{"id":9139,"date":"2010-07-16T22:44:15","date_gmt":"2010-07-17T02:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=9139"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:46:08","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:46:08","slug":"diabetes-in-the-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=9139","title":{"rendered":"Diabetes in the Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The only movie I\u2019ve ever seen in which diabetes plays a prominent role is Christopher Nolan\u2019s 2000 thriller Memento<\/em>. The protagonist of this film, Leonard, looses his short-term memory, but his diabetic wife thinks he\u2019s faking. To force him to stop \u201cpretending,\u201d she asks him to give her an injection of insulin. He does so. A few minutes later, she tells him again: \u201cIt\u2019s time for my insulin.\u201d Leonard repeatedly injects her with insulin until she goes into a coma and dies.<\/p>\n

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image from www.wikipedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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When I saw this movie for a high school assignment, I hadn\u2019t yet been diagnosed with diabetes, but my brother had. My mom made a reassuring assessment of the movie\u2019s plotholes (Once Leonard has given his wife several injection, wouldn\u2019t she finally realize he\u2019s not faking his condition and drink some orange juice? If Leonard saw his wife going into a coma, wouldn\u2019t he call an ambulance?) Still, I found the movie very disturbing. It reminded me that diabetics are constantly vulnerable, despite every attempt to manage their condition as well as possible.<\/p>\n

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After watching Memento<\/em>, I\u2019ve never felt the desire to watch another movie about a diabetic. This is partly just my taste; while some people find it comforting to watch movies that address their health issues, I\u2019m usually more of an escapist–I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d seek out a movie about a diabetic character even if the portrayal wasn\u2019t depressing. Still, watching Memento<\/em> made me curious. Were there any other movies about diabetics?<\/p>\n

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My google search of \u201cdiabetics\u201d and \u201cmovies\u201d yielded a list from dLife.com of several movies with diabetic characters. From the accompanying short description of each, I found out that there are films with diabetic characters in all different genres. You can see the full list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In most thrillers, like Memento,<\/em> diabetes is introduced as a fatal flaw for other characters to exploit. As you can probably imagine all too well, inducing hypo- or hyperglycemia in a diabetic is an effective way to put that character\u2019s life in danger. In Big Nothing<\/em>, an agent is killed when he is force-fed sugar by his nemeses. In The Panic Room<\/em>, a girl has a seizure induced by low blood sugar while trapped in the panic room without her glucagon. In Con Air<\/em> a convict\u2019s syringes are destroyed in the middle of an airplane flight and the convict is unable to take a necessary shot of insulin.<\/p>\n

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Dramas also explore the hardships associated with diabetes, albeit less sensationally. The problems mentioned in many of these movies are ones with which many people, including me, can empathize. Bread & Roses <\/em>portrays a woman in financial difficulties because of her husband\u2019s diabetes. In Mad Money <\/em>the protagonist\u2019s coworkers mistakenly believe she\u2019s a drug addict after seeing a syringe fall from her purse. In Chocolat <\/em>(the one movie on dLife\u2019s list I\u2019ve seen besides Memento<\/em>),<\/em> Judi Dench plays a grandmother with diabetes. Despite pressure from her daughter to stick to a diet, Dench\u2019s character secretly buys hot chocolate at the the newly opened chocolate shop in town. dLife includes a quote by Dench about the grandmother\u2019s role in the film: “At the end, through the metaphor of chocolate, people are able to embrace a free lifestyle and sexual freedom and reject repression of all kinds. And that wasn’t available to the woman with diabetes. Well, it was, but at a price.” This price, eventually, is death. Nevertheless, the film isn\u2019t moralistic. While the chocolate shop contributes to the deterioration of the grandmother\u2019s heath, it also heals her emotionally and prompts her to take a new interest in her grandson and the other townspeople.<\/p>\n

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If the depiction of diabetics\u2019 weakness in most films depresses you, you might appreciate the fantastical superpowers somehow attributed to diabetics in horror flicks. In Scarecrow Gone Wild,<\/em> a diabetic boy goes into a coma and emerges as a scarecrow bent on taking revenge on the football players who\u2019ve tormented him. In The Warlock<\/em>, a syringe is a diabetic girl\u2019s weapon of choice when she destroys the warlock. (Apparently an injection of salt water is lethal to warlocks. Who knew?) At least it\u2019s gratifying that a character\u2019s diabetes condition empowers her to defeat an evil character, and not vice versa.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m curious as to what other people think about movies with diabetic characters. Do you enjoy or avoid watching them? Are there portrayals of diabetics from certain movies that you find especially accurate or moving? Which movies with diabetic characters would you recommend to others?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The only movie I\u2019ve ever seen in which diabetes plays a prominent role is Christopher Nolan\u2019s 2000 thriller Memento. The protagonist of this film, Leonard, looses his short-term memory, but his diabetic wife thinks he\u2019s faking. To force him to stop \u201cpretending,\u201d she asks him to give her an injection of insulin. He does so. A few minutes later, she tells him again: \u201cIt\u2019s time for my insulin.\u201d Leonard repeatedly injects her with insulin until she goes into a coma and dies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":53098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1501],"tags":[877,880,882,879,883,881,876,875,878,884,885],"yoast_head":"\nDiabetes in the Movies | ASweetLife<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I found the movie Memento very disturbing. Still, watching it made me curious. 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