Peter's Stereotypes In The Film, Non-Schizophrenia

surrounding Peter, it still doesn’t explain how Peter is affected by his own classification. This could, however, be understood by looking at how people’s perception of those classified impacts the life of those in the classification. In the movie, non-Schizophrenics used Peter’s schizophrenia as an easy explanation of his erratic behavior. They ignored the motivation behind Peter’s action and instead brushed them off as the doings of an irrational person. As a result, Peter is perceived as dangerous schizophrenic who is capable of murder and shouldn’t be near his daughter, Nicole. This clouded perception and Peter’s awareness of this misperception forces Peter to isolate himself; it was also the cause of Nicole being taken away from him originally

For example, in one scene, a girl hits Peter’s car with a ball; while, in the background, radio noises are heard, a recurring auditory delusion that is characteristic of Peter’s schizophrenia. Peter gets out of the car and then we hear sounds of beating and a girl screaming. We never see whether Peter beats the girl or not, but we do see a moment later Peter putting an orange bag, resembling the shape of a human body, in his trunk. (00:03:34) It seems as if Kerrigan is invoking the stereotype that schizophrenics are dangerous, pushing the audience to connect Peter to the killings. Such contrasting scenes that condition the viewer to see Schizophrenia in a certain way occur throughout the

Kerrigan shows the delusions that are happening in Peter’s head. (39:50) The scene starts off with a muffling sound, resembling wind, in the background. The presence of this sound or the radio, usually indicates in the film that Peter’s perspective of reality is being shown. In the library, Peter repetitively bangs his head against the bookcase as if to stop the delusions. Kerrigan, later shows this scene from the view of those around him (41:16). The people in the library watch in surprise as they see a man repetitively banging his head against a bookcase with no reason – with the usual quite background of the library. Kerrigan again creates this view that Peter is mentally unstable, random and dangerous to himself. This perception is later followed by the scene in which the corpse of the murdered girl is