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Characters On The Couch

How a psychologist thinks about your favorite Film & TV characters.

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cruelty

The Shape of Water A Girl's Muteness A Creature's Aggression & Seemingly Magic Cures

THE SHAPE OF WATER
Seemingly Magic Cures

January 4, 2018 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Cruelty and misunderstanding can make you a monster or a mute. Guillermo del Toro’s compelling allegorical fable, The Shape of Water, shows us that quite well. We can say all the obvious things about this multi-layered film set in its backdrop of the Cold War and a high-security government laboratory in 1962 Baltimore. There’s loneliness …

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Seemingly Magic Cures
BENT Being Cruel When Love Is A Scary Thing

BENT
Being Cruel
When Love Is A Scary Thing

August 18, 2015 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Spoiler Alert: Some Plot Details Revealed Cruelty comes in different forms. We can’t escape the obvious in BENT: the unimaginable inhumane cruelty of The Nazi Party towards Gays and Jews. Yet, we see more than the Nazi’s cruelty in this brilliantly acted, honest, heart-wrenching, and inspiring play (written by Martin Sherman and directed by Moises …

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Being Cruel
When Love Is A Scary Thing
Whiplash Why Cruelty Is Not The Winner

WHIPLASH
Why Cruelty is Not The Winner

February 15, 2015 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

“I don’t want the Raisinettes, I just eat around them” … that’s what Andrew Neiman, in Whiplash, does with the hurts in his life. That’s what he tries to do with jazz teacher Terrance Fletcher’s demeaning and crude sadism in this psychologically riveting film. Fletcher’s cruelty has its hook and he finds it in Andrew’s …

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Why Cruelty is Not The Winner

Inspiration

“We come to Film and TV to find our hidden stories. If we look deeply into a character’s psyche, there is much to see about ourselves.”

Recent Posts

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