Doug Bruce (born 1967) is the subject of Rupert Murray's 2005 documentary film Unknown White Male.
Bruce claims to suffer from an extremely rare, and possibly purely psychological, form of retrograde amnesia. In the film, Bruce alleges that suddenly one day, his entire episodic memory bank of his entire life went missing. According to Bruce, he first became aware that he "didn't know who [he] was," when he had "awakened" on a New York subway train, with no recollection of who he was, including his name, life experiences, family, friends, home and work. Later, he would claim he didn't know who Bono was.
After the alleged incident that led to the alleged amnesia, he claims to have gone to the police station and since they didn't know what to do with him, he was admitted to a hospital psychiatric ward, where, with no name to use, 'Unknown White Male' was written on his hospital medical charts and records.
After a few days in the hospital, Bruce claims a phone number was suddenly found hidden inside a Spanish phrase book in the bag he had been carrying. Little else was found on him other than some dog medicine; he had no wallet, bank cards, or other identifying documents. The phone number was the mother of a girl he had tried to court. This girl, Nadine Abramson, upon the release of the movie, characterized Bruce to a reporter from the Washington Post in this way: "He seemed like this typical kind of total Eurotrash banker dude. He was chasing models, had this big loft, 'let's go to Biarritz.' For a few seconds, it was appealing." [1] She told the reporter that she had stopped returning his calls because she was not interested. The Washington Post reporter writes that her friends thought the amnesia claim was suspicious, given the circumstances. [2] In the same article, Abramson is quoted as sayind Bruce seemed to relish his new status as an "amnesiac," printing up business cards that said "Unknown White Male" and handing them to girls he met at bars. [3]
In the film, it is told that Abramson goes to the hospital to identify him as 'Doug Bruce', a prosperous Frenchman who had formerly been a successful banker in Paris, and was studying for a degree in photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Currently, he is still pursuing photography, though failing to find much success.
Due of the extreme rarity of Bruce's form of amnesia, the length of it (Bruce has not regained his amnesia and therefore is a medical anomaly), as well as myriad inconsistencies in his story, there have been claims that the film is a hoax. The filmmakers and subject deny this. Various publications discussed the improbability of Bruce's story, which centers around being the only documented example of extended, full-blown amnesia in the world to date. Others concentrate on dissecting the various incongruent statements Bruce has made regarding his alleged trauma.[4][5] Bruce reveals in an interview that, before his own bout with amnesia, a close friend suffered from short-term amnesia after a sporting accident; this experience inspired the friend to change his life completely and move to Bali to become "a healer".[6] It has been speculated that this friend's experience with amnesia inspired Bruce's malingering.
According to filmmaker Rupert Murray, his documentary Unknown White Male is a uniquely filmed exploration into the phenomenon of amnesia from the perspective of an alleged amnesiac, and it includes video film footage which Bruce filmed himself beginning within a week of the start of his alleged amnesia.