In the comedy movie Me, Myself, and Irene starring Jim Carry, he plays the role of a Rhode Island state trooper named Charlie who has had people take advantage of him his whole life. His newly-wed wife also has done that as well by cheating on him with their black dwarf limo driver right after they got married. His new wife leaves with the limo driver and Charlie is left to raise the three mixed-race sons by himself. After some time, his anger builds up and Charlie develops a rude and violent split personality named Hank. He is fed up with being walked all over and taken advantage of, and when he gets mad enough, the other side of his personality breaks free revealing the honest, cruel, ruthless side of him where he feels nothing holding him back from getting back at the people that have treated him badly. One side of his personality is the docile, kind-hearted, pushover that doesn’t stand up for what he believes in, and the other side that is forward, rude, and does what he wants to whom he wants. This movie deals with a mental illness, but it has a comedic spin on it showing the funnier side of having a mental illness such as Charlie’s, and Hanks. Since he has two split personalities, he cannot differ what he does while under the influence of each personality; it’s like he has two separate lives. His multiple personality disorder is made fun of in the movie as one side of him is aggressive, while the other is the laid back one.
The entertainment industry is the producer of this product because it is a movie that was made to poke fun at mental illnesses, while still entertaining the audience. This movie isn’t really an accurate representation of the split personality disorder, but it is thrown in the plot to make the story more interesting and funny to the audience.
In the movie, as I mentioned, Jim Carry plays the state trooper in Rhode Island and he develops his split personalities and gets an alter-ego when he has had enough with people taking advantage of him. Charlie is assigned on a routine mission to return alleged fugitive Irene back to upstate New York, but they wind up on the run from corrupt police officers. Their escape would be a lot simpler on everybody involved if Hank didn’t keep stepping in at the most inopportune times. A series of unfortunate events happen as both Charlie and Irene run into Irene’s abusive ex-boyfriend, in the middle of it all Charlie loses his medication and now fears that Hank will come out and makes the situation worse. While running, Charlie and Irene fall for each other (and so does Hank). Now, Both Charlie and Irene must stop the dirty cops, Irene’s ex-boyfriend, and to stay one step ahead of Hank.
In the movie, the directors accentuate the disorder by making them completely opposite of each other and by putting them in the most dramatic situations to make the movie more dramatic and comedic. The language of the movie adds more crude humor and makes the disorder seem more twisted and funny. There are collective judgements made as well in the movie about people with split personality disorders. The influence of this movie in intended to make the audience laugh at the situation in the movie; their main focus isn’t really to focus on the mental dissociatively disorder and what it can do to you, but rather they add it in there to make the movie more interesting and more unique so that it isn’t like every other movie. The viewers watching this movie don’t tend to focus on the disorder all the way in a serious sense because in fact it is a comedy movie, where many things are inaccurate anyways. The aggressive personality known as Hank in the movie does many things that no one should do, but to get rid of his other half, Charlie has to overcome him and beat the people in the movie who are causing conflict and tension.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me%2C_Myself_and_Irene

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June 9, 2008 at 7:23 pm
misterkurtz
Yes, they intend to make the film funny, but is there any harm done in treating schizophrenia that way? Would a film making of people with AIDS or cancer be funny, as well? In the interests of full disclosure: I saw the movie and enjoyed it but we should probably be aware, as a culture, of how we allow people to be perceived.