Ron Howard and Schizophrenia - Essay Example

Howard was motivated by several events in his life. When he was growing up on an Oklahoma farm, he remembers the local farmers talking about forming a homegrown militia to protect their crops from unemployed people in town (Howard, 2015). Other events that motivated him were the persistence of Apollo 13 astronauts in their mission, Jimmy Braddock not surrendering to poverty in Cinderella Man, and John Nash not giving up in A Beautiful Mind (Hart, 2005).

These events, like John Nash not giving up in A Beautiful Mind, motivated Howard to rethink schizophrenia and how people portrayed it as a limitation to a person’s ability to prosper in life. Furthermore, in the film, he tells Nash’s story of how with schizophrenia he did not give up and went on to do wonderful things in his life. This is one reason he attributes Americans’ inherent toughness to the challenges they experience in their lives. Another reason is the persistence of his neighbor and father in not giving up protecting their farm from unemployed town’s people. Therefore, according to Howard (2015), motivation is key to the American character of not giving up. Read More