Fear and Loathing

1.) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas shows the effected life of two intelligent men after their addiction to drugs. Personally I feel like they were not as addicted to drugs as they were addicted to their ability to escape reality. They enjoyed being in their own world so much that they became totally disconnected from everyone else’s. Although a very entertaining movie and I am sure an even more exciting book, the movie shows you about how drugs can destroy your life. Agreed, that it is intriguing to experience some of the illusions that the men have, but it shows what kind of pathetic life you can have if you take the same path they do. The lifestyle shown in the movie is a perfect example of people with great potential becoming wastes of life.

Apparently Johnny Depp lived with Hunter S. Thompson for three months prior to making the movie. During the three months he tried every drug that the movies shows he does. Not really relevant to the whole blog…but pretty freakin interesting. Depp acts a first hand account of what it is like to be completely “wasted”.


2.) Making Beasts of Men

Throughout Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the main characters are obsessed with everything except reality. The drugs and alcohol consumed by Depp and Del Toro signifies the attempt to avoid life’s hardships and obstacles at every cost. A beast according to dictionary.com can be described as nonhuman, or filthy and cruel. These two men, one a lawyer and one a journalist possess commonly stressful jobs; however, they avoid this stress by using drugs and essentially becoming as inhuman-like as possible.

In our society as Americans we emphasize the belief of “being a man”. A man is someone who takes responsibility and accepts consequences for their actions. These men exercise the possibility of evading these social assignments through their lack of concern for authority and realism. This is what makes them beasts. In order to function in society most people choose to conform to social norms and expectations. These two men avoid conformity at all costs. They become “beasts” not through their natural physical ability to be considered supernatural to their peers; but their reaction to their addictive drugs causes them to be “beasts” of society. Their lack of concern for social conform is why they are supernatural. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas shows that avoiding pain and becoming a beast does not actually involve being someone of natural ability. It is the result of someone who is unable to separate reality from mysticism through unnatural, abnormal means.