WP3: Mental Health Portrayal

According to The Recovery Village, one in forty adults in the United States have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I became a part of this statistic when I turned ten years old and have continued to be a part of the statistic as an adult. My parents put me in therapy and psychiatry treatment to help with my anxiety. My mental health eventually evolved into anxiety, depression, and PTSD that I treat with bi-weekly therapy appointments as well as medication. Becoming an adult in society has allowed me to be more open about my mental health struggles and even be an advocate in everyday life. I try to be more open on social media during mental health awareness week and volunteer with various organizations in Los Angeles.

As a theater major at the University of Southern California, I’ve always had a passion for performing and the entertainment industry. This has allowed me to become more interested in how mental health is portrayed in film, television, and theater and the accuracies and inaccuracies that come out of this media and how it affects its viewers in their own understanding of mental health. I analyzed this by surveying several students as well as researching specific examples of media that does a good and poor job at portraying mental health and where exactly this industry can go in the future to make mental health a less taboo subject overall. I took this information to help discover what can be done for the future of media and what these platforms can do in the future to better educate society and portray mental health in a real way.

In terms of theater and its portrayal of mental health, opinions seem to be widely divided on how well of a job these theatrical productions do at conveying mental health and affecting the audience in a way that is positive. For example, Dear Evan Hansen is a story about a troubled teen named Evan who pretends to know a boy who ends his life in order to get closer to a family who a girl that Evan has feelings for. In the survey of nineteen students I questioned, two students brought up Dear Evan Hansen in terms of mental health portrayal but views were divided. One of the students said the show’s storyline did a mediocre job at portraying mental health and seemed much more “surface level” (Mental Health in Media). The student explained the reasoning for this could be because of the musical aspect of the show and not wanting to make it too dark or disheartening. A Masters program thesis study through the University of Massachusetts Amherst by Mckay Perry said that Dear Evan Hansen “does not represent the lived experience of mental illness” and “one of the main shortcomings of the show’s representation of mental illness is the early removal in the show of the more severely (and socially unacceptable) mentally ill character Connor Murphy, and his replacement with a more palpable foil, the anxious but largely unobtrusive character of Evan Hansen” (Perry). This show, amongst others, misses the mark and the real lesson gets swallowed up by musical numbers or lack of character depth.

Some shows know how to educate and move the audience in terms of conveying serious mental health struggles. The last musical I saw that truly conveyed mental health in a beautiful and accurate way was Jagged Little Pill. This jukebox musical tells the tale of the Healy family as they begin to unravel with issues of repressed gender identity, sexual assault, and substance abuse all set to Alanis Morissette songs. In her dissertation, Perry describes something known as a “personification model” in which the “mental illness is separated from the character and portrayed by a different performer” (Perry). The new character allows the audience to see an externalization of what is happening in the mind of the main character. Often, these characters will interact. Jagged Little Pill utilizes the personification model through dance movement in which the main character, Mary Jane or MJ, sings and the dancing character represents MJ’s fight with addiction in the musical number “Uninvited”. Addiction is a difficult and delicate subject and the choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, director Diane Paulus, the performers, and the artistic team took their time and personal experiences to analyze how to physically portray the transformations of these layered characters. They wanted to find choreographic ways to speak about the unspeakable (Portwood).

The show’s director and creative team even worked with specialists at Learn to Cope, a peer led support network for families dealing with addiction and recovery. The creative team wanted to ensure these intense subjects were conveyed authentically. The founder of Learn to Cope agreed this number was a “really powerful scene in the way that it’s staged — without words, but through the music and lyrics and watching that physical struggle, was so impactful” (Portwood). The founder also admitted it was hard to watch too as she had lost someone to addiction but it “honored the pain.” Learn to Cope was very grateful that the show reached out to make sure this story was told in an authentic way that would open people’s eyes and touch their hearts. Every media outlet telling stories of mental health issues should reach out to professionals in the specific field to ensure the story is told truthfully.

Many musicals like Dear Evan Hansen have shortcomings or surface level portrayals of mental health, whereas television sometimes goes too far or to the uncomfortable extreme. In terms of television’s portrayal of mental health issues, several students brought up the television show, 13 Reasons Why on Netflix. Students who brought up this show stated the portrayal was inaccurate as it actually “romanticized suicide” and suicide and depression seemed to be used as a way for revenge and that those with mental health issues are deemed as insane. The show’s title refers to thirteen tapes in which Hannah Baker, a teenager in a small rural town, recorded before she died and describes the thirteen reasons why she killed herself. Faith Cowell, an author for the Hawk Newspaper at Saint Joseph’s describes several reasons why the show should not have been made in the first place. One reason being that according to the National Institute of Mental Health, suicide rates after the series premiers grew rapidly and they saw a 28.9% increase in suicide rates among teens ages 10–17 in the United States (Cowell). Another reason Cowell brings up is that the show depicts self harm as being presented as an antidote to suicide. Another reason she brings up is how graphic the show chooses to be in showing suicide. The scene Hannah takes her own life shows in great detail her in a bathtub for two minutes utilizing self harm methods. Other depictions of sexual assault are also incredibly lengthy in a way that is just disturbing and not educational or purposeful for the viewers.

Though there are parts of the show I find important, as I was a teenager who struggled with suicidal idealation as well as anxiety, the show goes to a an extreme that is not for the purpose of starting conversations, but actually reinforcing society’s idea that mental health should remain a taboo subject. Dan Reidenberg, the executive director for Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, was quite concerned the show would result in a copycat effect, even though the production told any news source that interviewed them that they talked extensively to medical care professionals. The production team wanted it to be painful to watch and remain honest to the extent of the subject, but I believe it went too far for a streaming platform that many teenagers watch.

However, one thing I believe 13 Reasons Why did accurately was its demonstration of panic attacks. As someone who suffers from panic attacks myself, the feeling of having one can be hard to describe, but the filming and camera angles did an excellent job of illustrating a panic attack from Clay Jensen, the main character’s, perspective. The cinematography made it seem like the walls were caving in and as it was from Clay’s point of view, viewers couldn’t hear anything around except the ringing in his ear. He held his chest as if he felt it tightening and the walls around him were spinning as if to create the illusion of lightheadedness. I know these feelings all too well. A student I surveyed said another show, Suits, did an excellent job at conveying these panic attacks through the main character, Harvey. Like 13 Reasons Why, Suits utilizes audio, camera work, as well as extreme character emotions.

Though, not every television series gets it right. In Euphoria, the main character Rue, played by Zendaya, falls to violence during her panic attacks and manic episodes. When viewers watch this, they can be made to believe those with mental illness are inherently violent. A project at the University of Rochester shared that “misconceptions about the violent tendencies of the mentally ill increase discrimination towards such individuals. This discrimination is seen in housing, employment, interpersonal relationships, and health treatment” (rochester.edu). This just creates a further gap between the mentally ill and “normal” individuals. This gap was also seen in the Nickelodeon show Hey Arnold! where the main character Sid has implied OCD. However, his OCD is stereotyped as being a germ freak who cleans everything and even wears protective clothing. As someone who has battled OCD since I was ten, OCD is much more complex than this. The frustrating thing about Sid’s OCD is that it one day vanished. Mental illnesses such as OCD never disappear this easily and may even take months or years of medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. When shows illustrate mental illness incorrectly, how can we expect society as a whole to be educated?

Like television and musical theater, film has cases of harmful over exaggeration or failure to accurately educate viewers. In terms of film, there are several cases of accurate and inaccurate portrayal and still a long way to go. The same study at the University of Rochester mentioned above has found that filmmakers use the violence and sensationalism of stereotypic, yet misguided, presentations of psychiatric illness as a means to make money at the box office. Because of this, community attitudes towards the mentally ill are for the most part negative and heavily based on misinformed beliefs. One student in my survey believed Joker did a great job conveying mental health issues, yet I heavily disagree. Similarly to Euphoria, the recent Joker film in 2019 creates a stigma surrounding mental health when the main character Arthur Fleck’s neurological condition causes him to laugh uncontrollably at random moments. Due to his circumstances and being ostracized from society and being bullied, he becomes villainous, and even murderous. Another film that creates this villain story surrounding mental illness is The Shining. The character Jack begins to show severe mental health conditions, most notably schizophrenia, which leads him to terrorize his family. Mental health is shown as being sinister, with Jack as being a monster. This perpetuated fear surrounding mental illness that is still prevalent today as well as a harmful conclusion that the mentally ill turn to obstruction.

One idea brought up in the survey I conducted is this idea that mental health is often overgeneralized or over exaggerated. This was seen in the film A Beautiful Mind where the main character, John Nash’s schizophrenia is exaggerated and fictionalized. In the 2016 film Split, the main character, Kevin, has dissociative personality disorder, causing him to have thirty-three different personalities. He tends to become extremely violent when he “switches” to different personalities, and there’s one personality called “The Beast” in which he has superhuman strength. Though this exaggeration is recognizable, other inaccuracies in the film may be more difficult to depict as being incorrect.

Though exaggeration or overgeneralization seem to be at the forefront of the issues of mental illness in film, a few films get it right and are on the right trajectory. 2010’s film Black Swan’s depiction of perfection and body image issues is haunting. The main character Nina Sayer’s warped mind and pressure from external sources results in self harm: she denies herself food to remain thin, physically stabs herself to rid the white swan within her, and compulsively scratches her back to convey that of a real swan (Robinson). As someone with OCD, I understand the difficulties of striving for perfection and feeling like a failure if otherwise occurs. I feel this film is a tragic and clever way of conveying a woman’s sense of pressure in society.

Another well known film that is open about mental health issues but does it in a way that isn’t overwhelming to the viewer is The Breakfast Club. Each character comes from a specific high school stereotype that separates them from each other, yet they each deal with some personal pressure that comprises their mental health. This includes one character coming from an abusive home, one father’s emotional abuse causing him to bully others, and another’s suicidal thoughts. The film explores the line between those being just fine and those on the brink of collapsing. Especially in today’s era with social media, pressure to be okay and remain steady in stressful situations is especially evident for this generation of teenagers.

The question remains, where can theater, film, and television go from here to respect mental health and be sure these outlets are accurately inform its audience? It starts with contacting professionals in the specific medical field. When asking students in my survey what they believed could be done, several brought up the idea of contacting and having valuable conversations with medical professionals. I believe, as many students surveyed also believed, that another helpful way of approaching these serious topics in art is communicating with those who have experienced the instance themselves and allowing them to be a part of the creative process. Someone who may suffer from schizophrenia could be a part of the production team for a movie about schizophrenia so the film remains real to the topic. As someone with OCD, I am tired of seeing uninformed producers create media that shows OCD inaccurately and based on stereotypes. Even my favorite television show growing up, Glee, showed OCD as being an illness where a woman sanitizes her grapes for twenty minutes. If adult me was in that creative room now, the storyline would be very different. This could even cause the overall societal stigma around mental health to decrease. Film, television, and theater has already introduced mental health and mental illnesses into the narrative, but there is still a long way to go in terms of avoiding overgeneralization, avoiding stereotypes, communicating with health professionals, and being sure intense storylines do not go to the absolute extreme. Important conversations should be uncomfortable but not in a way that will create a further stigma surrounding mental health. As someone who has suffered mental health issues such as anxiety and depression for the last twelve years, I hope to see growth in these platforms for many years to come.

Works Cited

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