Blog Post # 1

I will be writing on the topic of Portrayal on the Human Mind in Film. I will be specifically dealing with the film A Beautiful mind. I want to focus on how schizophrenia is portrayed in film, and based on John Nash was portrayed properly and what wasn’t.

My first article is by Malcolm Ritter, it is titled Schizophrenia: The Next Step. It was written in an Australian newspaper in 1999. Although it is quite dated I think the information is still very useful. This article I found in LexisNexis. This article speaks on how far science is coming with the possibility of finding a drug to treat Schizophrenia, but more importantly it delivers several important statistics related to treatment and diagnosis of schizophrenia. One thing talked about was how the disease was being studied and believed to not be a genetic trait that could be passed down.  It also speaks on the fact that some erratic behavior is gradually amplified over time, which relates to my movie because John Nash’s hallucinations get worse and worse.  This article although not in its entirety can be easily related to my topic, however the information in the article is useful in my comparing the life of a real schizophrenic to what Hollywood tried to portray of John Nash. I chose this source because honestly it was the only few I found that could be used towards my paper.

My second article is one written by Alexandra Pazitch, for Mental Health Week in May 2005. The article is titled: What is schizophrenia and is a short test to challenge what people either know or think they know of the illness. For my paper do want to do a little background on the topic of schizophrenia and this article had several questions that provided new information for me. Did you know that it depends on whom in your family, if any, is ill to determine how likely you are to have the disease? It can range from 10 in 100 to 1 in 100. Several myths were shot down in the quiz as well. The answers are right under the answer choices. This article as well was chosen because it was most relatable to what I would like to write about.