Hello, my name is Michelle Okereke and I am a student at Stanford University. As a self-proclaimed cinephile, I watch as many movies as I can fit into my busy schedule! At Stanford, I am majoring in Psychology and serving as the Financial Officer for the Black Psychology Students Association and as the Director of Advertising for Flicks (a student group brings recently released films to campus). I am also on the Board of Directors of the Stanford Undergraduate Psychology conference.
This site was created for a seminar at Stanford called The Business of the Internet. I initially wrote a piece on the impact that the Internet has had on the film industry. From this starting point, I decided to explore the connections between my two favorite topics of discussion -- psychology and film. I do not claim to be an expert in psychology, film, or the relationship between the two. The analyses on this site are based off of material I have learned in psychology courses, articles I have read about the buzz surrounding film and breaking movie news, and an embarrassing number of hours spent watching movies, surfing YouTube for clips, and sifting through box office numbers on a daily basis. Many of the patterns I point out come from my own observations and experience, as well as articles from the blogosphere. Consequently, there is a heavy emphasis on modern films (1990s - 2012). My primary “psychology sources” have been the textbook Psychology: Eight Edition, by Henry Gleitman, James Gross, and Daniel Reisberg, as well lecture slides and notes from Psychology One at Stanford University, the introductory psychology course taught by James Gross. (Although this site contains many links to the Psychology Guide at About.com and Wikipedia, these links are resources for the reader, not the basis for this website's material). The most valuable resources for general movie information and box office numbers have been The Internet Movie Database and Box Office Mojo, respectively.
I hope that through this site, you find a source of both education and entertainment. If you just came for the movie clips, that fine. If you are hoping to learn something, that's even better! There is a wealth of information on the site that will teach you the basics of psychology, make you consider the social consequences of the mind’s inner-workings, and show you what an influential role film plays in shaping our perceptions of social norms and mental illness. Unfortunately, the Abnormal Psychology and Glossary portions of the site are still under construction, but for now you can explore the pages that fall under the wing of Normal Psychology. ("Target Audience by Genre," a subsection of "The Audience," is also under construction and currently unavailable).