While this category heading says "music," I'm going to include in it sound effects as well, mostly because there is one specific scene in which sound effects act as music would in any other scene. Music and sound can dramatically change the way the visuals in a scene are perceived. Take, for instance, the opening scene of the film, when Mickey and Mallory kill people in a diner. The music playing is rock music, which makes the violence on screen more exciting. Were the music taken away, what happens in the scene would be much more disturbing, both through taking away the music that is making it "cool" and also through the sounds of the blows and gunshots being the focal auditory input. The same song plays through much of the prison riot, serving the same purpose. It takes the edge of the violence and makes it more entertaining, something the media does, but something Oliver Stone should not be doing if he wants to make his argument clear.

The music and sound in other cases not only makes the violence easier to take and more entertaining, but even makes light of it. The soundtrack of the scene which introduces the audience to Mallory's home life is that of a sitcom, with cheerful music and laugh tracks, but juxtaposed with a horrible situation. Mallory's dad makes reference to his sexual abuse of Mallory and the audience laughs. Cruel words are responded to by applause. When Mickey returns to help Mallory kill her parents, the ensuing fight between Mickey and Mallory's father has playing behind it what sounds like the soundtrack of a Looney Tunes cartoon, like one of the Roadrunner vs Wil E. Cyote cartoons. The effect of this is also to assist the audience in making light of what is occuring on screen and not taking it seriously. This could be seen, once again, as a suggestion that this is what the media does to violence, but once again, Stone does not enable the audience to distinguish this portrayal of it as his own.

Music also helps play up the romance between Mickey and Mallory. A romantic theme plays as they embrace after murdering the people in the diner, and again as they drive into a town after their marriage looking for a motel and when they are reunited during the prison riot. Like the softening of the effect of the violence in other scenes, this seems to reflect how Stone believes the media is portraying the couple rather than how he himself is portraying them. It would have worked if Stone had structured the movie more effectively.