Diagnosing Depressives in Popular Film

Jan. 25, 2011

By Jimmy Chen info

Jimmy Chen writes essays, criticism, and satire. He also contributes at HTMLGIANT, among other places, and ...

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Bernard Berkman (in The Squid and the Whale)

Overview: Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) is a smug and bitter writer whose mid-range career heyday has long since transpired. (There’s an endearingly pathetic scene where he picks up a signed first ed. of his novel and just stares at it). He resents the recent literary success (poem published in The New Yorker) of his wife, who leaves him for their sons’ tennis coach, played perfectly by William Baldwin. Berkman, emasculated by the world and his wife, resorts to controlling his emulating eldest son by getting him to agree on petty literary aesthetics—like which books suck, and which books are too “complicated” for mainstream philistines (e.g. his). He also awkwardly attempts to court one of his young sexually glib creative writing students. This is a classic portrait of the middle-aged academic loser whose life spent accruing cultural currency cannot pay the bills. He eventually has a minor breakdown in the middle of the street, on which he ends up lying, fishing for sympathy.

Diagnosis: Narcissistic personality disorder, testosterone.

Suggested Medication: Yoga, fellatio. TC mark

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  • http://popserial.tumblr.com stephen

    lol

  • adamhump

    no google results for “empathy collateral”… interestingly
    also, isn't an emotional tampon the person that receives the emo / world pain of another, not he who dishes?

  • Gerry Rice

    good job, jimmy chen!

  • andy moreno

    damn i love ur writing jimmy chen

  • joakim

    killed it again

  • http://newhandsweepstakes.com/writings/the-last-acid-trip-damned-by-god-by-brian-mcelmurry/ Brian McElmurry

    Well done. Funny and made me sad. Loved the Edward Scissorhands

  • al

    Wendy Caroll's “diagnosis” struck me as offensively sexist. A menstrual joke was all you could conjure up for the only female, really? And here I thought indie-lectuals had wit.

    • LA

      Excuse me but Jimmy Chen is Asian, not Indielectual (whatever that is)

    • http://jimmychenchen.com/ Jimmy Chen

      it's all splooge and pms jokes for M and F respectively, yet for the latter it's sexist…interesting; but i like 'indie-lectuals,' great sound spin.

      • d.

        I agree. I think if you are to complain of sexism the fact only one female character made the list is is the point to focus on.

      • http://jimmychenchen.com/ Jimmy Chen

        omg when i wrote this, i was aware there was only one woman, and wrote a bunch of others (kathy bates in misery, piano teacher [which i already done entire thing on], nicole kidman in various, julianne moore in magnolia, etc. ) to even out the ratio, but they were strained and not intuitive. I'm a guy, so naturally i relate to guys more, that's not sexism; also, i'm confused, b/c the tone of the post was sarcastic and somewhat abrasive, so to direct my [rhetorical] derision at men seems 'un-sexist,' as sexism implies against, or dismissive of women. i get subdued when people extract political agendas which do not exist from my posts.

  • Renee

    Bipolar? Not at all. Bipolar would mean crazy manic highs of promiscuity, lack of sleep, increased energy, etc. and depressed lows. Not just being chill and then when faced with a past traumatic experience freaking out. That isn't bipolar… at all. In any way.
    Try PTSD maybe. Bipolar is just so off the mark.

  • Friedmansteinberg

    you're a fucking asshole.

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