Just because it’s a romantic comedy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about it a little after you’re done digesting the popcorn. I don’t mean sit there and ponder the natures of the characters; it is a romantic comedy, not a Jane Austen novel. But you should never just take a film for granted. Every film has expectations of its audience. Even rom-coms.
Sometimes those expectations are based around formulas we could recite in our sleep: A meets B, A falls for B, B presents some sort of obstacle to A, A overcomes obstacle, A marries / has a significantly romantic scene with B…of course there are modulations that you could make a case for…A’s weird, lovable best friend, the awkward ex-boy/girlfriend of A, etc., etc.
But it’s easy to forget that sometimes these films also tell us other things. One of my favorite examples is 50 First Dates, the 2004 film starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. The plot focuses on Henry Roth (Sandler) and his attempts to woo Lucy Whitmore (Barrymore), who suffers from a severe case of anterograde amnesia. This happens…as the title suggests…upwards of 50 times over 90 minutes.
But it’s clearly just another Hollywood confection, right? There couldn’t possibly be anything…er…“thoughtful” or “serious” about it…right?!
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In an earlier post regarding the HBO film Too Big To Fail, I touched on the dangers of inaccurate representation in films that profess to be either factual or informative. The case, however, extends to fictive works as well. While it’s safe to say that no one walked out of 50 First Dates thinking that they witnessed some sort of bizarrely-filmed documentary or screen adaptation of a “true story,” people certainly walked out of the theater with a conception of the processes of amnesia and how it affects people in the real world.
Maybe your run-of-the-mill neuroscientist shrugged off the simplistic science and walked away with medical knowledge intact. But I doubt that every moviegoer was blessed with ten years of med-school and subscriptions to Psych journals. (Because I would count those as blessings?) Anterograde amnesia, as it turns out, is a lot more complicated than what director Peter Segal bothers to show in 50 First Dates.
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| Roth (Sandler) woos Whitmore (Barrymore) for the umpteenth time; via reelingreviews.com |
Firstly, anterograde amnesia (inability to form new memories) is often accompanied by retrograde amnesia (inability to remember the past). But even that does not address core issues like the dichotomy between declarative and procedural memory and, within the realm of declarative memory, the dichotomy between semantic and episodic memory.
Procedural memory is the ability to form long-term memories surrounding repeated actions, in other words, the ability to form and remember new motor skills. Declarative memory is what we typically recognize as memory: I ate tuna salad for dinner, Barack Obama is the President of the U.S., Jane Austen is fantastic (second name drop for those counting). Declarative memory is divided into semantic and episodic memory; episodic relating to specific personal experience and semantic which might be loosely qualified as “general knowledge.” This kind of memory is memory that remains untagged by personal experience. (Do you remember when/where/how you learned what rain was? Probably not…)
But the film sweeps all these concepts and subtle gradations under the rug. Of course it’s a film and I don’t expect it to be my psych textbook. It would be absurd to expect art to conform to any kind of standard in the sense of conveying good science or political theory or police methodology. That’s not what I’m after. Rather, I’m after a standard for viewership. I’d like to see people stop and think about retrograde amnesia—not just how cute it is in terms of the film or, worse still, unconsciously perceive it as an acceptable source of knowledge about amnesia.
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But the real kicker of an example? Just Like Heaven.
Just Like Heaven, the 2005 film starring Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon, follows the tempestuous relationship between landscape architect David Abbott (Ruffalo) and the what-appears-to-be-the-ghost of Elizabeth Masterson (Witherspoon), the former resident of Abbott’s apartment. I add the whole unfunny appears-to-be-ghost bit, because, in fact, the “ghost” is more like the roaming “soul” of Masterson, whose body is still very much alive and in a coma at the local hospital. (Returning to our formula…A meets B, obstacle between A and B…and… overcoming that obstacle?…“Of course!” says the writer. “We can’t let them pull the plug on her body! She’s not dead! She only seems like a vegetable! Her spirits right there! Don’t…no! …don’t…do…it!!!”) Abbott stops the hospital from pulling the plug and witnesses the revival of Masterson. (A little memory loss in this story too! (before they fall back into love))
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| via impawards.com |
In the end, I think the film (and the novel from which it was adapted) is mostly just fun. (Some of the more amusing bits you’ll find in the trailer below.) But upon recognizing the anti-euthanasia views of the film, the fun, romantic spirit seems not so innocent. The romantic comedy has engineered a bizarre twist; by incorporating euthanasia into the film, the genre rules and expectations have nullified and depoliticized notions of euthanasia. How did that happen?
Sometimes I bring up the example of this film and people scoff at the idea, thinking that I attribute this anti-euthanasia message to the writers and director. Far from it! I don’t think the creators were at all intentional in the way they portrayed euthanasia in the film. (It may have occurred to them, but I doubt it was an angle they actively pursued.) Instead, I think that the plot represents the way in which certain genres and art forms are capable of rearranging notions of heated political issues like euthanasia and, to a certain extent, shift public views of serious mental illnesses. We need to always keep our friends A + B in mind when watching formula films—there may be serious ideas lurking under the surface.
See more:
"Anterograde amnesia." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterograde_amnesia
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