Disney Plus Dream Job: Mighty Joe Young

Introduction

Faculty, residents, and students at my university are participating in the Disney Plus Dream Job challenge to watch 30 Disney films in 30 days. Course directors successfully incorporated the 30 films (and shows) into our preexisting curriculum that teaches psychiatry to future physicians through film and other aspects of popular culture. Views Through the Psychiatrist’s Lens will publish daily blogs throughout the Disney Plus Dream Job challenge. Our fourth blog post is on the 1998 Disney film, Mighty Joe Young.

Synopsis

The ‘Holiday Film Festival’ was a Thanksgiving Day sci-fi film marathon aired annually since 1976 on WOR-TV (Channel 9 NY). From 1979-1985, Channel 9 broadcast Mighty Joe Young (1 p.m.), King Kong vs. Godzilla (3 p.m.), followed by Son of Kong (5 p.m.). For many in the NY area, the ape sub-genre was as much part of Thanksgiving as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, turkey, and the Dallas Cowboys.

Mighty Joe Young (1998) is an adventure film based on the 1949 film of the same name about a giant gorilla brought to a wildlife preserve in Los Angeles. Whereas Jill Young (1949) brings the gorilla to Hollywood seeking revenue to save the family homestead, her 1998 counterpart abducts Joe to save him from poachers (1). At the time of this posting, the film holds a rating of 5.6 out of 10 on IMDb and a tomatometer rating of 55%.

What it has to do with psychiatry

V Codes (DSM-5 and ICD-9) and Z Codes (ICD-10) do not represent mental disorders but are instead conditions that are a focus of clinical attention or affect the diagnosis, course, prognosis, or treatment of a patient’s ape’s mental disorder (Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention, DSM-5). For example, acculturation difficulty (V62.4) describes changes that take place as a result of contact with culturally dissimilar people and is most often studied in individuals living in countries or regions other than where they were born (2).

At 01:01:00 Jill describes Joe as angry and agitated “since the move,” identifying a change from his previous functioning. Unlike adjustment disorders, acculturation difficulty takes into account the persisting stress of one’s new surroundings and is not defined through symptom (e.g. anger) resolution within 6 months of termination of an (acute) stressor.

While Major Depressive Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may be added to adjustment disorder in the differential of what ails Joe, acculturation difficulty remains the focus of clinical attention. The same holds true for King Kong whose disturbance of conduct is the direct result of his having been uprooted from Skull Island (Godzilla, on the other hand, is a completely different story). [Spoiler alert] While the ending of the 1998 remake is an ill-advised departure from the original (which has a 95% tomatometer rating compared to 55% for the remake), it is consistent with acculturation difficulty being a focus of clinical attention. Specifically, once Joe is free to roam in his new preserve, he is no longer angry and agitated and lives happily ever after.