Hide and Seek- Media Portrayl of Split Personalities: Media Analysis 5 Tuesday, Jun 10 2008

Watch the Video Trailer here to get a good sense of the movie if you’ve never seen it!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ8K4_RrbJo

Hide and Seek is a movie that was released in 2205 starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning. It is about a girl who seemingly does dark things with the help of her imaginary friend Charlie. It is not made clear till the end of the movie however, that Robert De Niro is Charlie, a man suffering from Split personality disorder. A very common misconception, one that I had as well, was that the little girl was the one with the illness. Maybe it is because the plot is vague up until the last few minutes, or that a respected man with a good job couldn’t possibly have a mental illness. A young girl whose mother just died is a far more likely caniadate. being more familiar with stigmas than I was when I first saw the movie, I am able to catch all the underlying stigmas in the movie. De Niro’s other personality, Charlie is a polar opposite: muderer, deviant, violent, malicious man. This is often the assumption of the disorder. Another underlying stigma I realized is the misconception between Schizophrenia and Split personality disorder. Many people with Schizophrenia are thought to have a split personality. Whenever I hear this movie brought up in conversation, it is always something along the lines of “Oh, is that the movie where Robert De Niro has Schizophrenia or something.” Unconciously or not, people stigmatize Schizophrenia as a split personality disorder.

This movie further helps stigmatizing of metal illnesses to be a social norm. That is not to say this movie is bad or promotes stigmatizing. But De Niro’s character is given a extreme and stereotypical version of someone with split personality disorder, which is often confused as Schizophrenia. Therefore, it exists as another media example some people may see and adapt the views from it into their lives.

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Schizophrenia Stigmas: Media Analysis 4 Tuesday, Jun 10 2008

http://www.answerstv.com/AnswersTV//Channel.aspx?ChannelID=7005fa6d-6b27-4d29-94bb-cb3db599ea03&StartPoint=Folder384&PlayItem=786&AP=true

This is an informational video about Stigmas of Schizophrenia from the Health Channel. The purpose of this problem is to identify common stigmas of the disease, and raise awarness of the problem in believing these stigmas. Dr. Patrick Corrigan from the Technology Institure of Illinios explains common stigmas of people with Schizophrenia and the repurcussions these can have for them. The visual text of this clip is interesting. There are flashes of people who have the illness, and as they are displayed on the screen, there is a fog effect clouding their faces. This was a curious effect to use, especially because this clip is about stimatizing people. It seems that by using this clouding effect, it is showing that people with Schizophrenia are in the dark, unknown, elusive. Although, this can be used to show how the people are misunderstood by those without the mental illness. It also shows the majority of the people sad and distressed. This is absolutely understandable, but that is generalizing the situaton by saying all people with schizophenia are sad and distressed. This clip is intended to make the viewer understand that the ideas of schizophrenics being violent or responsible for their illness, is simply a stigma and does not reflect the whole. I think it is very likely to have this influence over people. Although the clip is short, it does a efficient job of saying “Hey, stop believing everything you hear about Schizophrenics!”

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Stigmas: Media Analysis 3 Tuesday, Jun 10 2008

“Some people also believe that if you have a mental illness, you must be dangerous and unpredictable. This perception is often inflamed by media accounts of crime, although statistics don’t bear out a connection between mental illness and violence. Some people also believe that those with mental illness are less competent, unable to work, should be institutionalized or will never get better.

As a result of such stigma, mental illnesses remain the butt of jokes in popular culture. Negative portrayals of people with mental illnesses fuel fear and mistrust and reinforce distorted perceptions, leading to even more stigma.”

This is a short exerpt from an article about stigmatizing mental illnesses. To read the article in its entirety click here: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/MH/00076.html

I found this article very interesting. I’m sure we can all think of a time when we’ve called someone a psycho, wacko, crazy person, and the list goes on. But many of us don’t realize what we are saying about people with real mental health conditions when we utter these light-hearted insults.

This article is actually from the mayo clinic, but also posted on CNN.com I think the purpose of this article is not only to inform people, but also to persuade people. Stigmatizing people with mental illnesses on tv, other forms of media, and even personal intances is very common. This article explains the concequences of stigmatizing people. it is often very painful to a person to have to live with these stigmas everyday, and this article attempts to imform people of these concequences. At the same time, this article does a good job of persuading people  to look beyong the media’s portrayal of the mentally ill, and see them as something other than their label, whether it be “crazy” or “psycho” or “loony” I believe that this a a good form of persuasion, because it is undoubtably wrong to not only stigmatize, but hurt other people. Especially for something that they have no control over. I think that this article could influence a lot of people to challenge what they hear about mental illnesses, and form their own opinon based on fact, not on exaggerated depiction of “crazy people.”

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Are you prepared to judge? Media Analysis 2 Tuesday, Jun 10 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQk8a3-QYKU

This is an advertisement from new Zealant about Mental illness. Basically, it shows a variety of people of different races, genders, ages, and proffessions. At the end the ad informs us that these people are all a victim of mental illnesses.The purpose of this “product” is to inform people about mental illnesses. It does have a very optimistic lens on it. Every one of the people featured in this commercial are laughing and smiling, giving a normalcy to them. This would lead people to think of people with mental illnesses as normal, rather than ill. I think that this ad is definitely trying to place an influence on the viewer. At the end it says “One in five people are affected by a mental illness…How much they suffer depends on you.” I think that this is a very positive message to send out. It is saying that people should accept those with mental illnesses. I think the overall affect makes the viewer stop and think if they have ever passed judgements about a person with a mental illness, and if they have, to realize their error.

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Dave Matthews Band=Mentally Ill? Media Post Tuesday, Jun 10 2008

Dreamgirl Lyrics by Dave Matthews BandI would dig a hole all the way to China
Unless of course I was there
then I’d dig my way home
If by diggin’ I could steal
the wind from the sails
of the greedy men who ruled the world

Still you’re my best friend
And after a good, good drunk
You and me wake up and make love after a deep sleep
Where I was Dreamin’, I was Dreamin’ of a
Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl

I was feelin’ like a creep
As I watched you asleep
Face down in the grass,
in the park, in the middle
of a hot afternoon
Your top was untied
And I thought how nice
It’d be to follow the sweat down your spine

You’re like my best friend
aw after a good, good drunk
You and me wake up and make love after a deep sleep
Where I was Dreamin’, I was Dreamin’ of a
Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl

Caught by a wave
my back to the ocean
it knocks me off my feet and
just as I find my footing
here you come again
Dreamgirl, aww Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl

This source was produced by Dave Matthews. This song has most likely been produced for entertainment purposes. This song is about a man who is daydreamining via song about a girl that he seems to be infatuated with. It is very easy to argue that the speaker of this song is a little loopy. It is foolish to say that a person would actually dig a hole to china for a woman. Although we know this is not meant literally, we are shown how much love the person has for this “dreamgirl” by the extent of his willingness. Out of context the line “I watched you fall asleep face down in the grass in the park in the middle of the afternoon. Your top was untied and I thought how nice it would be to follow the sweat down your spine.” It seems as though the speaker is not a lover, but a stalker of the woman. The overall effect of this song is meant to be an intimate love song to a woman, maybe Dave Matthews had a particular one in mind when he wrote the song. However, you can’t help but get a sense of desperate longing, and unhealthly want for this dreamgirl. I guess the saying “you drive me crazy”, in the love sense, fits perfectly!

 

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Cuckoo’s Nest Part III Wednesday, May 28 2008

 

The fishing trip, on the surface, was a fun thing to do for the patients outside of the walls of the “loony-bin”. However, this trip had a greater impact on the patients than just a day of fun. Whether McMurphy intended to or not, he raised the morale and confidence of the patients, because of this little excursion. When the cars pulled up to the gas station, the locals treated the patients very rudely and also Candy Starr. This was not a foreign phenomenon to the patients, as they were treated very rudely at the hospital by Ratched and other aides. Nonetheless, this did not help the patients’ egos or overall mood to say the least. Once again, when the patients arrived at the fishing site, the other fisherman acted very rudely, and they had been denied access to a boat because of “improper paperwork.” However, once the men returned with a very impressive catch, they were treated completely different. “We were waiting for them to say something about the girl again, hoping for it, to tell the truth, but when one of them finally did say something, it wasn’t about the girl but about our fish being the biggest halibut he’d ever seen brought in on the Oregon coast.” (p. 215) This reaction definitely helped the men to feel a little more adequate, and a little less crazy, something they were not used to compared to the demeaning tactics used on them in the hospital.

If I was Dr. Spivey, I would definitely consider the fishing excursion to be therapeutic to the patients. If the overall mood and state of being of these patients could drastically change after a simple compliment, or positive remark from a total stranger, then getting outside of the hospital to do “normal” things could only further improve the health of the patients. I think that is was clear to Dr. Spivey, that besides the few mishaps at the beginning of the trip, in total, the trip was a positive experience for the patients and their well-being. Although Nurse Ratched might not like this, she would most likely notice the change in the patients having come back from the trip

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Obedience Monday, Mar 31 2008

I found these amusing videos on youtube about  Milgram’s ideas about obedience. Our obedience experiment in class yielded supportive results that people do indeed tend to go with the group. The experiments on these videos would be fun to try. I know I’m planning on trying some next time I’m in the middle of a large amount of people (:

looking up to the sky http://youtube.com/watch?v=rF79NzZ6P_w

pick it up http://youtube.com/watch?v=vUY42fROiK8

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Skinner in our World Sunday, Mar 30 2008

The Giver by Lois Lowry reminded me of Skinner’s Walden II. Although not as extreme as The Giver, Walden II shows similarities. Jonas, the main character in The Giver, lives in a utopian society where operant conditioning is used. Jonas recieves “pleasurable memories” as a reward for coping with the painful memories. Jonas’ sister learns to ride a bike after recieving praise from her parents. When I first learned about Walden II, I couldn’t help but think of The Giver.

Meet the Parents. Not only a hilarious movie, but also an educational example of Skinner’s operant conditioning (who wudda thought?!) One of the most memorable part of the movie is when Jinxy uses and flushes the toilet. Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro) trained Jinxy using operant conditioning….or maybe not. Although he explains in the movie that he taught the cat step by step to use the toilet, it is not apparent or not if he used rewards as a method for teaching the cat. Fellow youtubers argued that Jinxy’s toilet training was not operant conditioning, but rather classical conditioning (A process of behavior modification in which a subject learns to respond in a desired manner such that a neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus) is repeatedly presented in association with a stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus) that elicits a natural response (the unconditioned response) until the neutral stimulus alone elicits the same response (now called the conditioned response). For example, in Pavlov’s experiments, food is the unconditioned stimulus that produces salivation, a reflex or unconditioned response. The bell is the conditioned stimulus, which eventually produces salivation in the absence of food. This salivation is the conditioned response. -compliments of www.dictionary.com)

Decide for yourself here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5awaskR7lg&feature=related

Who needs suspension when you can have a GED?! Should our principal get us a bunch of these devices to “decelerate teenagers?” Check out this article! http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/23/shock_treatment/

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B.F. Skinner Sunday, Mar 30 2008

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

Operant conditioning is what B.F. Skinner is best known for. The idea that one performs a task in order to gain a reward of some kind. Skinner classified all behaviors as either operant or respondent. Respondent behaviors are involuntary behaviors, such as closing your eyes when you sneeze. Skinner conducted a number of experiments, his most famous being his conditioned pigeons. They were taught to peck a button, and turn around in order to receive food. You can watch the experiment here!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA Walden IIwas a work of Skinner that described a utopian society than was structured around operant conditioning. About Behaivorismis a summary of Skinner’s theories. One of Skinner’s most criticised ideas was his “baby tenderizer”, a climate controlled crib that he designed for his daughter. It was dubbed the name “human fishbowl” and said to be cruel. Skinner’s daughter was rumored to be psychologically ill, however she grew up to be a healthy and happy adult. Although Skinner is not alive today, there are many examples in our lives that exhibit Skinner’s ideas…

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Psychodynamic struggle Tuesday, Jan 29 2008

The psychodynamic struggle is apparent in the cartoon Hey Arnold! Helga, a stubborn, rough girl, loves Arnold but she refuses to let that idea come to the surface and admit it to herself. Her unconcious mind lets us know her true feelings for Arnold in one episode where she sleepwalks to her journal and writes love poems. In addition, Helga has many freudian slips while talking to Arnold that reveal her love for him. Helga’s ego represses these feelings, because she believes Arnold wont feel the same way. So in that respect, Helga’s ego is protecting her.

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