When Still Alice won an academy award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the accolade wrongly pardoned and accepted the film’s fallacious depiction of people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Alice is a mother who is diagnosed with early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease. She avoids all social interactions outside of her family after she is laid off from her prestigious position as a linguistics professor at Columbia University. Julianne Moore fails to portray an authentic narrative about AD because the audience feels pity for Alice. Alice is only informed of Alzheimer’s by her neurologist, who disregards her identity, feelings, and individuality. She lacks the encouragement of an Alzheimer’s support group that would have informed her about public and self-stigmas. The representation of people with AD in Still Alice uses the medical model stripping their intellectual, moral, and physical autonomy within their personal and professional relationships. Therefore, mass media in news and entertainment promotes inaccurate portrayals of social exclusion and pity.

The medical model of disability focuses on the need to find a cure for physical or mental impairments, which includes AD. People with dis/abilities are seen for what they can no longer participate in their personal and professional lives. The term “can’t” is distributed in the medical model found in movies and news articles. A person with AD cannot drive. A person with AD cannot socialize. A person with AD is a financial burden to their family. These stereotypes are perpetuated by the medical model in which people with AD are represented as problems that must be solved or cured. Meanwhile, the social model of dis/ability puts the individual at the forefront of the medium. Examples of inclusive terms are people with mental illness or accessible parking. Writers and journalists need to be more conscious of their terminology in articles because the medical model terms—such as sufferers, handicapped, insane, or wheelchair-bound—negatively affect the public perception of the capabilities of dis/abled people. Unfortunately, the medical model of dis/ability is focused on deficit-based thinking.

The director of the Innovations in Dementia, Steve Milton consulted with a group of professionals in his paper “Dementia, Rights, and the Social Model of Disability.” They defined the “deficit-based” expectations of people with AD. Milton’s paper is representative of the ambitions and interests of people with AD because he values the conversational input of people with AD at an event in London. Deficit-based thinking is prevalent among legislators and people with AD. Deficit-based thinking occurs when a non-disabled person speaks directly to the caretaker, instead of the individual with AD (8). The practice of social exclusion signals the non-disabled person’s low-level expectation of people with AD. They wrongfully assume that a person diagnosed with AD cannot socially interact and maintain relationships because they lack the capacity to understand the spoken meaning behind utterances and body language. Through the constant third-person reference in the interaction between the caretaker and non-disabled person, the intellectual autonomy of a person with AD is disrespected. A person with AD becomes dependent on their caretaker to voice their concerns, questions, and opinions.

Beyond intellectual autonomy, a person who is diagnosed with AD has moral autonomy in their capabilities of separating right from wrong. Neurologist Dr. Jules Montague introduces the philosophical themes of identity, which are not discussed on the hospital operating tables. Medical professionals avoid acknowledging intangible and subjective concepts because feelings and emotions are not grounded or proven by scientific statistics or evidence. In her TedxTalk, “Alzheimer’s Doesn’t Mean Losing Your Identity,” she addresses that the mass media steals her patient’s “embodiment, gestures, expression, [and] her autonomy—all of those things that exist beyond memory…” (00:14:18-00:14:36). The mass media’s thievery uses the deficit-based thinking that is prevalent in the medical model to characterize her patient, Anita. Dr. Montague shares her conclusion that the changes in morality, not memory, influence how a person is perceived by their loved ones and close-knit communities. People with AD continue to have the same embodiment of presently interacting with the world around them. Therefore, they have physical autonomy throughout their active participation in Alzheimer’s support groups. They have moral autonomy in continuing to express themselves with language. Yet, the media negatively portrays people with AD as lost or changed based on a medical model which disregards their identity. A person with AD is not shown, and much less expected, to have any sort of awareness or traces of morality in the news.

Clickbait news article headlines that use the medical model of Alzheimer’s encourage stereotypes that falsely eliminate the morality of a person with AD. In their research paper, “More Than a Medical Condition: Qualitative Analysis of Media Representations of Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease,” Anna Šestáková and Jana Plichtová collect 227 documents of published media from 2015 to 2018 that have keywords Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia. The researchers encourage their audience to reevaluate their prejudices against the cognitive and social capabilities of people with AD. Their readers are formerly exposed to the ideology that people with AD are monstrous burdens. From the monstrous burden label, the objectification of people with AD continues to circulate throughout the news on the internet, television, radio, and print. The recurring fear mongering strategies in the news subject the audience’s scope of knowledge to be limited to disheartening stereotypes about AD. For instance, many news headlines attract their consumer’s attention by exaggerating that Alzheimer’s is “a powerful, insidious being, a scarecrow, an invisible enemy, or aggressive killer… threatening, attacking, destroying lives, and haunting modern society” (Šestáková & Plichtová 387). These nouns, such as “enemy” or “killer,” are the crucial pieces of information that a reader uses to form their initial analysis of news articles. In bold and large font, the demonic characterization of AD parallels war rhetoric. Using false gerunds suggestively incites panic among readers to increase revenue and publicity by combining the same terminology that characterizes criminals. “Aggressive” and “threatening” become synonymous characteristics among people with AD. The anonymity behind “insidious being” expresses the media’s conscious avoidance of humanizing individuals with AD as people. “Beings” is diction that is used to describe beasts or creatures, not family members or active participants in a local community.

Furthermore, people with AD are objectified when paralleled with a “scarecrow,” which is an allusion to the character in The Wizard of Oz. People with AD are compared to a character who desires a brain and purpose in life. In other words, people with AD are distinguished to seem dis/abled for lacking the necessary cognitive intelligence to produce thought. They cannot advocate for their basic needs. The scarecrow analogy is the medical model of AD which implies patients are a shell of their former selves who do not have any redeeming morality. Respect for people with AD slips as their identity is tied with memory loss. People with AD are seen as burdens when their families consider them to be the brainless Scarecrow from the land of Oz. The violent and hateful language used throughout the media unforgivingly erodes a person with AD’s autonomy.

Meanwhile, the social model respects a person with AD’s intellectual and moral autonomy through an appropriate and considerate perspective that puts the individual with AD first. Respecting a person with AD involves recognizing that they do not lose their identity immediately after being diagnosed. From abiding by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006 (CRPD), everyday conversation adapts to the social model of AD. The CRPD is an exemplary international treaty that ensures the humane treatment of people with AD. The document discusses that a person with AD is dis/abled by an environment’s accessibility and the people’s attitudes that emerge from opinions found in the media. People with AD are not dis/abled because they have Alzheimer’s. A person’s capability to recall information does not comprise their identity. Instead, a person’s identity is heavily influenced by their character and morality. The change of adapting the social model perspective will encourage people with AD to stay active physically and socially. The use of the social model in policy-making and daily conversation respects a person with AD because their personal values are included and supported in making decisions (Milton 9).

Yet, the social model of AD was never represented in Moore’s characterization of Alice. Alice’s fictional story is an exemplary narrative added to the stigma that people with Alzheimer’s lack the aptitude to make decisions. In a scene where she is distorted after waking up from a nap, her family has already gathered at their dining room table. Her husband and children exclude Alice from the conversation about her potential caretaker. Alice will be impacted the most by their decision. Yet, her family discriminates against Alice by seeing her only as “someone who is demented,” instead of a “person with dementia” (Stites & Karlawish 42). They view Alice from a popularized mass media perspective that uses the medical model of dis/ability. The term “demented” has a damaging connotation that falsely compares the individual to be crazy or insane. In other words, Alice’s family and the film audience are disillusioned to regard Alice and other people with AD as only their condition. Still Alice incorporates the medical model of AD throughout the film. From Alice’s perspective, there is a similar disconnection when the voices of her loved ones are blurred out as background noise. Alice loses her intellectual autonomy. Her new dependency on her family after being diagnosed with AD is the media’s representation of discarding the individuality of people with AD as self-advocates. Individuals diagnosed with AD are the ones who fully understand their own ambitions.

Yet, many non-disabled people who are not impacted by memory loss disagree that individuals with AD should practice self-advocacy. Dr. Shana Stites and Dr. Jason Karlawish reveal that the majority of the non-disabled people that they surveyed “expected a person with mild-stage AD dementia to be excluded from medical decision making” (41). Alice’s lack of awareness in her middle-stage Alzheimer’s upholds the infantilization stereotype that perceives people with AD to be helpless and need careful monitoring. Dr. Stites and Dr. Karlawish collaborated in publishing their article in Practical Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. Within entertainment media, such as movies, there is a great focus on memory loss which becomes the defining stigma that composes an individual’s well-being. Stigmas introduced by films and built upon by memorable characters like Alice continue to perpetuate into the mindset of people who are recently diagnosed with AD. Dr. Stites and Dr. Karlawish coin the self-deprecating manner to be “self-stigma.” Self-stigma is when a person “cognitively or emotionally absorbing negative beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, and stereotypes related to the disease, such as feeling ashamed and inferior” (39). Alice quickly checks off all the boxes of experiencing shame and self-doubt. Namely, her emotional distress continues to become more pronounced when she self-tapes an instruction video on committing suicide by overdose. When Alice distinctly reminds her future self to play the video, she strongly recommends herself to be alone and avoid any mentions about the pills to her loved ones. The withholding of her suicidal thoughts expresses her shame in having memory loss.

Stigmas surrounding memory loss are based on the medical model of AD. They lack any trivial or philosophical attributes that cannot be proven through scientific experiments. In Alice’s prep work prior to her speech at an Alzheimer’s organization, she discusses the progression and need of finding a cure for AD. Her emotionless speech directly prescribes the previously mentioned medical model that Steve Milton defines. The term “cure” is emphasized as being the priority for scientists to discover because the medical perspective is that “the person and their dementia [is] ‘the problem’” (7). By only focusing on the need for an antidote, other aspects such as accommodating and including people with AD within policy changes are forgotten. People with AD, themselves, are neglected. Films that consistently distort AD are not condemned because entertainment media representation of Alzheimer’s is limited.

Outside of the Hollywood scripted dialogue and suspenseful soundtracks, Don de Vlaming is self-aware of the social exclusion and pity being casually thrown around in opinionated surveys (like in Dr. Stites and Dr. Karlawish’s) about people with Alzheimer’s. He has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s for two years. Vlaming is aware of how people inferiorly look down on people with Alzheimer’s as a “prophet of doom.” Yet, unlike Alice, he engages in socialization with Alzheimer’s support groups. The social circle supports and encourages each member to continue pursuing their passions and hobbies. Namely, Don expands his professional relationships in his self-advocacy of spreading his narrative on the #StillHere campaign, part of the Manitoba Alzheimer Society. Vlaming has the ambition to clear up misconceptions that non-disabled people assume about AD by spreading his narrative. Within the social circle of people with AD, they see each other as a person, not a condition. He does not want anyone’s pity or to be called “Poor Don” (Sanders). Vlaming and his new social circle work to disprove and counter the monstrous personification of AD that attempts to steal their moral autonomy.

The majority of today’s news and entertainment use the medical model of Alzheimer’s which discriminates against people with AD. Self-stigmas and prejudices emerge from clickbait article titles and Hollywood movies. The production of Still Alice is a cinematic calamity when the film inaccurately and wrongfully represses people with AD’s human rights of social autonomy. People with AD, like Vlaming, continue to socialize while forming new relationships in self-advocacy. They have no desire to receive pity because their morality is embodied in the present. People with AD retain their moral autonomy when memory loss does not affect their identity. Readers have the vital responsibility of purposefully continuing to practice the social model of Alzheimer’s within daily conversations. The entertainment and news media industry need to use the social model in referring to AD and including—not differentiating—people with disabilities.

Works Cited

“Alzheimer’s doesn’t mean losing your identity.” YouTube, TEDxLondonSalon, 9 May 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JixHwulcLvg. Accessed 3 Mar. 2022.

Milton, Steve. “Dementia, Rights, and the Social Model of Disability – Keypoints.” Mental Health Foundation, Aug. 2015, pp. 1–14., https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/sites/default/files/dementia-rights-key-summary.pdf.

Sanders, Carol. “Campaign Addresses Fear of Dementia.” The Free Press, Winnipeg Free Press, 5 Jan. 2016, https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/campaign-addresses-fear-of-dementia-364209211.html.

Šestáková, Anna and Plichtová, Jana. “More than a medical condition: Qualitative analysis of media representations of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease” Human Affairs, vol. 30, no. 3, 2020, pp. 382-398. https://doi.org/10.1515/humaff-2020-0033.

Still Alice. Performances by Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, and Alec Baldwin, (Dir. By Glatzer, Richard and Wash Westmoreland). Sony Pictures Classics. 2014. https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00ST1P4SU/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r

Stites, Shana D, and Jason Karlawish. “Stigma of Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia.” Practical Neurology, Bryn Mawr Communications, June 2018, https://practicalneurology.com/articles/2018-june/stigma-of-alzheimers-disease-dementia.