Media Analysis 3
In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the character Smeagel/Gollum is depicted as having a split personality disorder, which is what most people confuse with schizophrenia when it is in fact a “psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities, each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment”.
Although that definition of a split personality disorder would certainly be a fitting description/diagnosis of the character Gollum, it certainly is not how the disorder would affect most people. To put it another way, people with the disorder may experience the multiple identities, but would not necessarily have one evil side and one good side, and they two identities would not necessarily hate each other and talk to each other as if it were two completely seperate people, which is how the movie depicts the disorder. So this gives people watching the movie an overemphasized or overexaggerated portrayal of the disorder.
Also “The causes of dissociative identity disorder have not been identified, but are theoretically linked with the interaction of overwhelming stress, traumatic antecedents, insufficient childhood nurturing, and an innate ability to dissociate memories or experiences from consciousness”. So it is fair to say that the mysterious powers of the ring, and the fact that after it was taken from him, Gollum constantly has the thought of the ring on his mind, the stress of not having it, and the traumatic event when it was taken from him. It is fair to say that the author probably had a good idea of what the causes of such a disorder could be, and could quite possibly have purposely overly-portrayed the disorder so that it would indirectly help to support the idea that “the Ring” basically has more power than anything that ever existed.
So it is clear to say that most viewers of this movie might walk away with a fear of people with a form of split personality disorder. I mean the scary creature that somewhat resembles a human, eats raw fish for dinner, and yells back and forth at himself from his other self, is not something that most people would feel comfortable being around, but the truth is people with such a disorder are really not that bad or scary, and they really just need some help to be nearly “normal” or cured.
