6 Movies With Uplifting Messages (That Can Kill You)
There are a ton of movies out there that try to inspire us all to be better people. Rudy, Lean on Me, Robocop--these films' powerful themes can transcend all boundaries.
But a powerful theme can be a dangerous thing in the hands of the wrong filmmaker. What if your "powerful theme" is "don't take those pills the doctor gave you!" or "don't be afraid of death, you're invincible?"
Don't think anybody would make a movie with such a moronically dangerous message? Wanna bet?
#6.
Garden State
In a movie appropriately named after the most depressing state in the union, Zach Braff plays Andrew Largeman, a young man who has been on antidepressants ever since paralyzing the shit out of his mom by pushing her over a dishwasher when he was a kid.
Through a series of quirky--and therefore artsy--events, Largeman decides that the best way to deal with his issues is to stop taking his medicine and experience life to the fullest. This allows him to patch things up with his estranged dad and bang Natalie Portman to an indie rock soundtrack.
"I don't know about you, but this funeral is getting me totally fucking hot."
The Message:
There is no medication better than the beauty of life! And also sex with Natalie Portman!
The Horror:
There is absolutely no question that someone in the audience for this movie was on medication and didn't need to be. It happens. All drugs have side effects, they can be unpleasant and some people are better off without them.
What is far more likely, however, is that the people taking the drugs really need to keep freaking taking them. This is not opinion here, this is medical fact: the drug Zach Braff was quitting was lithium and study after study shows that people diagnosed with bipolar disorder (the thing they prescribe lithium for) are 10 fucking times more likely to commit suicide if they don't take it or go off of it.
How's that for a side effect?
"I'm really glad we met. Cool with you if I drive this baby straight into the ocean?"
Now we're sure if the movie Garden State was somehow sentient and here to defend itself, it would say, "But the film deals with that issue! After all, in the movie, Zach Braff was improperly diagnosed by his dad, Bilbo Baggins. So surely you, Guy on Lithium Watching This Movie, aren't supposed to apply his situation to your own!"
Sure, but this is then followed by 90 minutes of Mr. Braff saying things like "the drugs left me fucking numb!" and "we should allow ourselves to be whatever we are!" Oh, and in the film the doctor prescribing the drugs was wrong and prescribed the drugs due to malicious ulterior motives (the big emotional breakthrough is when Braff "forgives" his doctor/father for prescribing them).
And don't forget that the patient's new, drug-free awesomeness is rewarded with Natalie Portman sex.
"You'll have to choose: Me, or that useless Asthma Inhaler."
Of course, it's just a movie. You wouldn't actually listen to it and take its message to heart unless, you know, you had some kind of mental illness or something.
#5.
Patch Adams
In one of his many attempts at drama after discovering he was no longer funny, Robin Williams portrays the character of Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams, a radical, free-spirited "hilarious" "medical" "professional" who sets up a free clinic in the woods where patients can cure their bodies and spirits thanks to the power or caring.
By never conforming to the stiff rules of practical medicine, Patch shows us that humor and a positive attitude are the best medicines of all.
The Message:
Touch a person's soul and you'll cure all their ailments!
The Horror:
In the immortal words of Dr. Gregory House, "What would you prefer--a doctor who holds your hand while you die or who ignores you while you get better?" As hard as it is to accept, some maladies just cannot be cured with the power of puppy dog smiles and unicorn farts. We typically refer to these ailments as "every fucking disease on the planet."
"But what if we smiled at them REALLY hard?"
We're not exaggerating, by the way. The movie seems to show Patch curing a mentally ill patient purely with the power of improvisational comedy. From that point on, he dedicates himself to showing those stodgy, bitter regular doctors that laughter is the best medicine.
Of course the evil, humorless medical establishment will have none of it; they try to kick him out of medical school twice, only letting him back in after he gives a passionate speech on the true value of comedy pills... and hearing from a group of bald cancer patients Patch "cured" with the power of his awesome, tumor-shrinking jokes.
Now, hopefully we don't need to point out that Mork from Ork wearing a goddamn clown nose will never be a good substitute for a syringe full of penicillin. But this movie's bigger dick move is really the way it vilifies all of those mean doctors who seek to cure only with that worthless old medicine bullshit.
"Well, I may not be able to prescribe laughter, but I did just save your fucking life."
We suppose we should point out that the movie is based on a real guy, who in the real world runs the Gesundheit! Institute. The good news is, they don't demand payment. The bad news is they're treating with "alternative" therapies like homeopathy which, in every single study ever done on the subject, ever, has been shown to be even worse at curing disease than laughter.
#4.
Shallow Hal
Jack Black, the last man on Earth who should be picky about women, inexplicably plays a superficial ladies' man who refuses to settle for anything less than the visual approximation of what Halle Berry having sex with Bar Refaeli would look like as a person.
"This Bar Refaeli-Halle Berry hybrid is my Sistine Chapel."-Photoshop Department.
His life changes when he is hypnotized to only see people's inner beauty and falls in love with Gwyneth Paltrow in a fatsuit. In the end, he overcomes his shallowness, marries Gwyneth and probably lives happily ever after tucked inside her many rolls of excess stomach.
The Message:
Your appearance doesn't matter, because real beauty is on the inside!
The Horror:
As typical Internet dwellers we are all about people focusing on our inner beauty (which honestly is every bit as unwashed as our outer beauty), but this isn't an ugly duckling story. In the movie, Paltrow's character isn't just unattractive by our society's arbitrary and unfair standards--she's morbidly obese.
We're not disputing whether her character is a good person (she is), but nice doesn't matter for jack if you're so fat your soccer ball sized heart detonates while you're walking up the stairs one day.
It's not an issue of open-mindedness at that point. It's a freaking medical condition. If she's such a nice lady, maybe instead of embracing her 30,000 calorie a day diet, you should be helping live a lifestyle that will let her live past age 50.
Garden State was recommended to me by someone a while back, since then I've been diagnosed with Bipolar and am on Lithium.. Guess that's one less film I have to see before I inevitably stop taking my medication and end it all
ReplyI have to say, about the whole Shallow Hal thing (which I imagine I'm not the only one going to make this particular comment), I didn't like the movie because for some reason all the women with really beautiful insides happened to be really really really f*****g ugly. I mean, I'm fat. I'll be the first one (along with my doctors) to admit it. Otherwise, I'm a pretty healthy person, though I need to lose the weight (specialized diet and specialized exercise because of a medical condition is helping me do that). But I'm also really pretty, and I know that because I'm told that, but I've also had the chance to date some really good looking men. So just because you're big doesn't automatically dump you into the "I wouldn't f**k them with the torch of Gondor" segment of the population.
ReplyAnd just because you're fat doesn't make you a good person with a heart of gold. I'm lucky, I'm a pretty decent person according to my students, but I've met some really ugly people out there that are just ugly inside too. Just as much as I've met some really beautiful people out there that are beautiful inside too. The whole movie was just stupid, and the fact that you automatically assume that chick is a heart attack waiting to happen kind of means that the whole point of the story went right over your head. Fat guys in movies aren't heart attacks waiting to happen, they somehow manage to be cute, endearing sidekicks, or sometimes (in the Jack Black sense) leading f*****g men.
So yeah.... I'm not sure my rant had a purpose, but all that s**t had to be said.
I agree. I am fat, but I am also pretty and healthy. I HATE Shallow Hal, because it's one long fat joke and the joke is not even Jack Black would f**k you if you're fat. And the truth is, I wouldn't f**k Jack Black no matter how fat I got.
Fist of all the author didn't say that fat men aren't at risk. Jack black, although overweight, is not morbidly obese. The movie had its focus because men tend to focus on looks of women and women tend to be able to overcome a man's looks if he is rich, funny, or a celebrity.
Also you need to realize that beauty is subjective. I am not talking about inner beauty here either. There are men that are specifically attracted to overweight women. This is prevalent due to an evolutionary advantage when it comes to child bearing. You don't see nearly as many women specifically attracted to fat guys. Yes, there are women willing to overlook a guy's weight because of other good qualities, but women don't tend to go after fat guys for their looks.
To add to my previous comment, there is an inaccuracy in "Shallow Hal" that people don't seem to notice. Morbidly obese people are this way because they have emotional problems. This doesn't necessarily make them bad people, but they can be unpleasant to be around. Because we all have some control over our appearance it is not outright untrue that your physical appearance is totally disconnected with who you are on the inside.
ReplyGwyneth Paltrow's character either has a hormonal imbalance that needs to be treated medically, or she is a food addict in denial. I base this on her constant rationalization of the unhealthy eating patterns she shows in the movie. This movie demonizes smokers while making those who abuse their bodies in other ways appear to be angels.
The problem I saw with Shallow Hal is that it didn't show enough people appearing ugly because of inner ugliness. Only one character that I can recall changed in the other way. As bad as I am on the outside I'd probably look a lot worse with "inner beauty".
Replyi get trying to be funny but damn guy you strayed. patch adams movie was proving that having a good outlook and being happy is mental medicine. if you have cancer and think youll die you will die. but being positive has been proven to give patients better quality of life. a whoopee cushion doesnt cure cancer but the laughing doesnt hurt either.
ReplyThe Shallow Hal one really bugged me because it's a particular soapbox of mine. I'm almost 300 pounds, but my cholesterol, heartrate, and sugars are all perfectly normal. Meanwhile, my brother is a bodybuilder who devotes his life to the gym and he has to go on medication for cholesterol and get a stint in his carotid artery. Yes, morbid obesity is MOST OFTEN going to be indicative of other medical issues, but to think you know the state of a person's health just by looking at them is sheer hubris...and also kinda the point of the movie- don't judge by looks! On another note, this movie honked me off because Gwyneth's character was in the Peace Corps and Jack Black was able to just join her. As someone who tried to join up, the screening process is a lot more rigorous and time-consuming than just walking through the recruitment office doors AND they won't take you if you're obese anyway- I was told (again, despite numerous required tests showing I was healthy!) that my obesity put me at too high of a risk for them to ship me overseas for 2 years!
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesMaybe they couldn't afford the extra jet fuel.
yeah- in the same way that you exist because your mother couldn't afford a condom.
A more serious reply... morbid obesity is considered medically to be a health hazard even if your blood sugar and other factors appear okay.
#2 is a core gameplay mechanic of the Assassin's Creed games. This isn't just a vaguely relevant factoid, as the Matrix example is basically Neo and Morpheus playing a very realistic-looking video game.
ReplyI can see the Indy example, but the Matrix one doesn't really work. Neo doesn't attempt the skyscraper jump just because Morpheus tells him he can. Prior to that, Neo had been taken out of the Matrix into the real world, been exposed to a bunch of VR training programs, and then put into the jump simulation, which he knows is a computer simulation and not the real world. Then Morpheus makes the jump, successfully, himself.
It's basically one person showing another one a difficult video game trick and the second person trying to copy it.
Vanilla Sky would be a better choice - the protagonist has to jump off of a skyscraper as a means of waking himself up from a VR simulation, but can't, at that point, know for sure. Given that the alternative explanation is that he's mentally ill, this is a much better example of a dangerous precedent, at least in real-world terms.
tl;dr - essentially a weird black dude trying to feed me a weird pill I should avoid.
It was mentioned in Gattaca that he lived past his prescribed death date (when he was 31) and hence the whole premise of predicting the death age of inferiors was bullshit.
ReplyOtherwise the one about shallow hal I always thought was stupid.
Yeah...but it's like the space program that hired his ass in Gattaca was utterly retarded. NASA's standards are higher than those fools.
I have actually met Patch Adams. He was so nice and HILARIOUS! I was about six or eight, so I'm sure some of what he was talking about flew over my head, but me and my friend had a blast none the less. Somewhere I have two books signed by him! :)
ReplyI am seriously wondering if the person who wrote this article knows what he is talking about where mental illness is concerned. Unless you have a mental illness that has been proven to be the result of real physical cause (Such as schizophrenia. Even though they don't know the exact cause, it can be diagnosed by the detection of strange brainwave patterns via EEG) diagnosis is VERY subject and so is the thought process behind the medication prescribed. Anyone who has been through the mental health care system enough knows this despite you claiming that we are so out of it as to be manipulated by a f*****g movie. I can't tell you how many people (myself included) have had different diagnoses with each change of the shrink. And medication was not the end all be all to my circumstances nor many others that I know of. Did you know that shrinks get all kinds of kick backs from the pharmaceutical companies too?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesTrue. But going off your meds for SOME people is a bad idea. At first you get a sensory overload and everything is grand, but things fall back down pretty quick, and the consequences can be dire. I've seen it before, and its not pretty. You can't give up when you have a mental illness. You have to keep fighting for the right thing for you, and fight to find what works.
There's also the fact that you're not supposed to quit those meds cold turkey. That can f**k you up bad.
Sorry, but the general rule is - Are you really sure you know better than the guy who went to various college for 10 or more years for this shit?"
Nice article!
Replyonly thing is that patch adams is based on a true story, and the message isnt that smiles can disease, but it can boost patient moral. it has more to do with the mental health of a patient while they are going through a terrible ordeal.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesDon't sweat it, man. This was written during that couple of years where hating Robin Williams was a job requirement.
Morale**. Otherwise, I can totes see where you're coming from and agree.
Smiles can't disease? Yet another childhood belief destroyed.
Man, while I never made a list like this, I wonder if it's a coincidence that I've personally hated all these movies ever since I first saw them. Other than garden state, which I never saw cause I could smell the crappiness wafting from even the trailers for the movie, like a baking feces cake...
ReplyActually that whole hatred thing especially goes for shallow hal, (it was on TV last night which made me think of it) since the moral of the story is supposed to be that it's what's on the inside that counts, while at the same time the movie basically proceeds to stereotype pretty much every woman in the movie by constantly trying to force the point that "every single attractive woman is a complete b***h no matter what, and almost every fat/unattractive woman is an amazing human being that is also desperate and willing to make love to anyone including jack black.", which is almost as damaging a sentiment as finding attractive women to actually be attractive. Not to mention we've developed a biological response to certain things that we find 'attractive' because they're indicators of health, fertility, and survivability; being morbidly obese means that said individual likely has not only a significantly higher chance of various diseases, but also, assuming they don't have some sort of serious ailment that's causing the obesity, which the larger portion of obese individuals in the U.S. don't, being THAT fat as depicted in the movie also means that the person likely has much more significant mental issues that's causing them to find so much value and comfort in eating that they're willing to be that disabled by being overweight just so they can eat as much as the obese individuals in the movie are shown to. That also begs the question; why didn't most people just look like insane monsters to jack black? Cause really I'm willing to bet we all tend to be crazy far more than we're either attractive or unattractive, ya know, "on the inside".
Either way, I guess it shouldn't be surprising since most movies that try to make some self righteous statement about what's wrong with people end up missing the mark and just end up being sort of dumb, but I guess people must not mind it since it's not like that sort of idea in a movie has ever died out. I don't know why honestly. Maybe it makes viewers feel like they're good people? That's my best guess at least.
tl;dr - self righteousness sucks.
But what if we smiled at them really hard?
ReplyLMAO.
And that is why faith is ok only for things that don't matter.
ReplyYou clearly don't know what faith is in the non-religious context.
...eeeeh.
ReplyI think I'd watch a movie where an angel came down from heaven to review a suicidal man's life and convince him not to do it - only for that life to have been the shittiest s**t fest ever, and just convince the guy that, yeah, he doesn't really want to go through any more rounds of that. Then he splats himself.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesThe rest of the movie would have to be about the angel getting fired, I guess.
Go watch "A Nostalgia Critic Christmas". :)
If you want to watch something like that for "A Christmas Carol" check out the Blackadder version.
there both awesome but i think that the nostalgia critic christmas was hillarious.
Also Married with children
He wouldn't get fired, he just wouldn't get his wings.
Morpheus used to be Cowboy Curtis on PeeWee's playhouse...Stone cold badass, indeed
ReplyCue Laurence Fishburne yelling "I was in The Matrix! I'm cool now! ahhhhh!
Cue Laurence Fishburne yelling, "My daughter was in a porno! I failed as a father! Ahhhh!"
Shallow Hal's "message" is messed up in other ways too. First of all it proposes that all "pretty people" are ugly on the inside (the other nurse in the hospital is really beautiful but seen as an ugly, skeletal old woman) and all ugly people are beautiful on the inside (all of the pretty people Hal meets after the hypnosis are really ugly.) That sort of an insulting message to all pretty people out there who ARE good. Further, the only reason why Hal was interested in Mary to begin with was because he thought she was hot! Had he seen what she really looked like he wouldn't have cared.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThe message also states that "inner" beauty was easy to see. It is required for the movie to actually make sense, but they are also saying that you can judge people just by looking at them. Judge a book by it's cover much?
That's not completely true. His ridiculously sexy neighbor was hot before, during and after his hypnotism. So....
But was that not due to the fact that he already knew her? I mean, in the film she basically slates Mary's image when she mentions how far Hal has come with his views on superficiality, and if memory serves, does she not then try and steal him? Not that nice then...
tl;dr - basically, Hal was a misogynistic pig but the girl had no right to be fat outside a glandular condition.
The first thing that happened in the Matrix was him being captured by the Agents in a "dream", then getting in a car with the strange people in leather, and then Trinity pulled an impossible creature out of his stomach.
ReplyTHEN he took drugs from a complete stranger.
Actually, in another universe, that would be the start of a comedy.