"marnie"

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

The other night I watched the 1964 Hitchcock film, "Marnie" with my girlfriend.   She says it is one of her favorites.

For those not familiar with the film, "Marnie" is a woman with a troubled childhood, and grows up to be a pathological liar and a thief, and has a difficult time forming relationships with other humans.

halfway through the movie, my girlfriend remarked "She has PTSD!"

But I noticed "Marnie" also exhibits obvious traits of a personality disorder.   I don't know what was known about personality disorders or PTSD in 1964, but it seems Hitchcock established a character that fits those descriptions.

I find it odd that a movies about a woman with an obvious personality disorder is one of my girlfriend's favorites.  Has anyone else seen this film?  Does anyone else's pwBPD seem to identify with characters, celebrities, or others that also have personality disorders? 

[maxsterling]

The other night I watched the 1964 Hitchcock film, "Marnie" with my girlfriend.   She says it is one of her favorites.

For those not familiar with the film, "Marnie" is a woman with a troubled childhood, and grows up to be a pathological liar and a thief, and has a difficult time forming relationships with other humans.

halfway through the movie, my girlfriend remarked "She has PTSD!"

But I noticed "Marnie" also exhibits obvious traits of a personality disorder.   I don't know what was known about personality disorders or PTSD in 1964, but it seems Hitchcock established a character that fits those descriptions.

I find it odd that a movies about a woman with an obvious personality disorder is one of my girlfriend's favorites.  Has anyone else seen this film?  Does anyone else's pwBPD seem to identify with characters, celebrities, or others that also have personality disorders? 

[SweetCharlotte]

MARNIE an interesting film, though not one of Hitch's best.

It was one of his attempts at exploring the dramatic possibilities of female psychopathology. He usually concentrated on the male variety.

He didn't know a great deal about the female variety. His wife and daughter were extraordinarily supportive to him. He chose the most passive, sneaky vices women might have, rather than the truly dangerous ones.

I think that's why Marnie doesn't quite hit the mark for most people. It insists on Marnie being a "good girl" underneath it all. She lies and steals, like a small child. I don't recall her using drugs or self-harming. She is frigid rather than promiscuous. That was probably easier for audiences of the time to accept.

Her PD is like a grab-bag of misbehaviors associated with traditional femininity, neatly explained by her traumatic history. Once she talks out her trauma, she's cured (as I recall). It's a bit of a fairy tale. MARNIE might have been a better film if she had BPD. However, I'm glad it provoked an useful discussion for you and your gf.

[patientandclear]

This is a heartbreaking question for me.  My ex had one of those moments of deep clarity and honesty with me, and trust, when he told me that he watched a particular movie involving a character with an attachment disorder and he realized it was what occurs with him over and over (fleeing relationships because he's afraid he won't be accepted and loved if truly known).

A week later, he told me there wasn't really anything to discuss about that, "there's nothing to fix."  He immediately moved on & started a new r/s that week.

For that brief moment discussing the movie, I felt like I had his beating heart in my hands (we were "talking" by text -- the phone is too intimate/unfiltered for him most of the time).

[SweetCharlotte]

Closest portrait of a female pwBPD most agree is FATAL ATTRACTION.

I'm not sure if you want to watch that with her and see if she relates to it.

I would imagine most pwBPD's would not identify with it.

A far cry from sweet and demure MARNIE.

And there's also the predecessor of FATAL A, the 1970s PLAY MISTY FOR ME. As I recall, it has less psychological depth than FATAL A.

[SweetCharlotte]

Also, there is a cameo role by Olivia Wilde in the 2013 movie HER that resembles a pwBPD a lot.

In the space of a short "date from hell" the character goes from shy overachiever to clingy sex siren to control freak to raging and accusatory emotional invalid.

[halfnelson]

Totally agree about Olivia Wilde in Her! That was a great scene in a great film.

Also, Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has BPD. I often see people with BPDs as stayers and leavers- and she's a leaver. The moment she sees conflict or disagreement, she's out, and you're dead to her (at least, she thinks so). She was still hurting, and probably just thought he might leave her, so it was easier for her to leave first, hence why she had her memories of him erased.

I find the depictions of women with BPD in Fatal Attraction and Play Misty For Me to be quite damaging, and only mildly helpful to understanding the disorder, since they go full-on murderous, with no empathetic reasoning for why they got like that. It dehumanises them, and being women, is liable to make people believe it's only women who get emotionally unstable.

I suppose I'm a rare pwBPD since I always have appreciated a man being honest with me when letting me down, rather than just never talking to me ever again as if I never existed!

And, in reply to the first post about Marnie having PTSD, well I think that trauma definitely contributes to the disorder. I've not met many women or men with it who didn't suffer some form of horrendous abuse in their life, and those who claimed to have had a normal upbringing soon gave up a nasty story of abuse, that they'd never thought was abuse, after enough therapy.

[Love Is Not Enough]

Does anyone else's pwBPD seem to identify with characters, celebrities, or others that also have personality disorders?  

Yes, my gf's favorite movie is Silver Linings Playbook. We saw it together in the theater and I thought I was going to run out screaming half way through. We were in a really bad place then and I did not like how they tried to make something so destructive into something funny. I have gotten over it and even bought it for her birthday. I often wonder if she gets that she is that character. Does she like it because they attempt to normalize the behavior? Maybe I'll pull it out tonight and watch it with her now that we are in a better place and she is in therapy. Although I doubt I could muster the courage to ask her anything about the movie and how it relates to her.

She also likes Fatal Attraction. I think she gets off on the revenge mostly. Well. That and Michael Douglas. She is attracted to older guys. Imagine that  

[maxsterling]

Wow.  "Eternal sunshine... . " 

I watched that one with my GF, too, and remember thinking "seems like she has BPD traits".  My GF loves that movie.  I think she told me that she remembers seeing it in the theater with an ex boyfriend, and them getting in a fight afterwards.   HMMMM.