Requiem for a Dream: A Movie That Cultivated Me

Summer after my sophomore year of high school, I found myself whistling a tune that I had heard before in a YouTube video.  My brother and his friend heard me and asked why I was whistling that specific song.  I didn't have a reason other than I liked the way it sounded.  They told me it was the theme song of a really messed up movie named Requiem for a Dream.  They told me all of these horror stories about how the movie messes with peoples' minds and is a tough watch.  I was up for the challenge.  Sure enough, the movie was available on Xfinity On-Demand and I watched it that night.  Much to my surprise, I didn't think it was that bad.  It was intense at times, but it wasn't enough to evoke nightmares.

Requiem for a Dream is a movie that follows four main characters and their addictions.  The main characters are Harry, Sara, Marion, and Tyrone.  Each of those four hold dreams but their addictions ultimately gatekeep them from reaching those dreams.  Harry and Marion are a couple and have a dream of opening a fashion store together.  Sara is Harry's mother and has a dream of being on a TV show and wearing a special red dress.  Tyrone, Harry's best friend, has had dreams since being a child of making it out of poverty and making his mother proud.  Harry and Tyrone dealt (as well as used) intravenous drugs--Harry saving money to invest in the fashion store and Tyrone saving his portion of the money as well.  Sara was too heavy to fit into her dress, so she began taking pills that masked her appetite to ultimately lose weight.  Marion used the drugs with Harry.

Later on in the movie, the drug market became dry and the money flow slowed down.  Harry and Marion ended up spending their savings to keep buying drugs while having no source of income.  Harry continued to go to greater lengths to "score" drugs to both sell and use, while Marion resorted to prostitution to obtain the drugs.  Tyrone found himself tagging along with Harry on the missions to obtain the drugs.  Sara became too obsessed with losing weight and ended up taking more and more of her pills each day.  All four characters fell too deep with their addictions and their dreams slipped away.  Harry's arm became infected from reusing needles.  Tyrone turned him into a hospital which ended up getting them arrested for drug charges.  Harry's arm was amputated and Tyrone was enslaved in the prison.  Marion became a full-time prostitute, and Sara's physical and mental health deteriorated to the point where she became insane and was turned into a mental institute.  More information about the movie, including character descriptions, video clips, and fun facts, can be found on this website.

Before seeing this movie, I had a stereotypical outlook on drug users.  I looked at users as degenerate, low-life, criminals that deserved to be thrown in jail.  Anytime I learned someone had been using any kind of drug or stimulant, no matter the magnitude, I would look down on them.  After seeing the movie, I realized that drug users are not much different than you or I.  All four of the characters are very likeable people with innocent dreams.  Viewers witness the love they have for each other and their perseverance for their dreams.  I soon-after became attached to the movie and the characters and I had a brand new outlook on the drug problem in the United States.

Traditionally, the US has relied on its prison system to rehabilitate "criminals," including drug users.  The War on Drugs began during the Nixon Administration and was aimed at slowing the drug problem in the country.  In reality, it only succeeded in criminalizing black people and removing them from the streets.  These people need help and prison does them no justice.  Drugs must be decriminalized and rehabilitation programs must be a more feasible option to help people get over their addictions.

Requiem for a Dream no-doubt has affected my outlook on certain things in life, and this is common for most tv/movie watchers.  According to the Cultivation Theory, long-term exposure to media shapes the way people see the world and conduct themselves.  Movies and tv shows are a stretching of reality.  Different genres have different effects on consumers.  Action and horror films tend to cause viewers to have a bleak and violent outlook on the world, whereas romantic and dramatic media will cause viewers to behave differently emotionally and sexually (and most of the time it's subconscious).  Requiem for a Dream is a dramatic film that changed my outlook on drugs and the people they affect.  I have little to no real-world experience with drug users, but my opinion on them has gone from one extreme to the other.  I just think the movie caused me to have a little bit more of a heart.  Once you see Ellen Burnstyn's acting performance, you will definitely feel some sort of remorse.  It's something that never actually occurred in real-life and I never witnessed for myself, but it had such a powerful impact on my outlook.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Netflix is Facing a Dilemma

Veteran stand-up comedian Dave Chapelle recently performed a show for a Netflix Special called The Closer .  For decades, Chapelle has been known for his edgy and dark humor, which includes making jokes aimed at certain marginalized groups.  He isn't afraid to make an audience laugh at the expense of those groups.  Chapelle constantly uses the N-word in many contexts ranging from casual conversation to deliberate racism (in other words, he sometimes brings out the "hard R") and is known to say 'bitch' in just about every sentence.  So clearly, he doesn't have much of a filter and in turn, he can say some gutsy jokes.  He also starred in some movies, such as Half Baked and Blue Streak to name a couple. In The Closer , Chapelle includes stories and punchlines about various groups, such as the LGBTQ community.  Chapelle's main talking point in the special is how LGBTQ rights have advanced far quicker than racial justice.  He constantly compares the stru...
Read more

The Social Dilemma: My Experience with Social Media Addiction

I was late to the social media game thanks to my parents.  I never really had any fancy social media related technology when I was young (pre-teen).  Smart phones, tablets, iPod touches, and other early technologies were around when I was in 4th and 5th grade.  As much as it was kind of a downer to not have a phone at that age, it was probably a good thing I didn't have my head in a screen that early on.  Yeah you look like a dork to your friends, but nobody knows their best interest at that age. In the Netflix Documentary, The Social Dilemma , we hear about the addictive nature of social media and the things our smart phones and other technology do for us.  Almost everyone has a phone in their pocket that takes their attention away from the physical world in front of them.  Phones were originally just for communication with other people; more specifically, verbally speaking to one another.  Later, texting was added to allow for quicker and more conven...
Read more

Multi-Media Project

Image
For my multi-media project, I used TikTok and my podcast to cover baseball.  We had to use at least two different forms of media to cover a topic or tell a story, so I felt that revitalizing my podcast, One Chief and a Guy , was an obvious pick for one of the forms of media.  Also, I have experience with posting on TikTok and just using the app, so I figured doing something with TikTok would be a good choice as well.  I chose baseball as my topic because it is pretty much what I'm most passionate about in life, and I have extensive knowledge in that subject, so coming up with content wouldn't be too much of a difficulty for me.  Also, my co-host of One Chief and a Guy is also a teammate of mine on the North Central baseball team, so baseball would be something he could talk about on the podcast as well. My teammate and I were excited that we had an excuse to record some podcast episodes so we recorded an episode at the first opportunity available.  We reserved o...
Read more