The movie world has its own internal logic. Things happen there that we would never accept as plausible in real life, and yet onscreen it makes perfect sense. Sometimes, even characters that would raise an eyebrow in reality appear pretty normal within that world of movie logic. But dig deeper and you’ll find there’s a whole society of silver screen crackpots that – in reality – would most likely have been sectioned by now.
There are iconic characters in film that we can instantly, easily recognise as suffering from one mental illness or another. Travis Bickle, The Joker, the Narrator in Fight Club: they’re all positioned as mentally unstable in one way or another. This list of ten is instead for the characters who reside somewhere between sanity and madness, whose behaviour we’ve somehow overlooked and have deemed acceptable within the context of their respective movies. But rest assured, they’re absolutely nuts.
1. Daniel Plainview – There Will Be Blood
In There Will Be Blood, Daniel Plainview is as compellingly determined and driven as the film itself. In the real world, he’s an instant Section Eight. A mega-rich oil prospector that makes Dallas’ J.R. look like a total wimp, this silver-tongued businessman likes to unwind by threatening the competition, killing priests and generally acting like a ruthless vampire-man. If Donald Trump was ever to carry himself in a similar manner, his next trade meeting would be held in an asylum. A complex, haunted man with obvious father issues, what makes Plainview such a compelling villain on film is just what would send him straight to a shrink in the real world. Failing that, jail.
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10 Comments
Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz isn’t awesome!??! Oh, and I think she’s dressed like that to satisfy the dirty old men in the audience – an obvious “good girl” outfit.
I’d like to add Melanie Daniels from The Birds to the list. Anyone who drives a long way up the coast of California carrying a cage of birds, then rows across a lake and breaks into someone’s house just to play a subtle joke on a man is clinically insane.
Good read. Thanks.
This article is both offensive and totally naive.
Although I can appreciate that you may have been pandering to views with such a lead title, honestly, what are you trying to do here? You don’t reference any criteria for what YOU consider ‘mentally ill’ – are you using a DSM definition, the ICD? In fact, for the most part you don’t even mention specific mental disorders at all, and the ones you do I would suggest your diagnosis would be wrong. For example, John Hammond – Jurassic Park would not qualify as being a megalomaniac – there are several instances in the the film where he is totally the opposite – a scene that sticks out in my mind is when they are deciding ticket prices and he wants them to be cheap so everyone can visit the park.
From reading this NO effort went into this article at all. I guess it reads well, but I just think when your writing about ‘mental illness’ you need to be a little more careful with your research, or perhaps what you call the piece. A better title would be ’10 awesome film characters who I think may have a mental illness, from my vague knowledge of the term, from what I have learned about it through watching films and reading wikipedia’.
And sadly this is why this sort of trite if offensive – because its wrong and it perpetuates other people to think in the same way. Come on man, I know this is meant to be fun and all, but really?
Chris
Hi Chris, thanks for your concerns!
I can assure you that effort did indeed go into this article. I don’t know if you’ve written anything before, but it’s not simply a case of banging ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ out repeatedly on a typewriter. I’ve used at least a couple more words than that.
I regret, too, that you took so much offence from this article. I’m not entirely sure how that happened, though. Perhaps if they were real people I was writing about then I could understand, but we’re dealing with a fictional medium here. I’m not diagnosing people in the real world with mental illnesses; these are movie characters. If I was writing a serious, in-depth expose on the state of mental health in the UK, I assure you, I would have done my research. But I wasn’t. Unfortunately, I’m a movie writer – I tend to write flippantly and with a great deal of laziness. This article is displayed on an entertainment site, and was written accordingly. To answer your first question, the purpose of the article was to give readers a fresh look at some iconic characters. As for your second question, “but really?”, I’m not entirely sure how to answer that.
Also, I think the word you were looking for was ‘tripe’; ‘trite’ means something else altogether. I’ll do my research next time if you do yours. And I like my title better – it’s snappier somehow.
Many thanks, Brogan
p.s. I’m still going to have to disagree on your diagnosis of John Hammond. The fact remains: he used cloning technology to bring dinosaurs back from the dead, essentially playing god, when he could’ve used the technology for medical purposes, furthering mankind etc. Please send the wikipedia link proving me wrong.
“If I was writing a serious, in-depth expose on the state of mental health in the UK, I assure you, I would have done my research. But I wasn’t. Unfortunately, I’m a movie writer – I tend to write flippantly and with a great deal of laziness. This article is displayed on an entertainment site, and was written accordingly.”
So just because you’re a writer on an entertainment website you think it’s acceptable to write lazily and without diligent research? Thanks for giving the rest of us a bad name.
I was joking actually Joe…
Brogan,
thank you for your reply!
I will take each point in turn.
1) Offence. The reason why I think this is offensive, and I would wager other people would think this as well is because much of what you write is essentially wrong. I feel that you are presenting a view of mental illness which is false. However, your not the only one doing this. For example there is a popular book on the topic called Popular conceptions of mental health (Nunnally, 1961) and here is one of the main findings…
‘The symptoms of mental illness are exaggerated, the causes and treatments oversimplified and often erroneous, and mental illness usually appears in a context of horror, sin and violence’
Your feeding into this with your casual and vague descriptions of the terms you use in your article. This brings me to point 2.
2) Diagnosis. Psychiatric diagnosis is sociologically a very tricky subject, and although I appreciate your attempts, I think they all fail. For example, take your reasoning about John Hammond. First of all I’m not offering a diagnosis – I’m simply refuting yours. However, from what I understand you seem to think he is a megalomaniac (now called Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and part of your reasoning is that he could have used his talents and ideas to further mankind – and that bringing back dinosaurs was playing God. This thesis fails on several levels.
Although its slightly more complex than this, check out the criteria check list for NPD – http://behavenet.com/narcissistic-personality-disorder#301 I suspect you may be able to shoe horn some of your ideas into 5 of the criteria but then you would be missing another point because you don’t focus on how mental disorders are defined as a medical issue out right – John Hammond didn’t strike me as a man who has any pathogenic personality traits, but I could be wrong.
3) Trite. As I understand it this is an adjective used to describe something which is unoriginal, ill conceived, dull, middle of the road, badly thought out, ordinary, bland – you get the idea.
4) General comments. I’m unable to tell if your being flippant or not but I find it quite odd you would admit to things such as ‘I’m a movie writer – I tend to write flippantly and with a great deal of laziness.’ and as a general point not being able to distinguish between ‘tripe’ and ‘trite’ is a little concerning if your writing it trying to be taken seriously.
Listen, I’m not trying to bust you chops here. I’m happy your taking the time to do all of this and your willing to engage with me about this. The reason I’m speaking up about this is that if people continue to be mislead about mental disorders then the problem will continue and is likely to get worse. It may seem petty discussing people who don’t actually exist’s ‘mental disorder’ but this isn’t the point really, the bigger issue is that stereotypes and stigmatisation continues. I still maintain that your article is badly researched, but this is secondary to the bigger issue.
Chris
Trite is indeed an adjective to describe lack of originality, mundanity, blandness, dullness and the like, but you used it in the wrong way – a more appropriate use of the word would be “This article was trite” or “This was tritely written”. I’m a stickler for bad grammar.
In response to point 4, I was being flippant, but I think you missed it. I actually work really hard at what I do and I don’t generally need to be lectured by someone on the English language, especially when that person is getting it wrong. I can distinguish between ‘tripe’, ‘trite’, ‘cat’, ‘dog’ and all manner of big words. I can only assume your profession is based around the subject of mental illness. Well, mine is based around the written word, which is why I can distinguish between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, a common mistake which is one of my pet peeves.
I maintain this article was outlined as a light-hearted piece that wasn’t to be taken seriously from the outset, but clearly you don’t agree. I can’t see anyone taking my ‘diagnosis’ of movie characters to heart, but I obviously didn’t factor in that someone like you would read it. If someone reads this top ten of whacky film characters, assumes it’s scientifically accurate and takes my findings as gospel, then I apologise.
Thanks, Brogan
Robert Graysmith was just a genius.
Broden,
thanks for the clarification on these issues. You clearly have no idea what your talking about and your inability to engage with the broader issues I raise is evidence of this. It demonstrates a clear lack of understanding on your behalf. Your very welcome to scrutinise and critique my choice of words, or my grammar – these are indeed easy targets, however, I would have respected your ideas a great deal more had you focused on some of the issues relevant to the discussion which I have raised in my previous correspondence with you. Therefore I would suggest you engage with some of the literature about mental illness before you make any future claims about it – you will continue to look silly.
To clarify, I took the time to write to you because the majority of your article is very misleading. Not only does this perpetuate some of the problems faced by people who experience mental disorder, but it also shows gross naivety on your behalf.
Chris, do you not think you’re taking this article a little too seriously? Clearly the author isn’t trying to diagnose each subject with a particular mental illness, or even genuinely suggest that any of them were mentally ill (although I’d perhaps say Jack Torrance probably was- presumably you’ll disagree). Obviously the article is a written with the purpose of seeing these characters in a different light- not in a serious way, just for a bit of fun. Don’t take the term ‘mentally ill’ too literally, magazine article titles need to have an impact and this does just that; it’s not there to cause offence.
And please, learn the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ before you enter a written debate.
Brogan, I found this article pretty amusing. Would perhaps put Jack from The Shining at #1 personally (or are they just ordered randomly?). Either way, decent piece.