Essay: Analysis of the movie ‘Concussion’

Before I go deeper on the ethical analysis, I would like to give a brief summary of the movie. Concussion is a story of a Nigerian forensic pathologist at Pittsburgh who found out the reason of most former football players died. It all started when Dr. Omalu Bennet, the pathologist, handled Mike Webster’s autopsy, a former Pittsburgh Steelers center. He discovered that Webster had suffered from a severe brain damage that was caused from him playing football, and eventually caused him to die. After a thorough research, he figured out that the brain damage was caused by the repeated blows to the head. No matter how hard he tried to tell people, they ignored him and even NFL denied his discoveries and instead claimed that the players’ head trauma was due to past injuries; not related to football. However, after three years later, another former NFL player died and left his suicide note vindicating Dr. Omalu. Then only people started to realize and listen to Dr. Omalu.

After analyzing the movie, I have identified a few ethical theories used by the characters for the significant events in the movie. The first ethical theory is utilitarianism which means that the happiness of the greatest number of people in the society is considered the greatest good (\”When Was The Last Time You Said This?\”). Since the National Football League (NFL) is the most popular professional sports league in North America, it was hard for the company to easily accept the fact that was found by the Dr. Omalu saying that football can be hazardous for the football players for a long term. NFL has 32 teams and 53 players all of them which made it to be the most profitable with revenues because they managed to get the attention of all football lovers around the world, especially Americans. It portrayed utilitarianism when the company only considered the happiness of the audience; the majority, rather than the football players; the minority. It believed that by providing entertainment to the people and ignoring to the issue aroused regarding the long term impact for the football players was okay because only happiness of the majority that matters. On top of that, since the impact only can be identified after many years, NFL did not want to sacrifice the golden young football players because it needed to utilize those talents for its own advantage. Even though initially NFL did give happiness to its players by giving them the opportunity to achieve that level of satisfaction, it was only for a short term. Imagine if NFL acknowledged the fact discovered by Dr. Omalu, what would happen to the football sports industry? How many NFL players would withdraw from the company instead? Thus, NFL has used utilitarianism in rationalizing its decision of ignoring Dr. Omalu’s judgments in the first place.

Besides utilitarianism, I have also recognized a rationalization used, in which the denial of injury. This clearly portrayed in the movie right after the talk delivered by Julian, when he talked to Dr. Omalu outside of the hall saying, “Roger Goodell just said that Justin Strzelczyk may have gotten his concussion swimming, in a swimming pool.” According to Bradley Wright in his article, Techniques of Neutralization, denial of injury means that we acknowledge doing the wrong action, but we claim that no one was harmed by what we did. Similarly goes to the NFL, it did acknowledge that football can eventually give the long term effect in which causing to the brain damage, however, they argued that the former football players died mostly due to suicidal. This has shown that those who were against Dr. Omalu and Julian believed that football was not the main reason of the players died. Although it seemed to be true that they did die because of their willingness to suicide, football was the one that made them killed themselves after having this brain concussion. As Dr. Omalu has discovered, they suffered from the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) causing the victims to endure from loss of memory, difficulty controlling impulsive or erratic behavior, impaired judgment, and even behavioral disturbances including aggression and depression. For instance, from the movie, Justin Strzelczyk attacked his wife and children, claiming that there was a voice in his head telling him to do so. This indicates that it was true that football did not kill the players literally, but it gave them CTE that made them to be aggressive and finally decided to suicide as a solution because they could not stand with the depression themselves. This is what NFL tried to argue by using the rationalization of denial of injury; playing football does not really kill the players.

Apart from that, I have identified the denial of responsibility made by Dr. Steven Dekosky, Dr. Ron Hamilton and Dr. Joseph Maroon. Based on an article, Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency by Gresham Sykes and David Matza, denial of responsibility is a technique used when the deviant act was caused by an outside force and that individual feels that they are drawn into the situation, ultimately becoming helpless. For the first two doctors, they showed the denial of responsibility when Dr. Omalu presented his research to both of them and they halfheartedly agreed with him. On the other hand, Dr. Maroon portrayed his denial of responsibility when Dr. Omalu and Julian met him to discuss about this matter and he did not want to cooperate with them to reveal the truth. Three of them tried to deny the truth discovered by Dr. Omalu. Although, they all were competent enough to validate Dr. Omalu’s research, they disagreed with him because they believed that it was not their responsibilities to rectify the concussion issue. Instead, they claimed that Dr. Omalu was trying to shame football and told him to retract his statements, saying that all of that were made up to harm NFL’s reputation. During the meeting between Dr. Omalu and Dr. Maroon, Dr. Maroon himself said that NFL is a blessing and a salvation. He did not want to be responsible for any action against NFL. Honestly, if I were in their shoes, most probably I might be doing the same thing as they did. Being a doctor indeed gives us power to bring up something that is wrong regarding medical issues but perhaps we need to think meticulously when it comes to something huge and very serious that would affect the whole world. Hence, the actions of those three doctors being in denial of responsibility was totally understandable for me even though I believe it was unethical to keep the truth from being revealed to all NFL stakeholders.

Last but not least, I have also recognized virtue ethics from the beginning until the end of the movie portrayed by Dr. Omalu. Virtue ethics which also known as Virtue theory, is an approach to ethics that emphasizes an individual’s character as the key element of ethical thinking, rather than rules about the acts themselves or their consequences (\”Virtue Ethics – By Branch / Doctrine – The Basics of Philosophy\”).  At the beginning of the movie, Dr. Omalu is shown to be someone who is full with sympathy and empathy when he treated every single of his dead patients with care and never wanted to hurt them by using different equipment for each of them. Furthermore, before he started his autopsy to his dead patients, he talked to the deceased as if they were alive as a sign that he really cared and respected them. His personality of caring and empathy might be the reason why he tried his best to defend most of the former football players who died. It does not matter the consequences that he might receive after telling people about his findings, or perhaps how people will see him as a hero for discovering something new; but it is the matter of being empathy, understanding, and brave enough to rectify this concussion issue. Although he was not an American who knows everything about football, he spent huge amount of time to make an in-depth research about Mike Webster’s death that he even studied Webster’s former positions in the game when he was playing for NFL. This proves how Dr. Omalu cared so much for his patients and the football players in general. He was being concerned and wanted to convey to all football players that they need to be aware of the long term impacts that they might have to endure for the rest of their lives. This is what I admire Dr. Omalu’s personality the most, where he is caring and bold that he was not afraid to speak the truth when the whole NFL went against him.

In conclusion, the movie Concussion shows how do people react with ethical dilemmas in the real world. Some might focus on the greater happiness perceived by a greater number of people; utilitarianism. Some might make decisions based on the denial of injury by saying that it is okay to commit wrongdoing as long it does not give any harm to anyone. Some might consider the consequences that they need to face and do not want to take the responsibility; denial of responsibility. Some might be so noble and courageous at the same time to fix and solve problems; virtue ethics. I believe that every each of the character in the movie has their own reasons to justify their acts. Perhaps some of them had no intentions at all to hurt anyone else by just following the current situations without having the audacity to correct what is wrong. I would say that people vary in this world according to their priorities. If they prioritize profits, then they would do anything to gain the highest possible of profits regardless the ethical issues aroused. Conversely, those who value more in morality, they would try to avoid any suspicious actions that could lead them to commit unethical behaviors. All in all, I think that it all depends on oneself on how to shape the personality and what kind of an individual he or she wants to be.