Amnesia in the movies. The character Dory from the movies Finding Nemo and Finding Dory is an example of a movie character who has amnesia, or memory loss. Some of the things that Dory does in the movies are a lot like real-life amnesia. For example, Dory forgets that she has met Marlin, another character in the movie.
What memory disorder does Dory say she suffers from?
These problems in encoding new information are hallmarks of anterograde amnesia. Dory describes her condition as “short-term memory loss” which is the way most people refer to the problem of encoding new information that is the hallmark of anterograde amnesia.
This means that Dory's short term memory loss is hereditary, at least, according to Dory herself. Meaning, she wasn't in an accident that caused her to lose her memory but inherited it from her family of other Blue Tangs. This makes it even more important for Dory to find her family in Finding Dory.
Dory suffers from severe short-term memory loss, but a lot of what she goes through can be adapted to other contexts, such as the world, or ocean, of ADHD. Dory has trouble with multi-step directions, is easily distracted, and is very impulsive.
However, a few armchair experts have pointed out the similarities between Dory's symptoms and a condition called anterograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia can be caused by an injury or disease that damages the parts of the brain responsible for forming memories.
On coral reefs, “Dory,” the small vibrant blue fish with black stripes and a yellow tail, is known by several other names: Hippo Tang, Royal Blue Tang, Regal Tang, Palette Surgeonfish and by the scientific name Paracanthurus hepatus.
Dory is the third female protagonist in a Pixar film, the first two being Merida and Joy. She is also Pixar's third titular character, the first two being Nemo and WALL-E, and the second titular character to be a protagonist overall, the first one being WALL-E.
The common name dory (from the Middle English dorre, from the Middle French doree, lit. "gilded one") is shared (officially and colloquially) by members of several different families of large-eyed, silvery, deep-bodied, laterally compressed, and roughly discoid marine fish.
Every time Marlin feels like giving up Dory says to him, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.” DORY: When life gets you down, you know what you got to (gotta) do? MARLIN: I don't want to know what you got to (gotta) do.
She spends years searching for her family, trying desperately to remember. As she is asking a group of fish if they can help her a boat zips above her head (Philip's boat from Finding Nemo) making the fish swim away.
Throughout the movie Dory remembers more and more about her past but only when something in the world prompts her. For example, she may see a sign which she had seen when she was growing up! Or she hears the familiar voice of a whale friend and all her memories come rushing back.
Dory's scars from her travel through the jellyfish in Finding Nemo (2003) have disappeared. They may well have healed in the time between the two films.
Dory subsequently has flashbacks of life with her parents and struggles to recall details. She finally remembers how she was separated from her parents: she overheard her mother crying one night, left to retrieve a shell to cheer her up, and was pulled away by an undertow current out into the ocean.
Marlin makes it out safely, but Dory is stung and caught in a jellyfish's tentacles. Marlin swims back to rescue him. Marlin gets stung many times while Dory is left unconscious. Dory recovers but has a wounded fin.
The companionship that emerges is completely genuine. Nonetheless, Dory and Marlin's relationship is a complicated and interesting one. Some view Dory as Marlin's companion and speculate that the two are actually lovers.
It's quite obvious that Dory has anterograde amnesia, which is the inability to form new memories. I also see many of the signs of ADHD within the character.
In a flashback Dory hears her mother crying in fears of being relocated to another aquarium, so she left to retrieve a shell to cheer her up, to which she was pulled away by an undertow current out into the ocean.
Nemo is a curious and impressionable six-year-old, only child who lives with his overprotective, single-parent father, Marlin. Having led a sheltered life, Nemo brims with the excitement of starting school and finally seeing the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef.
Of course, Finding Dory isn't a true story. But the characters are based on real sea creatures, the Great Barrier Reef and Morro Bay are real locations and awesome marine aquariums that rescue, rehabilitate and release do exist all over the world. (We have two in Sydney, and love visiting them regularly!
Many of the characters' humorous idiosyncrasies could be called "abnormalities." Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a lively blue tang who becomes Marlin's sidekick on the quest for Nemo's rescue, has chronic short-term memory loss.
Dory then finally encounters her parents at the home (YES!), who are returning from a journey to get more shells in hopes that Dory would see them and remember where they were.
