Positive Discrimination: Difference between revisions

* Melvin Udall ([[Jack Nicholson]]) in ''[[As Good as It Gets]]'' is a lonely romance novelist afflicted with a serious case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (which, granted, isn't a "traditional" disability but still can - and often does - wreak quite a bit of havoc with its victims' daily lives). In a more trite or inoffensive film he'd come off as [[The Woobie]] due to this trope. But director James L. Brooks turns him into more of a [[Jerkass Woobie]] whose extreme shortage of social skills has made him unbearably rude and misanthropic. (He's been prescribed pills for his disorder, but never takes them because he's too ashamed to.) Much of the movie is concerned with Melvin slowly becoming friendlier and more sensitive, especially to a gay neighbor whom he had mocked earlier in the film. Especially shocking is a scene in which Melvin, irritated that his daily breakfast at the diner just down the street from his apartment is not going as planned, offhandedly mocks a waitress for being [[Hollywood Pudgy|"fat."]] The restaurant owner immediately flies into a rage and [[Break the Haughty|forces Melvin to leave the building]], prompting ''everyone'' else in the diner to [[And There Was Much Rejoicing|burst into wild applause]] - a humiliating punishment that would ''never'' be administered to any disabled character suffering from any ailment more serious than OCD, unless said character blatantly crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon]].

** But it can also be seen as a straight white guy needing a gay man and a woman to make him less of a jerk so he can be happy.

* The disabled protagonists of ''[[Rory O'Shea Was Here]]'' are as flawed and human as everyone else in the film.