Library Videos for June 2012---Glimpses of America

Selling Sickness: A Pill for Every Ill, a documentary by Catherine Scott 

Call Number:  HF5439.D75S44 2004

          A Film that looks at how drug manufacturers today fund aggressive marketing campaigns designed to create public awareness of previously unknown diseases, and how what were previously thought of as character traits become “medicalized.”  Shyness thus becomes branded as 'Social Anxiety Disorder,' constant worry becomes 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder,' and premenstrual tension is now 'Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.' The sale of SSRI anti-depressant medications used to treat these and other diseases, such as Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac, has become an annual $20 billion market.   The film features commentary from paid medical consultants to the drug companies, patients, researchers, patient advocates, advertisers, attorneys, and psychiatrist Dr. David Healy, a critic of the pharmaceutical industry. SELLING SICKNESS also visits trade shows and professional conferences to show how the pharmaceutical industry promotes the use of its drugs within the medical community.

Disconnected, a documentary; executive producer, Melody Gilbert.

Library Call Number: QA76.9.C66D57 2008. 

     Three college students take on the challenge of giving up their computers to see how their academic, social, and work lives are affected. No Facebook. No YouTube. No e-mail. How will they get their work done? Will they cheat? Who will survive the longest? This one-hour documentary follows Carleton College students Andrew, Caitlin, and Chel as they go through "digital detox" and learn to interact with themselves and with others in ways we have largely forgotten.

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts by Spike Lee 

Call Number: HV636 2005.L8 W496 2006.

     One year after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, director Spike Lee presents a four-hour, four-part chronicle recounting, through words and images, one of our country’s most profound natural disasters. In addition to revisiting the hours leading up to the arrival of Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane before it hit the coast of Louisiana, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts tells the personal stories of those who lived to tell about it, at the same time exploring the underbelly of a nation where the divide along race and class lines has never been more pronounced.