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?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
When one thinks of war, they think of combat, physical injuries and victory. But what isn't seen is the effect it has on all the soldiers. I think that war has a great effect on soldiers. Living for months in constant fear can cause a difference in one's mental health. Even after war, when they are home and safe, memories of war must cause trauma in veteran's lives. Personally, I think war is immoral on several levels. War is responsible for the death of innocent civilians, the murder of millions of soldiers and the destruction of cultures and resources. War affects everyone directly or indirectly.
Post a Comment