View and analyze the film "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" portraying a person with a disability. Write a meaningful critique of the film
Description of how the person's disability is portrayed within the contexts of family and community (Have an in depth analysis and discussion of the extent to which the film appears to be a reflection of life and is grounded in current "state of knowledge". Give appropriate evidences from the film to support each point)
Analysis onto what extent does this film address characteristics and effects of the cultural and environmental milieu of the individual with disabilities (Have an in depth analysis on the issues of culture, other social issues concerning people with disability, using appropriate evidence from the film to support each point )
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
Plot Summary
The plot revolves around the Grape family and the little town they live in. Endora is a fictional one street town where nothing much happens. The only interesting thing happening in their lives is the yearly ritual of tourists passing through the town on their way to a recreational area nearby. Gilbert is the protagonist in the movie and although the movie centers around and revolves around the various emotions he goes through, other plots are also wonderfully woven around him. There is the morbidly obese mother who spends her entire days sitting on the couch watching TV, the two sisters Ellen and Amy who slave in the kitchen the whole day and most importantly the little brother Arnie, who is developmentally disabled. Gilbert is the brother, friend and caretaker of Arnie. There are references to the suicidal hanging of Gilbert’s dada after which the onus of taking care of the family falls on gilbert. Gilbert undergoes tremendous strain providing for and supporting the family by working in the slowly dying convenience store. A new supermarket chain selling everything opens up in town and slowly kills off the small businesses that were there earlier.
As a coping mechanism to his overburdened life, Gilbert carries on an affair with the housewife Betty whose unwitting husband Ken tries to sell insurance to Gilbert. Gilbert’s affair with Betty comes to an end when she becomes demanding and tries to have sex with him when he is on the phone with ken. Betty suffers a nervous breakdown of sorts and Gilbert and Ken find her sitting in a house filled with smoke. Soon after this incident ken dies of a heart attack and Betty leaves town in search of a new life.
It is around this time that Becky arrives in town. The truck pulling the caravan Becky and her Grandmother travel in breaks down and they get stranded in town waiting for the parts to arrive. Becky and Gilbert begin to bond and this leads gilbert to reflect on his life. Gilbert finally loses it when Arnie eats his birthday cake. He forces Arnie to take a bath and hits him when he refuses. Disgusted with his behavior gilbert leaves town and drives away. Arnie leaves the house and finds Becky who takes care of him.
Throughout the movie Arnie has the habit of climbing the water tower when he gets upset and one day he finally manages to climb to the very top for which he gets arrested. The mother leaves the house for the first time in seven years to get him out of jail. The townspeople make fun of her size and this incident and the insensitive remark of a policeman later on spurs the kids to burn her corpse after her death with the house. Towards the end of the story, the sisters leave the house and the movie ends with Gilbert and Arnie going for a road trip with Becky and her grandmother.
What’s eating Gilbert grape is a movie about a family dealing with various issues, most importantly the developmental disability of Arnie, brother of the protagonist Gilbert. The movie also offers a rare insight into the mind and behavior of a developmentally disabled person. Although we are not told, what exactly the problem with Arnie in the movie is, we can assume that he is different and is someone who is unable to fit in or cope up with the rest of the world around him. Of the many movies that dealt with mental disabilities, this was a poignant and realistic portrayal. What is also interesting about the movie is how Arnie reacts to his surroundings, the people around him and how Gilbert, his family and the townspeople react to him.
Description of Arnie’s disability within the context of the family and the town
Arnie is slow to learn and mostly repeats what people speak. He repeats a lot of what Gilbert says and there are a lot of instances in the movie when Arnie repeats what gilbert says. One example is when Gilbert calls his mother a whale and Arnie keeps repeating it over and over again. Arnie not only repeats what Gilbert says but also echoes or repeats what his mother says, especially when she says “Do not disappear on me again”. Arnie keeps repeating this whenever Gilbert leaves the house. There is also the instance when Arnie reminds Gilbert to thank Becky after they have spent some time together. This is a clear case of Arnie imitating his role model. According to a study on autistic children, their ability to integrate into society is less likely because they fail to imitate ad integrate among their peer groups (Ganz et al., 2008). Arnie however is a little different and unlike an autistic child he is able to grasp what is going on around him and his behavior whether erratic or not is influenced by this. Arnie also responds to Gilbert and forms a special attachment to him and this comes to light when he climbs down the water tower after Gilbert sings to him. This character of Arnie is a little confusing when it comes to understanding what exactly his disability is.
Not many people know what a mental disability really is and many fail to understand it. A developmental disability is an umbrella term for various illness and disabilities that prevents a person from successfully integrating into society. People are either intolerant or ignorant what really goes on in their heads and this happens in the movie too. Arnie climbs up the water tower and reaches the top finally and instead of helping him down or getting him the help he needs, the cops in the tow promptly arrest him and this shows or bring out the callous attitude the society as a whole has towards people with developmental disabilities. People have very polarizing opinions about mental disability or autism. They are either expected to be savants who perform great feats of memory or art or lonely people who withdraw to a corner at all times this movie however shows another side to them, a realistic side where autistic or developmentally disabled people too are capable of having fun and enjoying themselves even though it isn’t always socially acceptable. One can see this in the movie when Arnie shouts with joy that his father is dead at the table or when he plays around in the cemetery at the funeral of Mr. Carver. He fails to read the signs of distress on the townspeople or that of his family members when he does such things. This might also explain why he keeps at climbing the tower. A source of fun to him also becomes habitual irrespective of the emotions it elicits from others.
Cultural and environmental milieu affecting a person with developmental disability
The chances of a successful integration or an uneventful existence of a person with developmental disability or any other disability depends on the cultural and environmental milieu they are situated in. There are a lot of instances in the movie where people are ostracized or made fun of because of their disability. If Arnie has his developmental problems, in the case of his mother, it is her weight and the resultant disability that becomes a problem. The people are painfully insensitive when she goes to get Arnie out of the jail that it leaves a scar on her children. Then later on after her death a cop too makes a rude remark about her weight. These things do not make life any easier for a person with a disability. It also affects the people taking care of them. The Grape children in this movie, instead of going through the torturous process of the townspeople making fun of their mother, decide to burn the house down with her corpse.
Society, culture and media too sometimes play along in creating certain stereotypes and encourage the subversive behavior that is expected from a disabled person. In the movie Arnie knows of no other world than his family and a few other people. When he tries to escape into another world, the water tower in the movie, he is always brought down, further reinforcing the subversive position of people with disabilities. Another characteristic of a disabled person often portrayed in movies or in real life is of them as a super hero material, where they successfully beat their disability and manage to survive when the odds are stacked up against them. By doing this, the disability becomes the central focus of people’s thought process or the plot of a movie and not the person as such. The person becomes secondary to his disability and this in a movie just adds more drama. In the movie too, the very fact that Arnie lives past 10 and later goes on to celebrate his 18th birthday portrays him as a kind of superhero for coming out of his disability. The movie also puts forth many other stereotypes like that of the disabled person being a burden (the toll it takes on Gilbert), an object of curiosity (the townspeople looking on in fascination when Arnie climbs the water tower), and a subject of emotional or physical violence (the instance when Gilbert strikes Arnie because he is frustrated).
The movie although poignant and feel good at the end, still subscribes to some stereotypes and showcases only the instances that would tug the strings of an audiences heart. Poignant and realistic it might be, but it still falls short of portraying the real life of a person with disability.
References
1. www.imdb.com
2. Ganz, Jennifer B., Bourgeois, Bethany C., Flores, Margaret M., & Campos, Adriana B. (2008). Implementing Visually Cued Imitation Training With Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Delays. Journals Of Positive Behavior Interventions, 10 (1), 56-55.
