The media portrays people with mental disabilities as wrongful and bad human beings. There are countless movies, television shows and media outlets that portray having a mental disability. The shows often illustrate them doing irrational things, such as killing others, hurting others, and making it seem like they are not a human being. A few examples of this would be the movie/television show, “Fight Club”, the main character has dissociative identity disorder, along with the movie that recently came out “Split”. There are even some adolescent movies and television shows that have some of the same depictions on mentally disabled people. Growing up from a young age watching the shows without knowledge of what is being portrayed. The population …show more content…
It is based around a man named Kevin who has twenty-four different personalities. Each personality has their own voice, thoughts, actions and names. The personalities can change at any given time and the person always knows about the other personalities. In the movie he can feel when a different personality is coming out into the light. They do not just suddenly wake up as a different person without knowledge of the others, the people that do have this disability know about every one of the personalities. In one of Kevin’s personalities he tries to go and get help from his psychiatrist, but it does not seem to help. During the movie, Kevin still has one secret identity that has not been shown. The hidden disability has not come about yet because nothing has triggered it to come out. In the movie there was always a triggering point for any of the personalities to come to the forefront and show themselves. The hidden disability is what turns him into a monster which this is where the movie starts depicting mental disabilities as a bad thing, where he goes around the town killing a few people and keeping one hostage before they eventually kill him. The mental disability that the character has is called “Dissociative identity Disorder”, which was formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. About two percent of the world population has this health
Imagine you have no control over your strength and you share your emotions in a dissimilar way. Imagine you are always dependent on someone else; you shadow their every step and word. You are now in the giant shoes of Lennie Smalls; he has a retardation (autism) that makes him unique and stand out of the run-of-the-mill crowd. On the day the horrific homicide took place, George Milton, the suspect, stole not only a Ruger gun but also an innocent
To dehumanize someone is to strip an individual of their individuality including their human attributes and qualities. For as long as mental illnesses have been known, people have treated those with illnesses much differently. A particular assertion i tend to agree with is that people who have mental disorders are always dehumanized in some way. This dehumanization is shown in One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest alongside other perspectives such as a live and pop culture point of view.
Character Mental Illnesses Imagine being on the run working as a Laborers and having a partner, not like any other, big and strong, but has the mind of a child. In the story Of Mice and Men there are two main characters, George and Lennie. Lennie suffers from Autism from my diagnoses that will be further explained later. George suffers from depression from a screening I ran.
He obtained a split personality(DID). Though by definition people who suffer from Dissociative Disorders can have multiple personalities, in this film the only time he had a change in character was when he was put in situations that he normally would avoid. For example
“Only 50 years ago persons with intellectual disabilities were scorned, isolated and neglected. Today, they are able to attend school, become employed and assimilate into their local community” (Nelson Mandela). Prior to the later part of the 20th century people with intellectual disabilities were often ridiculed, treated unfairly, feared, and locked away in institutions. According to Rhonda Nauhaus and Cindy Smith in their article Disability Rights through the Mid-20th Century, The laws of any nation reflect its societal values. The real life issue of discrimination towards people with intellectual disabilities in the United States and Australia is demonstrated in the novel, Of Mice and Men by showing how this issue affects one of the main characters, Lennie Smalls.
James as known as Radio is the character with a disability in the 2003 movie Radio. He is concerned mental disable which would be classified as intellectually disable. The term intellectual disability replaced mental retardation which was used in past. Students with intellectual disability may exhibit the following characteristics: language developmental delays, limited academic skills, significant need for social skill development difficulty with generalizing knowledge and skills, challenges with metacognition, and adaptive behavior difficulties across multiple domains ( p 154) Radio exhibits several of the characteristics throughout the movie.
Frankie and Alice is a movie that was released in 2010 but didn’t receive widespread notice until 2014. Frankie Murdoch is an African American go-go dancer fighting against two alter egos: a seven-year-old child named Genius, and a southern, racist, white woman named Alice. Genius is seven years old, and, as her names suggests, she is a genius. She is nearsighted, and has an outstanding IQ of 156. She actually likes and cares for Frankie, but is afraid of the other alter ego, Alice.
Mental disability: any type of condition of the mind that affects a person and their normal day-to-day activity on a long term basis. Lennie Small, a poor, migrant farm worker in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, struggles with a mental disability: coexisting (has both of them) Autism and ADHD. Steinbeck includes Lennie’s character to portray how individuals should not be suppressed by their differences. Lennie Small, a character in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, exhibits characteristics of Autism and ADHD. He portrays these symptoms through his nervous impulses, deteriorating memory, and frequent hand movement through petting soft things.
On of the main characters, Lennie, is retarded and often gets him and George into trouble. In the story, the author gives many clues that allude to the fact that Lennie has a mental illness. Throughout the story, he says and does things that shows the reader of this. The ways Lennie is shown as retarded is through his childish manner, his memory loss, his incapability to control his strength, and his cowardness.
The manner of perception demonstrated by the director, Lasse Hallström, of “What Eating Gilbert Grape?” is established towards people with mental disability but specifically autism. Arnie Grape who is played by Leonardo DiCaprio is a 17 year old boy with autism and shares everything with his older brother and carer Gilbert Grape who was played by Johnny Depp. Arnie elucidates basic behavioural and social aspects that a person with autism would have. Hallstrom interprets a person with autism as a minority by clearly separating the town of Endora, Iowa from not just Arnie but the entire Grape family. The media manages to incorrectly interpret the behaviour, social acceptance and understanding of people with a disability and this movie directly
Societal factors like the media and our perception of it and societal expectations since we live in a current society where
I chose to rewatch a film for my observation. The film I watched was “Fight Club”. This film is an example of the complete opposite of US cultural values. It focuses on destroying material comfort and individuality. The narrator who was once a man driven by material possessions is completely changed by Tyler Durden a man who is fuelled by chaos.
In the book “Of mice and men”there are a few characters with impairments. They are not hard to notice some physical some mental. One of the characters Lennie (one of thew main characters)has a mental impairment. The reader can tell this because in the book it states”Well, he seen this girl in a red dress. A dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch everything he likes.
Schizophrenia is defined as a serious mental illness characterized by incoherent or illogical thoughts, bizarre behavior, speech, and delusions or hallucinations, such as hearing voices. (Kazdin, 2000) The narrator, who is the lead character in the movie, experiences schizophrenia which ultimately causes him to start a recreational fight club which is then inhabited by a massive following that intend on blowing up the metropolis in order to save it. Various psychosocial influences contributed to the narrator’s schizophrenia development. The main reason was due to his trouble sleeping which was evident when he goes to see a doctor and begs him for some medication that would allow him to get some sleep.
The media would seemingly be an excellent position to initiate social change and break down social problems, Yet, the media has failed to do so, It has served to reinforce social problems by the language it chooses to use. In terms of describing individuals with disabilities, the language used in the media is mostly negative such as seeing them as “incapable”, “pitiable or pathetic” and “a burden” (Hunt, 1991). Therefore, media in relation to labelling is seen to be a useful way of understanding social problems and can explain the development of relevant policies as they depend on how the social problem is constructed. Analysis of policies have focused on how language is used to shape perceptions of a social problem. (Lister, 2010).