The most upsetting thing about seeing a film about a woman's life must be the ignorance that follows in reviews or simply passing observations. This morning I have overheard the comment that "Maria [the movie about Maria Callas] is a movie about a schizophrenic woman", which put me off in a very special way. The commenter must not have been ill intentioned because I know her, however, to me it underlined the greater issue that is how people are willing to misinterpret movies about these women's lives by spinning their own narratives, which more often than not, are missing the point entirely.

If you have not seen the movie Maria, I will quickly explain why the commenter claimed she is schizophrenic. Until the early 80's, a drug called Mandrax, originally synthesized for anti-malarial treatment, was prescribed for psychiatric purposes. The drug was originally prescribed as a sleeping aid and sedative. The hypnotic sedative could have very easily caused hallucinations, and Maria is shown in the movie as overusing the drug. This leads to her hallucinating an interviewer called Mandrax, which the movie makes pretty clear doesn't actually exist. Moreover, Maria was shown as having 'delusions'. I put it in marks because most of the so called delusions, to me, are nothing more than Maria carrying herself with dignity. It has been actually shown that in Maria's childhood (in Athens under the Nazi occupation of the second world war) she was raped by German soldiers. Continuing on in her life, Maria was treated more as a high-value object, which, taking into account the time period she lived in, mustn't have been too out of the ordinary. Maria was more traumatized than anything, however I would like to point out the fact that Maria's self-carrying attitude may stand out as a delusion of grandeur, which I believe is an incorrect observation. She is carrying herself with dignity after all, which I think makes the movie worthy of her biopic.

Thinking about it, another movie which is often misinterpreted is 'Girl interrupted', however unlike Maria, where her background and trauma is well documented, I along with a handful of other watchers noted that Suzanna Kaysen's background seems to have been neglected. We do not really know what in her life led to her borderline diagnostic. After watching deleted scenes and consulting the book, it may be safe to say that the background has been neglected for the more 'high impact' scenes of drama; it is a drama after all. Moreover, I think the reason Maria contained more background detail than Girl interrupted is because Maria Callas is a well-known personality, while Girl interrupted is more of the account of what happened in the psychiatric hospital Suzanna was in. This, I believe, has led people to interpret most of Suzanna's actions as borderline traits.

Will update later, as seem fit.