Editor’s note: The Cabrini student quoted in the article asked that his real name not be used. Loquitur used the fictitious name of Steve Smith.
“In elementary school kids were brutal. There were multiple points in elementary school and middle school where I wanted to kill myself. People I’ve known have been brutal about my condition. Society just sucks.”
Steve Smith, sophomore business major who struggles with ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety, was the victim of constant bullying because of his struggle with mental health. What bullies don’t realize is that Smith is one of 17.7 million people who struggle with depression, as well as the 7 million from bipolar disorder, and one of the 10 million Americans having suicidal thoughts every year. One popular cause for the public to treat those with mental health “issues” is the way people with mental health issues are depicted in movies.
According to research done at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, in the United States, 19 percent of the population xperience a mental health condition and out of 4,598 characters in the films examined 1.7 percent experience a mental health condition. In the media, mental illness may be used to vilify a character, and frequent characters are portrayed with violent tendencies. This portrayal is usually used in most horror or thriller films and frequently, it can give audiences the wrong impression of what someone with poor mental health struggles with.
“There are movie characters who are depicted with having a mental illness but they do a really bad job at it. They show they have the symptoms and that is it. They don’t work upon it,” Smith said
Smith is correct. Movie actors pay close attention to the symptoms of the mental disorder they are trying to portray but that doesn’t make up for the real internal struggle that the mentally ill experience. As a result, most viewers believe they can gain a better understanding of different mental health conditions, simply by using movies as a reference. Hence the arrogant and harsh behaviors that result in others.
During the production of the award-winning film “Joker” directed by Todd Phillips, there was a lot controversy in the media that Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of someone with a mental disorder was either very realistic or very offensive.
“It shows the deep nitty-gritty and horrifying stuff that can come out of that kind of situation and it’s not something that should be ignored,” Smith said
“Depictions of mental illness in the media have a complex history that mingles many motives and consequences, Dr. Paul Wright, English and cinema professor said. “At the risk of oversimplifying, there is a tension in all such representations between raising awareness and empathy on the one hand, and exploiting or even trivializing mental illness on the other.”
In film genres, such as drama, comedy or horror there are two popular ways a film revolving around a character with poor mental health is played out, It is either a film to create awareness of what some struggle with or it is meant to thrill and entertain audiences. However part of entertaining the audience may include overplaying the struggle the character faces. research shows nearly half (47 percent) of the characters with a mental health condition were disparaged by other characters in the film.
“I’m surprised this number isn’t even higher,” Wright said. “Most films that depict mental illness also traffic in abuses, mockery and rejection of such figures.”
