Leper movies provide healthy lessons for life

Here's a short list of things I am thankful for. My family. My friends. A meaningful career that I love (happier about that one with every given day) and, of course, not having leprosy.

I'm really thankful for that last one. It's a case of being grateful for what you have and what you don't have.

I will admit that my knowledge of leprosy is limited. In fact, it's based entirely on the five minutes of research done in preparation for this column (about 150 cases are diagnosed in the United States every year) and, of course, the lessons I learned at the movies.

Leprosy has proved a popular movie ailment. Not only is it grim but there's also a dramatic visual element.

Below is a list of four films featuring leprosy and, as a Thanksgiving bonus, the lesson I learned from each.

PAPILLON (1973): One of the great prison escape films, Papillon stars Steve McQueen as a convict serving time in a French Guiana penal colony. He bides his time by planning, and attempting, a variety of escapes. One of the more memorable lands him in a leper colony, finding refuge among those unfairly marginalized by their ailment.

LESSON LEARNED: Don't worry, be happy. Although stricken with a terrible disease, the lepers are among the most satisfied characters in the film.

BRAVEHEART (1995): Although not explicitly addressed in the film, it is widely accepted that Robert the Bruce, the Scottish ruler who aligned himself with revolutionary William Wallace, eventually died from leprosy. Leprosy is a drag in modern times, so I can only imagine that the Dark Ages experience was unspeakably terrible.

LESSON LEARNED: Power has its limits. Ol' Robert had it going on, but still couldn't order the disease that eventually brought him down to cease and desist.

LIFE OF BRIAN (1979): In this religious farce from Monty Python, Michael Palin appears as a leper who discovers that his once lucrative begging-for-alms career dried up after he became the inadvertent recipient of a miraculous healing.

LESSON LEARNED: Leprosy might not be funny, but ex-lepers are hysterical.

THE FOG (1980): This John Carpenter film is about a quiet California costal town that is terrorized by a mysterious fog carrying the vengeful, and violent, ghosts of lepers whose unjust deaths provided the foundation on which the community was built.

LESSON LEARNED: Don't mess with dead lepers.

Reach Steven Uhles at (706) 823-3626 or steven.uhles@augustachronicle.com.