My work for AP Research began over the summer with our "Topic Speed Dating" activity. While looking through a multitude of sources to find something of interest, I found myself drawn to issues of psychology and film as possible topics to explore. As I dove deeper into this realm of study, I eventually discovered a deeper interest in the focus on female characters within these films dealing with psychology.

After determining that I would be looking at female movie characters with mental illness, I looked at IMDb's Top 250 Movies list, siphering out ones that included a female lead who suffered a mental health problem. Then, I tallied up how many different illnesses were found in this compiled list, identifying Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as the most prevalent. This ultimately led me to choose BPD as the illness I would focus on.

Once I identified Borderline Personality Disorder as my mental illness focus, I looked at IMDb's list of movies about the condition, taking from this list a group of movies that had a female lead with BPD. 

With a focus on female movie characters with Borderline Personality Disorder, and after finding a gap in the research (being a timeline analysis), I was finally able to finalize my research question: How have the themes surrounding female movie characters with Borderline Personality Disorder changed over time? 

My ultimate goal with this research is to identify thematic changes in films with a female lead suffering from BPD. I hope to contribute to the scholarly conversation of this issue in order to create an understanding of how mental illness is continuing to be portrayed in cinema.