Sex and Madness

Robert Orozco

Sex and Madness

February 15, 2005

Critical movie essay

Primal Fear

While in search for sociological imagination in the cinema, I came across the move Primal Fear. The movie was released in 1996 and was directed by Gregory Hoblit. Upon doing research for this film, I was better able to understand what sociological imagination in contrast to the individualistic viewpoint on mental illness. For example, the individualistic viewpoint on poverty would be that people are poor because they are lazy or stupid and cannot handle money or have no skills. However, the sociological explanation of poverty is that poverty is caused by inequality in society, and is experienced by those who suffer from a chronic irregularity of work, low wages, and unemployment. Furthermore, sociological imagination helps the individual to understand the society in which they live in by moving the individual away from reality and looking beyond the picture it self. By doing so, it helps to show the strong link between an individual's personal life and the society in which they live. Sociological imagination enables people to imagine how these conditions have operated and to imagine how different conditions would shape society differently. I will examine Primal Fear in relation to the mental illness the movie presents by using the analytical skills I have learned from class and the research I have done in search for sociological imagination in the cinema.

Primal Fear is a courtroom thriller about a slick, hotshot lawyer named Martin Vail (Richard Gere) who takes the seemingly unwinnable pro-bono case of a young altar boy named Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton) accused of murdering an eminent catholic priest who sexually abuses him in Chicago, IL. The altar boy is found running away from the scene of the grisly murder of the bishop who has taken him in. The case gets a lot more complex when the accused reveals that there may or may not have been a "third person" in the room during the murder. The intensity builds when a surprise twist alters everyone's perception of the crime and what really happened. The murder trial ends due to the discovery of Aaron's multiple personality disorder and the judge orders Aaron/Roy to a hospital for further observation. What is unknown to the audience until the end is that the altar boy is very good at deception and is very convincing, which will confuse you to no end, and make you despise him for convincing you also.

The specific type of mental illness that the film discusses is that Aaron Stampler suffers from multiple personality disorder, which results in amnesia, temporary and repeated blackouts, and elapses in thought. The stressor that triggers Aaron's multiple personality disorder is when he gets very agitated or tense usually by an authoritarian figure such as a doctor/counselor and a lawyer. The movie never really shows treatment for his mental illness until the end of the movie when Aaron is sent to a mental hospital for 30 day observation. However, the movie does show the doctor counseling/examining him throughout the movie to find out the root cause of his mental disorder. In doing so, doctor tries to ask Aaron personal questions about his past and his current girlfriend who is also involved in the sex scandal. The movie shows Aaron's frustration and transformation into Roy and back again. As a result, the counseling/examination only worsens his condition.

The movie offers a couple of stereotypes in relation to doctor to patient treatment and typical lawyer qualities. This movie to a certain extent reminded me of how doctors show their authoritarian figure and push an individual to show emotions in a closed private one on one setting when sometimes the patient does not want to. In addition, there are muscular African American security guards present in the courtroom who serve as physical restrainers in the courtroom. This stigma tends to show male dominance because they physically need to restrain Aaron at the end of the movie because he slips into one of his mental episodes. Furthermore, the lawyer who verbally attacks Aaron during cross-examination is a young white female who shows female dominance over a male because she tries to be a better lawyer then her counter part Martin Vail. This scene tries to counter the usual male dominancy in the courtroom. Lastly, I do not think it is a coincidence that Aaron/Roy plays a male role because you never see an abusive or gruesome murderer from a female character. Therefore, I am sure that Aaron being male in the film was done on purpose.

The film is very individualistic in nature when it comes to figuring out why the character is mentally ill. The doctor who examines Aaron Stampler in the movie specifically states that his illness comes from his childhood and other events leading up to his act of brutal murder. In detail, the doctor states that his abusive father, his poor childhood, and being sexually abused by the archbishop were the contributing reasons for murder.