Relationship Between Hollywood and Personality Dissorders

In this paper, we will discuss the intimate relationship between Hollywood and Abnormal Psychology, vividly demonstrated in the films Matchstick Men, Birdy, Broken Glass and the Three Faces of Eve. As we dissect the films and their abnormal natures, we will look at accuracies and inaccuracies, etiology, symptoms, and treatment.

We begin with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which was very artistically depicted by Nicolas Cage in Matchstick Men. Nick did a wonderful job of showing many of the symptoms associated with OCD, from the nervous 'ticks', to the repeated opening and closing of doors, to his speckless apartment. Throughout the movie, he exhibited two of the major symptoms of OCD: cleanliness, and checking. His irrational anxiety about cleanliness came out when his friend showed up at his house unannounced and began walking around the house with his shoes on. Nick was unable to deal with the anxiety that Frank's 'dirty shoes' brought him, and was only be able to calm down after Frank removed them and placed them in their appropriate place. Although Nick was obsessed with keeping his clean, his smoking habits proved the irrational nature of his obsession. A symptom Roy exhibited that may not have been so accurate were the strange 'blackouts' he would experience when under extreme anxiety. Little information was given about the onset and cause of his sickness, but implications were made that it may have had something to do with his wife leaving him 15 years prior. Roy was treated with medication and as he became more cooperative, some basic psychotherapy. Roy was encouraged by his therapist to reconnect with his daughter, whose existence was ambivalent to him in the first parts of the film.

In Birdy, the exact diagnosis of Birdy was not as clear cut as Matchstick Men, although a strong case can be made towards his suffering PTSD. Both Al and Birdy displayed symptomology coherent with PTSD (Al's nightmares, sexual difficulties, and Birdy's fear, helplessness, detachment to his surroundings, and emotional unresponsiveness) however each character's sequela was different. Birdy's etiology stemmed further back than the war, with his unhealthy obsession with pigeons, and his repressive mother, but the trauma he experienced from the war undoubtedly cemented in his previous conditions. Birdy's reaction to the trauma of the war was a regression to the only place he really felt