I Am Sam

4895 Words20 Pages
I am Sam In the movie, Sam Dawson is a single father who is mentally challenged. He fights to regain custody of his seven-year-old daughter, Lucy. Despite Sam’s disability and what some people thought of him, he is unequivocally a model father, who should receive the same rights as everyone else. This critique gives examples of how the medical and social models portray Sam’s disability and the challenges he faces in the movie, the impact the movie had on me, possible societal effects and consequences of the portrayal of persons with disabilities and the coverage of disability issues, the challenges a teacher would face in dealing with a person like Sam in the classroom, and examples of support services that would be beneficial. I am Sam has several interwoven themes including, love, parenting, intelligence, positive personal identity, bird images, and the music and lives of The Beatles. The main character in the movie, Sam Dawson, is an adult who is developmentally disabled. He has a mental capacity of a seven-year-old and this is obvious in his behaviour. Sam displays some characteristics associated with autism which are mainly his repetitive activities such as origami, his obsession with sorting the sachets at work and the comments he says to the customers at work (Hallahan, Kauffman & Pullen, 2012). He is a very high functioning individual despite his mental disability. This movie was chosen for critique because it is heartbreaking, uplifting, brilliantly acted, and profoundly moving. I am very interested in the disability presented in the movie and on my practical experiences I have come across many students with this type of disability. Reference to the medical model and the social model will be used throughout the critique to framework different points of view. Directly related to the medical model is a negative portrayal of people with
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