Mental Health in the Media – Feature Story #1 Final

A group of actors sit in a circle in the middle of the stage. They are here to do the table discussion for an upcoming production. The director, Professor Taylor Clemens, leads the discussion with the usual questions. How does your character interact with this character? How long have you known each other? Was this your first serious relationship?

But this table discussion has some very specific questions that these actors must answer. How are we going to address mental illness with respect? How can we make this character’s story seem real?

A truthful representation of mental illness is something that Professor Clemens is striving for in Morningside’s upcoming production of Next to Normal, a musical that focuses on the life of a woman living with bipolar disorder. However, he knows that a totally realistic representation is unlikely. “The artist in me is like, ‘I want to represent it perfectly,’ but at the same time it will never be perfect. It will only be perfect to that one person who is creating it.”

The entertainment industry has historically been fascinated with the topic of mental health. This began in the 1930s with portrayals of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder) in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This has continued to the present day with the current onslaught of mental health-centric TV shows and movies released almost monthly. Even as this plethora of media is distributed to the masses this does not mean that the representation is no longer problematic.

The representation of mental health disorders on TV, in movies, and on stage is a much debated thing on any arts and entertainment website you visit.

Lists are made of the best and the worst representation. Sometimes even actors are blamed for a lack of realism in their portrayal, and the stigma of mental health is always brought up. In a time where the news and politicians like to blame mental disorders for any tragedy that they can’t blame on terrorists, how important is our representation of mental health and how can we make strides towards lessening a deep seated stigma?

When asked if any current media was representing mental health well, Psychology Professor Dr. Shannon DeClute had a simple, one-word answer: “No.”

She is not alone in this belief. Many mental health professionals feel that although representation of mental disorders has progressed greatly in recent years, there are still more shows than not that get it wrong. Professionals believe that the ways mental disorders are presented further societal stigmas about how the mentally ill behave.

“So many movies that involve violence and aggression often lazily use the cause of mental illness. For example, something like DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder, there’s so many movies out there where the mass murderer has multiple personalities.” Dr. DeClute brought up movies, such as 2016’s Split, where the villain is a “crazy” person.

This “mentally disturbed killer” trope is used often in horror and suspense movies such as PsychoFatal Attraction, The Shining, and American Psycho. This genre is usually pointed to as the most likely to further the American belief that people with mental disorders are dangerous and aggressive. Meister says that “most people who have mental health problems are not violent.”

Along with the horror genre, Meister says that comedy could also be contributing to the stigma. “Whenever you bring some of that comedy and stuff in it really exacerbates the stereotypes. When that happens I think that it’s… not helpful.”

“Mental health is presented in a more extreme form or maybe a more dramatized form in media.” Morningside’s on-campus personal counselor Bobbi Meister believes that even though movies and TV shows about mental health are good, they are not real life. “It’s still a drama. Some of the characteristics that are presented aren’t always done in a natural way.”

She says that they are parts of certain shows that do a good job. She believes that Parenthood does a good job of representing autism and Iron Man 3 shows what she believes to be a realistic panic attack.

Representation of any group of people is important. Society is currently pushing back against a lack of representation that has been in the media for many years. In April 2017, Netflix introduced the #FirstTimeISawMe campaign that highlighted the importance of diversity in the stories we tell on TV and in movies. Netflix also has endless options of mental health-centered movies and TV shows, including their original shows The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, where the title character shows signs of PTSD; Lady Dynamite, a semi-autobiographical show about Maria Bamford’s life with Bipolar II Disorder; and 13 Reasons Why, which centers on a high school girl with depression.

Dr. DeClute says that it is important to have characters that accurately represent mental health issues and that the issue should not be avoided. She believes that the mental illness should not be a character’s whole identity. “That’s representative of who we actually are. Estimates of 50-75% of the U.S. population will meet the criteria for mental disorders at some point in time. That’s who we are and our characters should reflect that, but they should reflect it in a non-dramatic, accurate way.”

As a theatre artist, Professor Clemens believes that the hardest part about representing any mental illness in entertainment is that everyone’s experience with a given disorder will be different. “You can take a poll of ten people that suffer from depression and each of them is going to react a different way. There’s some people that are going to watch things like 13 Reasons Why and say, ‘Oh my God, that is exactly what my experience is like,’ and then there’s other people that will watch it and say, ‘All of that is fake and false. That’s completely unreal to me.’ It’s extremely hard to represent in any emotional or physical way.”

What can be done to fix the representation of mental health? Dr. DeClute gave this suggestion “Stop being lazy and stop using mental health as an excuse for violence and aggression.” She says that the majority of individuals with mental health issues are going to be victims of violence.

Meister believes that writers should shift the way that they approach writing characters with mental disorders. “I think that it definitely would be good to not just show one element of it. What they are presenting a lot of times in the entertainment industry is a pervasive illness that they deal with their entire lives, it’s not usually something that is a reaction to a situation and you work through it. I don’t think they do a good job of showing how they can be ‘normal.’ They should show their down days and good days and what that really looks like.”

Though Meister thinks that there are examples of good representations, she hopes that the takeaway from these scenes is not that this is the only way this mental disorder presents itself.

Because the purpose of media such as television and movies is entertainment, Dr. DeClute says more dramatized choices are the choices that these programs should be making. “They are trying to do it for entertainment. They want ratings for their show, they want people to watch them, and they are showing bits and pieces of issues and treatment and resolution. That’s good for entertainment and that’s the choices they are making.” However, viewers have to remember that these pieces of media are just entertainment.

Professor Clemens believes that the key to an accurate, respectful take on a show is to focus on research. “First, I hire a really good dramaturge to research the disorder. Luckily our dramaturge also plays the lead character, the one working through bipolar, so that helps. A lot of personal experience goes into it too. You also have to be really open and honest with actors and trying to have that conversation, which is a hard conversation to have.”

 



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