Superman 1978
With a heart attack or heart disease being the number one cause of death in both men and women all over the world, you can bet that these are going to be depicted in popular media. While the depiction of other diseases shed some light on the ailment and allow viewers to learn more, it seems that heart disease, for the most part, is just a way to kill a character off. Very rarely is heart disease used in a movie to help people understand the causes or preventative measures that people can take to avoid a heart attack. Nevertheless, here are five popular movies to include a heart disease or heart attack during the film.
1. The Godfather – Being boss of an entire crime family comes with making all the decisions, having tons of enemies, and dealing with those enemies’ attempts on your life. Vito Corleone got through the attempted murders and mob related violence his whole life, but succumbed to the most dangerous assassin of all, the heart attack. That is the way that a heart disease works, several years of sitting at your desk, eating copious amounts of pasta, and smoking cigars can put strain on a man’s heart.
2. Office Space – The main character, Peter Gibbons, goes to an occupational therapist so that he can be hypnotized into enjoying his job. During the hypnosis, the therapist drops dead from a heart attack, leaving Peter in his hypnotized state. The therapist was an obese man, and obesity can be a large factor in heart disease. It is likely that the therapist’s weight played a role in his heart disease, which then caused him to have a heart attack at a particularly inopportune moment.
3. The Big Lebowski – Due to a mix-up, the main character Jeffrey Lebowski is being chased by several groups of people for money that he does not possess. During one such occasion, him and his bowling teammates Walter and Donny get into a brawl which ends with Donny (played by Steve Buscemi) dying of a heart attack. This particular situation may have been caused by hypertension, or high blood pressure. Stress can cause blood pressure to go up, which is a factor in heart disease.
4. Superman – Even the most powerful superhero of all time could not save his own adoptive father from dying of a heart attack. In the original 1978 film, Clark Kent is a teenager that is just beginning to understand his powers when Jonathan Kent, the man that took him in after finding him as a baby, has a heart attack, making Clark feel as alone as ever. Luckily, he becomes Superman and helps average citizens (although he never does try to find a cure for heart disease).
While these films do not say much about heart disease prevention, if the situations are analyzed, most of the characters do have some cause for their suffering.
