The title "Three Identical Strangers" seems strange and full of mystery. On the one hand, there is a conflict between the words "identical" and "Strangers". On the other hand, it piqued my curiosity, so I wanted to find out what happened with these three people.
This documentary begins with a dramatic coincidence. After a series of weird events, Bobby Shafran, 19, met his brother Eddy Galland, whom had never known before, on his first day at Sullivan County Community College in New York. Both Shafran and Galland were adopted, born on the same day, and even looked exactly the same. Those clues confirmed that they are identical brothers without doubt.
However, the story didn't come to an end. Galland answered a call after the local newspaper published their reunion after 19 years’ separation. The person on the other end of the call was named David Kellman. He surprisingly asserted that he might be the third…Twin strangers came to be the Triplets.
Shafran, Galland, and Kellman's story thus far became popular. They were interviewed on several TV shows, and people were not only shocked by the reunited story, but also by their same tastes and mannerisms even though they hadn't known each other when they were growing up.
The triplets started their family-run restaurant in New York. And all of them married their true love. Nevertheless, this delight was only the calm before the storm. Galland killed himself in 1995 because of depression. Then the movie raises strange questions:
Where were their biological parents?
Why were the triplets were separated at birth?
The movie leads us to an unexpected answer – everything the triplets experienced was for a long-term psychological study. Louise Wise Service, the Jewish adoption agency that handled the triplet adoption case in the 1950s, secretly worked for a group of psychology researchers who were lead by Dr. Neubauer. The agency used to separate many twins and triplets that needed to be adopted. Shafran, Galland and Kellman were placed separately in three different income families: one in the upper-class, one in the middle-class and the other in the working-class family. The triplets all remember a group of researchers who regularly observed and recorded them when they were very young.
At first, the movie suspected that psychologists studied the genetic problems of mental illness, because some of the adopted kids and their biological parents suffered from depression, and some even committed suicide just like Galland. Nonetheless, the real purpose of this study that separated at least 50 twins and triplets was to examine the debate of Nature Versus Nurture.
This documentary has left a very deep impression on me. Not only does it tell an incredibly real story, but the storytelling structure of this movie design is also very tricky and fascinating: Audiences cannot easily guess the plot of the story. The first hour was bright. Galland, Shafran and Kellmen reunited and became famous. Thus when the film first asked why the triplets were separated after birth, I didn't think this would cause a big problem. But as the story progressed, especially when Shafran and Kellmen recalled the death of Galland, I began to question whether this separation was ethical. What’s more, this movie eventually inspired me to think: Although the triplets had lots of similarities, they are unique and independent individuals, and their destiny should not be artificially intervened.
When we study the history of scientific development, we always admire the achievements of predecessors and ignore the inappropriate methods and sacrifices for those results. For example, John B. Watson’s “Little Albert” Experiment, Monster Study conducted by Wendell Johnson, The Aversion Project led by Dr. Aubrey Levin. All the experiments are unethical and had terrible impact on those participants’ minds. These tragedies stem from scientists’ neglect and ignorance. People always identify the problem after they found the seriousness.
Luckily, in 1953, APA (American Psychological Association) first published the Ethics Codes. After nine versions revised, psychologists use this CODE today to guide experimenting when dealing with ethical dilemmas.
Despite the Ethics Code, evil is still alive. In addition to research psychology, in 2009, there is a Chinese “clinical psychiatrist” named Yongxin Yang implements electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for the treatment of adolescent internet addiction. Nearly 6000 teenagers in China claimed they received terrible treatment and Yang deceived them to have psychotropic drugs. Recently in 2016, the hospital was still in operation. a person posted his experience at Yang’s Hospital on the Internet. He mentioned that the patient was forced to obey the doctors, and the “low-frequency pulse therapy” was painful than the ECT. The most ridiculous thing is that parents actively sent their children to Yang’s hospital and paid nearly $805 a month for the therapy. I can't imagine how those teenagers experienced panic and pain while they were being treated.
In the theater where I watched Three Identical Strangers, 3 out of 4 audiences were seniors. I guess most audiences probably already know the story before watching this documentary. Maybe some of them used to be the participants of the similarity study just like the triplets on the screen.
Ultimately, Justice is sometimes late, but never absent.
本篇首发个人blog：https://movifann.wordpress.com/2018/07/10/three-identical-strangers/#more-86
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