"Shutter Island" and Veteran Insanity

I saw the movie Shutter Island tonight, and among the many other emotions that filled me upon it's completion (I was sobbing...), I couldn't help notice how similar it was to our conversations last week about mental illness being targeted at a specific group.

In the film, directed by Martin Scorsese, takes place in 1954 and follows the story of a man named "Teddy Daniels" (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) who takes a suspicious visit to an institution for the criminally insane after hearing that it performs mental experiments on its patients. Being a World War II veteran, Daniels can't help feeling emotionally attached to the patients after seeing the results of the experiments conducted on captives in Nazi death camps.

At one point in the movie, Daniels and a former doctor at the hospital actually talk about the experiments done on patients; the lobotomies, the experimental drugs, etc. She tells him that the insane are the perfect subjects for experiments because nobody will believe a word they say. Once you're deemed insane, everything you say is only a part of that insanity. What you may see as the truth, they only see as a "defense mechanism." Not only that, but anybody can be constructed to seem like they're insane, all they need is a little bit of life trauma. The doctor actually tells Daniels that he's probably the perfect candidate for a crazy person; he fought in a war.

This also reminded me of the movie The Jacket, which follows the story of a man played by Adrian Brody, who is shot in the head in combat and placed into a mental institution upon his arrival back into the United States. They perform brutal tests on him and they blame it on his "insanity". This theme of military veterans being deemed "crazy" really shocks me. In a country where we're supposed to celebrate our veterans for the incredible service they provide us, we can't even begin to imagine the things that they go through. They see more trauma while serving than most of us see in our entire life, and upon their return we call them insane?

I'm not saying that this happens often, or even at all for that matter, but I thought that it was particularly sad that in the movie Edwards was targeted and exploited specifically for a duty that he performed for his country. It made me wonder if many returning veterans really suffer from prominent mental health problems. Looking around the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health website, there's clear subcategories for veterans suffering from PTSD, homelessness, substance abuse and depression. How much of an impact do you think war can have on one's mental health? In that respect, how moral is it to send our soldiers there in the first place?

Figure Skating: Femininity in a Men's Sport

In class on Thursday, we talked for a while about the differences in "athleticism" between male and female sports players. While much of the class agreed that men could be considered more "athletic" than female players, they mostly said so because men are naturally larger, faster and stronger than women. They can jump high enough to perform slam dunks, which many women cannot. However, Mr. Bolos brought up a great point that perhaps our own views on athleticism are contrived due to the male-driven foundation of most popular sports. Basketball, for example, was created by a group of men; obviously their version of athleticism is what will be rewarded.

However, during class I couldn't help but think about the kinds of sports that are associated with women: dancing, for example. A dancer's graceful and emotional yet disciplined movement is something that comes far more naturally to a woman than to a big burly man. If that was our definition of athleticism, women would surely be considered higher-level athletes.

All of this seemed very clear to me up until I came home last night to my mom watching the Olympic men's figure skating finals. After seeing the performances of Johnny Weir, Evgeni Plushenko, and Evan Lysacek (the gold medalist who is from Chicago and adorable, by the way), the one thing I couldn't help but notice was how flamboyant and feminine the sport was. My younger brother even commented a couple of times on how "gay" it all looked. Remembering our class discussion, I immediately thought to myself, 'Oh! It must be because figure skating was started by women and is a primarily women's sport; no wonder the standards are held to a higher feminine skill level!'

So, I decided to research it. What I found shocked me, though. Apparently, figure skating was actually founded by men in the 1700's, and men's figure skating existed in the 1908 Olympics before women's skating was. A sport founded by men and yet praising the qualities of a woman's grace; why?

I guess it's because figure skating is considered more of an art form than a sport, even though it exists in the Olympics. Despite all of the stigma that may come with the femininity of their sport, I consider the men who placed in the figure skating finals incredibly devoted and athletic competitors. Hopefully someday enough Americans will look past the stigma associated with men in tight, shiny jumpsuits and realize that they're just as much athletes as Shaun White, Shani Davis, and the other male representatives of our country that we all idolize and support so greatly.