There are countless movies about memory loss and amnesia. From Jason Bourne to The Notebook viewers have been fascinated with the loss of memory. One movie in particular takes amnesia to the next level. In the 1987 film Overboard , a filthy rich housewife falls off her yacht and is found washed ashore only to have forgotten everything she knows about herself. Numerous media stations marvel at this interesting find and her pictures are posted everywhere posing the same question, "Who is this woman?" Her husband sees the news reports and decides not to go after her, instead he wants to live his life as a free man. What does happen is that a lowly carpenter, to whom the rich housewife owes money to, claims her as his wife so she may pay off her debt to him. He takes her home and begins reconstructing her memory, making her believe that she has 4 kids, lives in a dingy home and has questionable moral character. This is where psychology plays a role. The housewife knows something is not right but everyone is telling her the same thing. This is similar to Elizabeth F. Loftus' ideas on suggestibility and the malleability of memory. If the people around you whom you trust (or in the movies case, the only people you know) are all telling you the same thing you are eventually going to believe it. While I do believe this movie goes a little 'overboard' (pun intended) by romanticizing amnesia (at the end of the movie the carpenter and the housewife fall madly in love), in the real world amnesia is a much scarier and stressful thing. Our fascination with memory loss has led to numerous films and books about the subject, but has our fascination led us astray from reality? Have we forgotten the pain memory loss and caused from such things as Alzheimers and short term memory loss? Do you think our society is more obsessed with the romanticized version or the real world version?
