December 08, 2005

The Early Alpizar Comments

Against the backdrop of news about the shooting death of American Airlines passenger Rigoberto Alpizar yesterday afternoon by a U. S. air marshal who decided the bipolar man who'd not taken his medication was a terrorist with a bomb, I open this morning's Courier-Journal to a feature about Syriana director Stephen Gaghan.

Reporter Tamara Ikenberg is talking with him about his earlier films. His "most disappointing project," he tells her, is his 2002 film "Abandon," "starring Katie Holmes as a schizophrenic killer," writes Ikenberg.

Gaghan:

The studio watches the film, and the head of the studio says to me, 'Katie's crazy,' and I say, 'Yeah.' She says, 'She can't be crazy. Her audience won't let her'… I was at cross-purposes with the studio. I was a first-time director and quite naïve. … It was like the worst two years of my life.

No; there's no real relationship between this tidbit and Alpizar's murder. But so far the the groups who should speak out on treatment of the "mentally ill" -- MindFreedom, for one -- have no statements on their websites, and so I am left to cast about for some way to put it into context.

Perhaps the following blaming-the-victim quotes will do for a start:

From the Washington Post:

"This shows that the program has worked beyond our expectations," said Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House transportation subcommittee on aviation. "This should send a message to a terrorist or anyone else who is considering disrupting an aircraft with a threat."

From Rich Glasgow 's blog This Is Rich:

His wife claimed he was mentally ill, but didn't take his meds. How very tragic! Seriously! The message to be learned here is, take the frickin' meds!!!!!

Posted on December 08, 2005