Memory Causing Movies to go 'Overboard'

I completely agree with you. Our society definitely romanticizes amnesia, but we can't count out those movies or books that do the opposite. I have seen countless movies where young thirty-things are unhappy with their lives, when all of a sudden they get into an accident and go into a coma and someone magically falls in love with them during or after they wake up and remember nothing. This is not true in some episodes of the show Grey's Anatomy, they show the emotional suffering that comes with a parent dealing with Alzheimers as well as someone dealing with a memory loss. I had a grandfather who had Alzheimers and I think that show and a few other movies have shown the truth when it comes to dealing with a degenerative disease or memory loss.

I find this to be a particularly interesting subject because I have suffered from Amnesia twice, the first being November in 2010, and the second being this last March. Both times I had experienced it lasted 2 to 3 weeks, and I was unable to recollect anything. People are much more interested in the romanticized idea of it, which there truly isn't. They were both by far the worst experiences of my life and I don't believe there is anything scarier than coming to the realization that you had missed out on such a large span of time. I can remember bits and pieces of what was going on during the memory loss and hearing about what my loved ones were thinking during both of the events has shown me that absolutely no good can come of it, let alone a love story.

I definitely agree with this article. I recently saw the vow, and the entire movie was based on how the greatest love of all is one the endures the pain of Amnesia. However, there is nothing romantic about losing some of the greatest memories of your life, or being unable to remember new experiences and information (such as in anterograde amnesia). It saddens me that amnesia has been the core plot for many hollywood movies and television shows- I think that they could do better. Although some movies or television shows show the true side of the disease, many fail to bring up the immense amount of pain and frustration felt by both the families and victims of amnesia or Alzheimer's.

I completely agree that the topic of amnesia is overly romanticized by Hollywood because it is such a captivating topic that not many people are very educated on. Not only do most movies get the facts wrong, but they glorify it overall. After all, viewers need to realize that not every case of amnesia ends in two people falling madly in love and living happily ever after. In fact - most cases don't. Losing everything you've ever known to be true, some of your greatest and proudest moments and losing all recollection of who you are can be probably the one of the scariest things encountered so the fact that it is so over glorified is a very misleading concept. Hollywood and other television producers keep romanticizing the trauma to keep viewers hooked and interested but a little wringing of truth here and there couldn't hurt either in my opinion.

I never really thought that our perceptions of not knowing what really causes memory loss make it ideal for movies to target. I always just thought that when producers are thinking about movies they think of memory loss because it is easy to form a plot to. Memory loss however is very common in our society therefore people have some form of connection to people. As the blog points out our fascination with memory loss is the reason producers target memory loss which makes so much more sense.

I personally don't feel our society has gone "overboard" with stories about memory loss. I realize that it is indeed a very serious issue, but at the same time memory loss provides for a very entertaining story. With all of the things that could happen when someone loses their memory, thousands of pieces of literature could be created. I don't think it's justifiable to say society has romanticized memory loss. Think about a world without the movie The Bourne Ultimatum? What would we do? That movie is awesome.

I think movies illustrate amnesia is a variety of ways. In the case of the movie 'Overboard' it may be viewed as romantic and harmless but other movies such as '50 First Dates' illustrate some of the real world problems of amnesia while still managing to make the movie awesome and funny! The movie shows how Drew Barrymore's character suffers from anterograde amnesia in which she cannot form new memories. She cannot remember her boyfriend, Adam Sandler, from day to day which causes great frustration for her. To make matters worse, she does not realize that she has the disease when she wakes up each morning because she cannot remember. This causes her to go through distress every day she is informed of her condition. The movie, while not entirely scientifically accurate, brings to light the pain and inconvenience of amnesia rather well compared to some others I have seen in the past.

Good point! So many movies today romanticize loss of memory. I recently saw "The Vow" starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum and, again, memory loss is romanticized. Rachel McAdams loses her memory after a car crash and the story line unfolds as her lover, Channing, tries to get her to remember their lifelong vow to love eachother. The movie was really cute but the seriousness and misfortune of memory loss is downplayed and covered up with romance.

I think we as a society have become more fascinated with a romanticized version of things in general, and have forgotten real world issues and their impact. This is a perfect example of that.
Being a movie, it was made to be appealing from the romanticized aspect of course. But I think you have raised a good question. One that can be applied to issues like alzheimer's as well as many other issues.
In my opinion, you've hit the nail on the head when it comes to the perception media puts on issues like these.

I believe that some movies like Memento, The Vow, and the Notebook are simply created to entertain an audience and should not be criticized for doing so. However, I believe that movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were created, not to undermine the seriousness of diseases such as Alzheimer's or people who suffer or have suffered from amnesia, but to simply explore the possibilities of the human memory that have not been explored yet. The fact of the matter is that memory is essentially our consciousness of the world around us. Since every fleeting moment becomes a memory of the past, everything that we have collected up to the present moment, is essentially a part of who we are - our consciousness. To contemplate about changing our memories is like contemplating changing who we are, as a person, which is fascinating. As we have seen, memories are malleable, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explores the possibility of memory being deletable. Imagine if memory was able to be deleted? It would change who we are, completely. I think it raises some important questions on consciousness and the human mind. So, all in all, not all of these movies are terrible. In fact, some of them raise awareness on how truly important memory actually is.