In the movie American Beauty, nearly every character shows symptoms for a psychological disorder.
Jane, the daughter, is uneasy throughout the whole movie by the constant arguing going on between her parents and also her father’s lust towards her best friend. She has unpredictable mood swings that cause her to lash out at her parents unfailingly. Even just being in the same room as her father is triggering to Jane. She is also impulsive. This is proven in the scene in which her boyfriend asked her if she wanted to run away with him and she immediately accepts without thinking through the consequences. She admits to her boyfriend near the end of the movie that her father has caused massive psychological damage on her, and although she does not explain why, it can be inferred that the reasoning is because he has neglected her for a large portion of her teenage years and also because he is sexually attracted to her sixteen year old best friend, Angela. With these symptoms, it can be assumed that she has borderline personality disorder.
Angela also happens to have a psychological disorder than can most closely be classified as histrionic personality disorder. The symptoms for histrionic personality disorder are excessive emotionality, attention-seeking behavior, excessive need for approval, and inappropriately seductive behavior. These are all evident throughout the movie by her actions towards Jane’s father, Lester. Angela flirts with Lester every time they meet, she brags to her classmates that she has had sexual relations with multiple older men, she loves attention, and she treats those who do not think highly of her very poorly to get revenge.
Angela also seems to have narcissistic personality disorder. She believes that she is...
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The portrayal of each disorder within these characters is highly accurate, but with a few flaws. Borderline personality disorder usually causes people to have extremely self-destructive behaviors. Jane is not self-destructive, but I believe that if the movie would have lasted longer or if her father would not have ended up dying in the end then she would have become self-destructive. Regardless, this simple lack of a symptom does not mean she has an absence of borderline personality disorder. The same goes for Ricky. One of the symptoms for schizoid personality disorder is the lack of long-term relationships, but the movie did not show if Jane and Ricky stayed together so this is unknown. Also, schizotypical personality disorder is sometimes a precursor to schizophrenia, but this is also not shown in the movie. As for Angela, her symptoms are highly accurate.
People who have this disorder are usually self-centered and have a hard time maintaining relationships. This is clear as in the entire movie he doesn’t seem to care about his fiance. He had sex with many other women, and when he was asked if he was dating anybody he responded by saying, “not really.” This also shows how he was a liar. He constantly lied to get out of situations and to make himself feel better. For example, he believed that he made a reservation at a restaurant when they were clearly all booked. As well as being a pathological liar, he was also decietful. He tricked a prostitute into thinking she was safe by going to his apartment. He ended up murdering her with a chainsaw. He was always rude and straightforward to others as he was inconsiderate of anyone’s feelings. He told a woman he worked with exactly what to wear; and if she did not look good he would tell her she was ugly. He was very shallow and arrogant as he cared very much about his facial features. Patrick did not display many emotions except for greed and digust. He showed zero remorse for the people he murdered; it was as if nothing happened. People with antisocial personality disorder also show recklessness. Towards the end of the movie he believed he was going to get caught for all of the murders he completed, and therefore decided to shoot everyone he came in contact with. This included police officers, security
This disorder is described as an “instability of mood, chaotic personal relationships, and a disturbed sense of self” (Rathus, 2010). Mommie Dearest had three instances where this personality disorder was very prominent. In the first instance, audiences witness the moment Joan catches Christina “making fun of her.” This disturbs Joan, so as a punishment, Joan chops away at Christina’s beautiful hair. This can be classified as borderline because hearing Christina say bad things, disturbed Joan’s sense of self. The nest occurrence of this was after Joan had been informed that she was box office poison. Joan didn’t handle that information very well, as she chopped down her flowers. This can be considered borderline because Joan freaked out after being so calm, otherwise known as instability of mood. The final instance we see borderline personality disorder is after Christina got in trouble at school. Joan told a reported that Christina had been expelled. Christina barged in to say that she was not expelled. This caused Joan to have a rage of emotion that resulted in slapping Christina and choking
Disco Di have shown these symptoms during her time when she ran away from her parents because they would not pay attention to her. She got into drugs use, had many promiscuous relationships with boys. Her relations with these boys were full off passion and chaotic with many violent arguments. She would seek out excitements such as getting drunk and go dancing where she would leave with strange men then have intercourse. After being admitted to a hospital, she would always expect and demanded that people would always have to pay attention to her. Also, I believe this because in the journal “Histrionic Personality Disorder” it stated “Histrionic PD is indicated when people exaggerate their emotions and go to excessive lengths to seek attention” (Crawford et al, 2007) and this is indicated when Disco Di ran away from home because she believed her parent did not pay enough attention to her. Next, the diagnostic feature of her other disorder, borderline personality disorder, is that mark of instability of mood, unstable relationships, chronic feeling of emptiness and recurrent threats of
Human beings are fascinated by heroes. Joseph Campbell believes that throughout history heroes have followed a hero’s journey model or monomyth. This means that there are common patterns that can be found in many hero stories. Time after time, people have read about heroes leaving the ordinary world to complete the quest that will change mankind and better the hero. While many tasks and challenges may lie in the hero’s way they always return victorious. The Hero serves a dual purpose. Heroes are smart, brave and resilient. They show the world what is possible through hard work and perseverance. Heroes also reflect the fears and limitations that people are faced with. Heros inspires people to be the best versions of themselves. Chihiro the main character in Hayao Miyazaki’s film Spiri
My Mise-en-scene analysis is on American Beauty on page 217: number 1(The dinner scene). The frame itself is a very closed, tight shot; there is no way for the characters to escape and they're left with only confronting each other in this very little space. The shot of the camera isn't necessarily far away or close either. It's neutral, and we can see the full action of the family's dinner conversation happening right in front of us. My eyes were immediately attracted to the bright, white table and then my eyes focused on the faces of the family. The scene's texture is slightly fuzzy, and is not very detailed. But the character's faces are still recognizable. The foreground of this scene is the table with the man and woman sitting at each end; the middle is the girl-who is
There are two different kinds of disorders, personality disorders and psychological disorders. Psychological disorders are illnesses that an individual experiences as episodes. Personality disorders are enduring traits that are major components of the individual's personality (Rathus, 2010). No matter what kind of disorder a person may possess their lives are affected everyday by them, it takes over their body and consumes them as a person. Disorders are often misunderstood. You do not have the ability to make a split second decision and then continue life without that disorder, it will take lots of counseling. While we are not trained psychologist everyone can learn or identify disorders in popular movies or television shows. In the movie, Mommie Dearest, directed by Frank Perry, Joan Crawford possesses several of these disorders, including bipolar, borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.
This disorder is characterized by inflexibility and fixation on rules, procedures, and orderliness (Rathus, 2010). At the beginning of the movie you watch Joan scrub her hands, fingernails, wrists, forearms, and face. Then she moves on to cleaning her house, she even goes as far to move furniture around to clean certain areas even after she’s already cleaned them. In one of the later scenes of the movie, Joan attacks Christina after finding one lone wire hanger in her closet in the midst of all plastic hangers. She goes ballistic and throws all of Christina’s stuff around then drags her into the bathroom and orders her to wash her already clean floor. Another obvious disorder exhibited by Joan is the paranoid personality disorder. This disorder causes people to be more suspicious of others and to interpret others’ motives as harmful or evil (p.525). She constantly overworked her children and forced them to give up their toys and gifts from their birthday’s and holiday. She did this because she was concerned about them growing up spoiled and never learning to work for what they wanted. She also did this because she wanted the publicity that came along with her children giving away their toys. She was also extremely paranoid that Christina was making fun of her, even though she was just taking after her mother’s footsteps and acting. Joan found Christina’s skits as mockery. In her later years, Joan was always aware of the younger, prettier, more talented women that were trying to take her job. Lastly, Joan sports the histrionic personality disorder multiple times throughout the movie. A person with the histrionic disorder is overly emotional and dramatic and seeks constant attention (p. 526). This side of Joan comes out at one of Christina’s birthday parties. Reporters ask to get pictures of just Christina, and Joan thinks it ridiculous that they don’t want her. She begins to compete with
The reader first learns of Jane when she is an inhabitant of Gateshead. At Gateshead, Jane was excluded from the rest of the family. She was merely an outsider looking in on a nuclear family, excluding the father, who had died. We know that Jane’s Uncle Reed, the father and dominant figure of Gateshead, when alive, was a kind man. He was the guardian for Jane and when dying made his wife promise to always care for Jane. After his death, his wife resented the little girl and did not want to care for her. Knowing what we know of family life in the nineteenth century, we know that Jane’s life would have been much different if her uncle Reed had not died. Being the master of the home one can assume that he would have made sure that everyone in the household would have treated Jane well and with love and respect. A father’s authority was unquestioned. Once Mr. Reed had died, the masculine dominance was somewhat given to his son who did not care for Jane and made her life miserable by all of his cruelty and abuse. Although he did not rule the home, due to his young age, his authority as seen by Jane was unquestioned.
The character I choose to diagnose for this assignment is Blanche DuBois from the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams. The DSM5 states that in order for someone to be diagnosed with Histrionic Personality Disorder, one must exhibit a pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. One must display five (or more) of the following circumstances in order for this diagnosis to be relevant: is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention, interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior, displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions, consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self, has a style of speech that is
The movie accurately portrays the nature of schizophrenia using John Nash as a perfect example, who exhibits many of the key symptoms of the disease. An inability to communicate is one of the main symptoms of schizophrenia, one which takes its toll on interpersonal relationships and intimacy. The movie does an excellent job showing the problems that Alicia had as she tries to help her husband seek treatment and recover from the disease. A Beautiful Mind directly shows a medical definition of schizophrenia. Nash exhibits many of the key symptoms of the disease: hallucinations (he has a roommates but he lives in a single dorm room), delusions (thinks he works for the government), ideas of reference, poor social skills (mumbles, doesn’t talk much to strangers), awkward gestures and facial expressions, and jumbled speech. I do, however, feel it is impossible for a film to convey the exact experience of a schizophrenic or to cover all the elements of the illness.
Entrails torn from the body with bare hands, eyes gouged out with razor blades, battery cables, rats borrowing inside the human body, power drills to the face, cannibalism, credit cards, business cards, Dorsia, Testoni, Armani, Wall Street; all of these things are Patrick Bateman’s world. The only difference between Bateman and anybody else is what is repulsive to Bateman and what is repulsive to the rest of the world. Bateman has great interest in the upper class life, fashions, and social existence, but at the same time he is, at times, sickened by the constant struggle to be one up on everybody else. On the other hand Bateman’s nightlife reveals a side of him never seen during the day. Bateman is relaxed, impulsive, and confident while torturing and killing. He doesn’t have to worry about being better than anyone else. The only competition he has is his last victim. Torture and murder are the two true loves of Patrick Bateman.
For example; Lisa, the diagnosed sociopath, displays very little empathy for those around her. This is made clear when she sees Daisy’s post suicide body and is not saddened whatsoever. Another accurate portrayal is the patient with anorexia nervosa Janet. Janet refuses to eat, is in denial about her condition, is emotionally labile, and is always exercising. I also thought the film portrayed life in a psychiatric facility accurately. There were staff members performing frequent checks on the patients, nurses administering medications behind a window, and patients hanging out around the milieu when they aren’t in therapy.
Few movies have been panned by critics but widely accepted by viewers across the nation. National Treasure is one of them. Even after receiving sub par reviews including only two stars from Roger Ebert, National Treasure won over the public, earning almost $350 million worldwide. Even though the movie is under the Walt Disney Company and has a PG rating, this movie is not just for children. Superb acting and action from beginning to end will keep people of all ages glued to their seat as they follow one man’s quest for a hidden treasure.
Beauty and the Beast is probably one of the most well known fairy tales that the Grimms’ reproduced. In it’s original form it was a long, drawn out story that was catered to adults. The Grimms’ changed the story to be more understood by children and made it short and to the point. Unlike many of the other fairy tales that they reproduced, Beauty and the Beast contains many subtle symbols in its purest form. It shows a girl and how she transfers to a woman; it also shows that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The one major thing that separates this story from all the rest is that Beauty gets to know the Beast before marrying him.
Beauty and the Beast Disney is an excellent example of a Media corporation as it is known