In Popular Culture
Amnesiacs are frequently portrayed in television and movies. Some of the better known examples include:
In the romantic comedy 50 First Dates (2004), Adam Sandler plays veterinarian Henry Roth, who falls for Lucy Whitmore, played by Drew Barrymore. Having lost her short term memory in a car crash, Lucy can only remember the current day's events until she falls asleep. When she wakes up the next morning, she has no recollection of the previous day's experiences. These experiences would normally be transferred into declarative knowledge, allowing them to be recalled in the future. Although this movie is not the most accurate representation of a true amnesic patient, it is useful for informing viewers of the detrimental effects of amnesia.
Memento (2000) a film inspired by the case of Henry Molaison (H.M.). Guy Pearce plays an ex-insurance investigator suffering from severe anterograde amnesia caused by a head injury. Unlike most amnesiacs, Leonard retains his identity and the memories of events that occurred before the injury, but loses all ability to form new memories. This loss of ability to form new memories indicates that the head injury affected the medial temporal lobe of the brain resulting in the inability for Leonard to form declarative memory.
Finding Nemo features a reef fish named Dory with an inability to develop declarative memory. This prevents her from learning or retaining any new information such as names or directions. The exact origin of Dory's impairment is not mentioned in the film, but her memory loss accurately portrays the difficulties facing amnesiacs.
Ghajini is an Indian psychological thriller. The film explores the life of a rich businessman who develops anterograde amnesia following a violent encounter in which his love interest was killed.
Read more about this topic: Declarative Memory
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“The best hopes of any community rest upon that class of its gifted young men who are not encumbered with large possessions.... I now speak of extensive scholarship and ripe culture in science and art.... It is not large possessions, it is large expectations, or rather large hopes, that stimulate the ambition of the young.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)