvet arrive. Wayne
phones the TV networks and soon a convoy of media vehicles and police arrive at the house
and a siege commences. The Police Chief and the NBC chief vie with each other as to who is
in overall charge of the situation.
Wayne s plan is for Bruce to go live on every TV network to say that he is responsible for the
Mall Murderers killing spree because his films had such a profound impact on them. That
way Wayne and Scout, though guilty, are not ultimately responsible and will avoid the
electric chair. If he wont do it then he will kill Farrah and Velvet Delamitri and Bruce himself.
Eventually Bruce and Wayne agree to debate it together on TV. Wayne has asked for a
two-person news crew to come to the housewithout clothesin order to film this as well
as a ratings computer so that he can see how many people are watching.
As the debate goes on, the ratings gradually drop until Wayne announces that he will kill
Farrah in one and a half minutes. At the end of the time he does shoot her and the Police
SWAT team start to enter the house. As soon as Wayne learns of this he says that he and
Scout will give themselves up with no further bloodshed on the condition that everyone
watching turns off their TVs. If they keep watching he will kill everyone in the room.
The SWAT team move in and there is a bloodbath. Bruce survived but his career didnt; Scout
also survived. Brooke, Velvet and the news crew as well as Wayne were killed. The epilogue
of the book is a catalogue of litigation: everyone is blaming everyone else and suing them
for damages over what happened. The book concludes, So far no one has claimed
responsibility. (p. 298).
Ideas for discussion
1) With which of the characters in the book does Ben Elton seem to have the most sympathy?
2) What do the various characters believe about human moral responsibility? What basis do
they have (or are likely to have) for these beliefs?
3) What elements of truth and error are there in Bruce Delamitris argument that he is only
holding a mirror up to society, not creating it?
4) What purpose do you think the confrontation between Prof Chambers and Bruce Delamitri
serves in the narrative?
5) Which side of the debate over violence in the movies do you think Ben Elton is on at the
end of the day?
6) To what extent has Elton glorified violence in his book in exactly the way the book seems
to condemn in films? Is his use of violence legitimate because of the point that is being
made?
7) Why do people want to see violent films? Does the public get what it deserves?
8) The controversy about film violence resurfaces fairly often. How could you bring a
Christian angle to a conversation with a non-Christian friend when it is next in the news?