Jupiter's Wife

“Jupiter’s Wife” In relation to Public Health

Jupiter’s Wife is a film directed by Michel Negroponte in honor of Maggie Cogan. Some background on her is she was also known as the first woman carriage rider in New York City. The director Negroponte while attempting to make a movie of his own childhood ran into Cogan in New York’s city central park, and decided to make the documentary on her naming it “Jupiter’s Wife”. Throughout the story when meeting Maggie we come to find an unusual side to her, besides being homeless she is also mentally ill. Mental illness and homelessness can be cause and effect on many different levels. Homelessness can be associated with a variety of health concerns, mental illness being one of them. Public health is a field that aim’s to prevent and stop disease from spreading and it is always trying to find ways to promote healthier lifestyles to the entire worldwide population. In this case Public Health relates to Maggie’s condition in a variety of ways; her own and others mental stability is a health concern in the way that it is not known what can happen in the future if the illness is not treated. The solution is not to ignore the problem, but to solve it. There needs to more of an emphasis on mental health because it is a disease, and there are people ending up on the streets because of it.

In Negroponte’s documentary we can see Maggie’s mental instability might have led her to where she was at that point and time. Maggie is not the only person to end up homeless due to her mental state. There are many cases in which people with mental illnesses are left untreated and end up homeless. Another case is her friend in the film who was present with her during the time of the puppies’ birth. From the film we can notice that she is in the same mental state that Maggie was and coincidentally happened to be homeless too. Most of the times while homelessness and health concerns often go hand in hand. Reason being is because not all of...