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PTSD, first recognized in 1980, has become an increasingly popular topic of interest in the world of media. Countless films and TV shows have implemented the disorder into their characters, leading to widely differing portrayals of PTSD in modern media. When initially beginning my research process, this was a topic I hoped to look into more, specifically focusing on this trend within superhero films. This is a topic that has yet to be addressed in the world of research, leading me to make it the focal point of my inquiry process.
Initially, my goal was to do a comparison between The Dark Knight films and the Iron Man films by analyzing the presence of PTSD symptoms throughout the movies and comparing them to case studies of people afflicted with PTSD in order to see which set of movies had a portrayal of PTSD that was the most similar to real life, but as I worked on this idea more, it wasn’t working as well as I had initially hoped. The more time I spent following this methodology, the further I was moving from the overall focal point of my research. It began feeling as though I was doing two projects at the same time rather than an overall comparison, so I ultimately decided to shift my methods. I looked back to the sources I had initially modeled my methods after, and, after doing so, I noticed a much more focused methodology that not only fit better with my project, but also allowed me to connect the methods more strongly with the preexisting sources that much of my initial methods came from. My new methodology was essentially the same as my initial one, but instead of comparing the film portrayals to case studies, I rather compared the movies directly to one another.
Following this shift in my methodology, I was able to complete my data collection at the end of February. My data collection consisted of making large spreadsheets in which I noted when a symptom of PTSD (as defined directly by the DSM-5) was present in a scene, the timestamp of the scene, and a description of the scene. I also have a section for any additional notes that may be necessary in my data analysis process. This process can be seen in the image below, which showcases this process for Iron Man 2. Each individual film had a dedicated spreadsheet like the one seen below.
Throughout my data collection process, I encountered a number of roadblocks. The most significant and impactful one was my aforementioned switch in methodologies, but I also struggled with time management. As cliche as it sounds, I found myself having trouble staying focused on research while in class and, between homework assignments for my other classes and work, I found myself not having as much time as I would have liked to work on my project. In order to work around this issue, I began following a much more strict schedule which allowed me to finish watching and analyzing most of a movie during the school week, and anything I didn’t finish, I finished on Saturday morning. Creating this schedule significantly improved my productivity during class and after school, allowing me to complete all my data collection on time.
At this point in my project, I am completely finished with both my data collection and analysis. As I previously stated, all of my data was put into spreadsheets, which I then used in addition to a website called Stapplet to create a number of bar graphs, pie charts, and segmented bar graphs to display and compare my data. The most useful graph I created is the one seen below.
This graph is a side by side comparison of the amount of each category of symptom of PTSD in each trilogy, and it is what I am focusing on the most in my data analysis and explanation. This graph shows that The Dark Knight films have a higher proportion of intrusion symptoms (meaning things like nightmares, or ongoing distressing memories), compared to the Iron Man films that have a significantly higher proportion of negative symptoms (meaning things like changes in overall mood and personality). While there are differences in the presence of other categories as well, these two were the most significant in each trilogy, which I wasn’t really expecting.
When applying this data to my initial research question, I am now able to make connections between trends I am seeing in my data, the most significant one being how big the differences in presence of certain symptoms are between the two trilogies. These results show which symptoms each trilogy spends more time focusing on, which can further show which symptoms the film companies choose to highlight over others. By choosing to highlight one category of symptoms over another, films are capable of spreading the idea that the type of symptom they focused on is somehow more important or more prevalent than the other symptoms, which, in many cases, is simply not true. Despite this, symptoms of violence or substance abuse are some of the most common in modern films and TV shows depicting the disorder, leading to a misrepresentation of the disorder being spread. Despite one of the most significant limitations of my data being the fact that it is only looking at six movies, the data I have collected and analyzed still provides me with the ability to see whether or not these films highlight certain symptoms for pure entertainment, or if the films have a more balanced representation of the disorder.
This research further allows me to fill a previously empty gap in the academic conversation by performing an actual comparison between two sets of films that contain characters suffering from PTSD. Being able to make these comparisons creates room for researchers in the future to perform similar research on a larger scale, leading to a better understanding of the ways PTSD should be portrayed in the media. This can lead to significantly more realistic and representative portrayals of PTSD in the future, hopefully leading to a better understanding of the disorder as a whole.
Below, I have included two more important pieces of my research. On the left, there is a spreadsheet containing all of the symptoms, categories, and descriptions that I used when analyzing each movie. These descriptions and categories all came directly from the DSM-5. On the right is a short presentation of my research and data thus far in my project. It contains a more in depth background of my research and methodology, as well as some more images of my data/graphs.
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