We Hold These Truths in Self-Accountability

As seen through controversial reactions of movies like American Sniper (2014), movies are up for debate constantly (Guida 1 http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/how-movies-can-change-our-minds/). Michelle C. Pautz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton, says that “influence of movies along with other factors may be quite substantial. Movies contribute to the political socialization of people and so what audiences watch and how certain institutions are portrayed over time can be very significant” (Guida 7-8). Film has the chance to give fair and significant representations of different groups of people, including people with mental illness. A good representation in film means a better perception of marginalized groups in real life.

As seen through blatant inaccurate portrayals of mental illness, filmmakers are not putting enough care into fairly portraying a large group of people in America, and thus resulting in inaccurate and unsafe acuities of those with mental illness through American citizens that do not struggle with mental illness themselves. The media has profound influence on how the minds of the viewer is shaped, and it is up to the audience to unpack the negative influence and hold filmmakers accountable for their representations in their creations (“Negative Influences of Media on the Society” 6-7 http://influence.bafree.net/negative-influences-of-media-on-the-society.php). By holding filmmakers responsible for their inaccurate and gender biased portrayals of people with mental illness, the opinion of the audience can be changed to be significantly better and increase the likelihood of safety for those who already suffer from mental illness.

More so, audiences need to hold themselves accountable. While film is a great platform of success and can be used in beneficial ways, film is a product of capitalistic Hollywood where representation, as seen in the 2016 Oscars (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/movies/oscar-ballot-is-all-white-for-another-year.html?_r=0), hardly exists. In regards to mental illness portrayals, the neurotypical portion of the audience needs to be more critical and self-aware about the propagations of all neurodiversities. By being consciously accountable for themselves and critical of the way filmmakers are consistently perpetuating stereotypes, filmmakers will start to face the backlash of their poor representations. This cycle of accountability will eventually ensure that mental illness representations are accurate and fair instead of being a plot-building device for a genre.

Works Cited

Guida, John. “How Movies Can Change Our Minds.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Feb. 2015. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.

“Negative Influences of Media on the Society.” Influence Guide. Influence Guide, 19 Aug. 2015. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.

An Incitement to the Psychotic Imagination

The earliest of mental illness portrayal in film is The Maniac Cook (1909) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000956/) by director D. W. Griffith. This film introduces a deranged mental patient who is perilously violent. This film began perpetuating the stigma of a “homicidal maniac” which would soon become a foundation of plot building in horror films (Hyler 2 http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/stigma-continues-hollywood). Popular horror movies use characters with psychosis to create an uncomfortable vibe throughout the movie. While the idea behind a horror movie is to scare the audience, using characters with explicit mental illnesses creates the ideas in the audience that mental illness is inherently violent.

However, horror movies are more likely to use men with psychosis when looking at the homicidal maniac stereotype before they choose a woman with psychosis. In movies such as The Shining (1980) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/), the “homicidal maniac” image is a male. The idea that masculinity is inherently violent shows up in numerous horror movies and is detrimental to how men with mental illness are perceived in real life (Fruhwirth 37). By connecting mental illness, violence, and masculinity all in one place, the stigma becomes that men with mental illness are naturally violent. It becomes a way to justify violence in real life that may just be a product of masculinity. When white men commit a fatal crime such as murder or domestic terrorism, the conversation of his masculinity or his whiteness is not entertained (Fruhwirth 37). The conversation shifts to how he probably has a mental illness where psychosis is a symptom.

Horror movies entertain the idea that horror should be based off mental illness rather than holding men accountable further when they play off psychotic symptoms as focal point of terror rather than the white masculinity, even if the white masculinity is more obvious in the context. The audience of horror movies shun those will mental illness while giving white masculinity a pass even though not all people who have psychosis are white men while 64% of mass shootings are committed by white men (Ford 8 http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/27/us/mass-shootings/). Images of men with mental illness become detrimental to real life when men who are criminals are no longer held accountable for their actions, yet all people with mental illness are treated as though their psychosis is what will make them dangerous (Tartakovsky 7 http://psychcentral.com/lib/medias-damaging-depictions-of-mental-illness/). Movies like The Shining (1980) show a stereotypical masculine, white man with a beard and a husky figure that becomes deranged enough, because of psychotic episodes, to murder his love interest.

Psychosis is constantly the token mental disorder in horror movies to characterize the antagonist of the film. It is easy to make psychosis horrifying when psychosis is defined as “a severe mental disorder characterized by gross impairment in reality testing, typically manifested by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, or disorganized or catatonic behavior (Goodwin 201).” When the definition contains elements that people who are neurotypical do not understand, they categorize people who do deal with psychosis as an “other” and “other” is seen as scary.

The misconception that people with mental illness are violent creates so much tension that when someone walks into a counseling office they are more likely to be asked, “Have you ever thought about harming anyone else?” before they are asked about self-harm. Self-mutilation occurs among 4% of adults, 15% of teenagers, and a risk of 17%-35% among college students (“Self-Injury (Cutting, Self-Harm or Self-Mutilation)” 4 http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/self-injury), whereas only 4.3% of all people with mental illness are likely to harm others (Stuart 123 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1525086/). Due to the use of mentally ill characters in horror movies, the public considers the notion that every person with a mental illness is more likely to hurt others, creating a sense of fear among the public that results in the ostracism of those with mental illnesses.

Creators of horror films blatantly disregard the prominent push of stigma in horror films by depicting both people who experience mental illness inaccurately. Stigmatizing content seen in the early days of cinema in horror movies such as The Maniac Cook (1909) continue to persist in modern film. Themes such as a mentally ill character being a homicidal maniac, a mentally ill character being characterized by how pathetic they look, and a mentally ill character being shown as fragile through metaphors are all images that were originally seen in early horror films, when mental illness was less known, that have continued to recur in modern day films.

 

 

Works Cited

Ford, Dana. “Who Commits Mass Shootings?” CNN. Cable News Network, 24 July 2015. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.

Fruhwirth, Jesse. “Male Call: A Conversation About Masculinity and Violence with Byron Hurt and Jackson Katz.” Bitch 2014: 35-39. Print.

Goodwin, John. “The Horror of Stigma: Psychosis and Mental Health Care Environments in Twenty-First-Century Horror Film (Part I).” Perspectives in Psychiatric Care 50.3 (2014): 201-09. Wiley Online Library. Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

Hyler, Steven H. “Stigma Continues in Hollywood.” Psychiatric Times. UBM Medica, LLC., 01 June 2003. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.

“Self-injury (Cutting, Self-Harm or Self-Mutilation).” Mental Health America. Mental Health America, n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.

Stuart, Heather. “Violence and Mental Illness: An Overview.” World Psychiatry 2.2 (2003): 121–124. Print.

Tartakovsky, Margarita. “Media’s Damaging Depictions of Mental Illness.” Psych Central. Psych Central, 17 July 2016. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.

Manic Pixie Drama Queen

Manic Depressive Disorder, more commonly known as Bipolar Disorder, affects 2.9% of the U.S. population each year. 83% of those cases are classified as severe and affects men and women equally (“Bipolar Disorder” 3 https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Bipolar-Disorder). Bipolar disorder is characterized by dramatic changes in mood and behavior (“Bipolar Disorder” 4). Since that is the most commonly known fact about bipolar disorder, films tend to use characters with bipolar disorder as a catalyst for drama. More so, films use women with bipolar disorder to increase the dramatic mood of the film. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/) is a film that uses a character with manic traits and uses her as the promoter of “crazy,” “impulsive,” and “over-dramatic.”

The most popular symptom of bipolar disorder filmmakers like to use is the myth that people with bipolar disorder experience dramatic mood swings that follow a complete remission of symptoms (Tartakovsky 10 http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/11/07/5-persistent-myths-about-bipolar-disorder/). While dramatic mood swings are a major symptoms of bipolar disorder, individuals that are properly treated have less severe residual symptoms (Tartakovsky 11). Another myth is that people with bipolar disorder are not trying hard enough to fit a societal idea of normal (Tartakovsky 20). There is an implication in this myth that bipolar disorder is a choice rather than an actual disorder (Tartakovsky 22). The idea the any disorder is a choice disillusions people into thinking that mental illness is something that can be turned on and off and has no serious side effects (Tartakovsky 23). Both of these myths are perpetuated to their fullest extent in films.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is a film that portrays a woman with Bipolar Disorder but fails to mention the mental illness by name. Clementine is seen as the impulsive foil to Joel, the blandest character in the film. The film makes Clementine out to be just another “crazy” female even though she has symptoms of bipolar disorder, such as having manic and depressed states, displaying risky behavior, and easy attachment to certain people (“Bipolar Disorder” 5). This is a female character trope that is often used in films, otherwise known as the “manic pixie dream girl” trope. This trope entertains the idea that an impulsive woman is to be saved from her hazardous actions by a flat male character.

There is a scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) where Clementine sees a child on the streets, turns to Joel, and says, “We should have a baby.” This is a line that catches the audience off-guard, since having children is a serious endeavor and should not be a consequence of impulsivity. In this scene, there are underpinnings of gender bias and stigmatization of mental illness through the concept of motherhood. There is already a social misconception that women are solely responsible for reproduction of human life and that women should have a natural impulsivity towards caring for others (Launius and Hassel 52). Not only is this scene pushing that misconception to the audience, but because Clementine demonstrates bipolar disorder symptoms of over-attachment and manic behavior, the audience is forced to think about her character and her mental state as being fit for motherhood. Since the audience would naturally come to the conclusion that she is not fit to be a mother, the audience would then associate all women with mental illness symptoms as unfit parents and therefore, women with mental illnesses are seen as a danger to their designated gender roles.

Gender bias is common in diagnoses and research shows that “gender stereotypes regarding proneness to emotional problems in women and alcohol problems in men, appear to reinforce social stigma and constrain help seeking along stereotypical lines” (“Gender and Women’s Mental Health” 27 http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/genderwomen/en/). Women are perceived to have mood disorder symptoms just by nature. When women do have bipolar disorder, doctors are likely to misdiagnose women with an anxiety disorder or depression rather than bipolar disorder since mood swings are seen as common in women. Using a character with symptoms of bipolar disorder, but never actually mentioning anything about the disorder, subliminally demonstrates to the audience that these symptoms are just normal traits of women.