Most people gather what they know about mental illnesses from television and film. Unfortunately these media portrayals are inaccurate and create stigma. They depict people suffering from mental illnesses as different, dangerous and laughable. Characters are often addicted to drugs or alcohol, are violent, dangerous, or out of control. Horror film characters like Norman Bates in Psycho, Jack Torrance in the Shining, or Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs associate the typical 'psycho- killer' with people who suffer from a mental illness. But dramas and horror films are not the only film genres that create stigma. Comedies like What About Bob and many others not only stigmatize, they also make fun of mental illnesses and the people who suffer from them. This paper will discuss how the film Me, Myself & Irene is an inaccurate, offensive and stigmatizing portrayal of an individual suffering from schizophrenia. It also discusses what can be done to counteract the stigma created by these types of films.
Me Myself & Irene
The film Me, Myself & Irene was a blockbuster hit released in 2000. The comedy stars Jim Carrey as a Rhode Island state trooper who is portrayed as having two personalities: Charlie and Hank. Charlie is a sweet, mild-mannered, non confrontational character who is too nice for his own good. Hank is his maniacal alter-ego being the complete opposite of everything he is in manner. When ‘mild’ Charlie forgets to take his medication for schizophrenia, he turns into the ‘aggressive and violent’ Hank. Complications arise when he's assigned to escort a woman named Irene played by Renee Zellweger back to New York and ends up falling in love with her.
Me, Myself & Irene reinforces the many common stereotypes and ...
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Conclusion
People with schizophrenia are inaccurately portrayed in the offensive and stigmatizing film Me, Myself & Irene. The only way to prevent the stigma associated with these films is to get involved. Watch your own attitudes and behaviors and educate yourself and others as much as you can. Comedy and fantasy have their place in film but not at the expense of children and adults who struggle daily to overcome mental illness. A comedy that similarly made fun of cancer or AIDS would never be tolerated. The entertainment industry must learn that this exploitation of mental illness is unacceptable. Unfortunately, the entertainment industry continues to present people with mental illness in a negative light. They have wide ranging consequences for the lives of those with mental illness and for the ways people act towards others with psychiatric disorders.
During the mid-1900`s, mental illnesses were rarely discussed in mainstream media due to negative stigma surrounding mental illnesses. As a result, characters in film rarely had mental disorders because of the directors` worries of audiences` reactions to how the illnesses were portrayed. Director, Edward Dmytryk, however, attempted to diminish the stigma through his film Raintree County (1957) with Susanna Drake Shawnessy`s mental instability. Elizabeth Taylor`s portrayal of Susanna, however, heightened the stigma surrounding mental illness as Susanna constantly acted immature and childlike.
The portrayal of people being sickly creatures has been used in Hollywood film for a very long time. This has been in the endeavor of putting the viewing public in the shoes of the patient and entertain them with over the top portrayals of disease. For patients that are women in particular this has been achieved by defining them along the lines of vague terms such as them being over emotional and unstable. Despite the advancement experienced by the society, women have not yet fully seen the goal of equality realize fruition. With the expansion of the psychiatric and psychological terminologies, there now additional ways via which mental illness can be ascribed as a weakness for men and women portrayed in Hollywood film. This is best exemplified by the key character in the film Girl Interrupted. In this film, the key character, a woman, is given these labels sourced from psychiatric terminologies. As such, throughout life, she has the difficult task of endeavoring to shed off these forced identities and try to find her own identity. These life struggles are brought on when she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. With this diagnosis, she earns a year-long stay in a prescribed mental institution. Her dream is to become a writer. With her new found diagnosis, however, the probability of her realizing her dream dims. In reality this would only magnified in a 1960 society, where someone suffering from such an ailment would as a woman have even fewer chances of success.
Since the birth of movies, Hollywood has strived to delve into the human experience and present certain aspects of life to the general population. Mental disorders are just one of many topics that are often explored for use in the media. The film A Beautiful Mind focuses specifically on paranoid schizophrenia, and follows protagonist John Nash’s life as he lives with the disorder. The film details Nash’s presymptomatic life at Princeton University, follows him through the early stages of the disorder, and continues as the symptoms begin to overrun his life. Luckily for Nash, his disorder is eventually clinically diagnosed and he is treated. The movie not only shares the tale of Nash’s life, but also shares with audiences a lesson about the
For the overall mental health culture, they way people perceive mental health needs to change in order to alleviate the stigma attached to the topic. As I read and listened to the film, movies play a large part in inflicting the fear that so many people have towards mentally ill people. Another example is news media and how they usually assume that the school shooter , mass muder, rapist or pedifile is mentally ill person causing harm to others. Besides, do you really need to be mentally ill to cause harm to others? I personally don’t believe that and I think anymore is capable of inflicting
The media in American society has a major influential impact on the minds and beliefs of millions of people. Whether through the news, television shows, or film, the media acts as a huge database for knowledge and instruction. It is both an auditory and visual database that can press images and ideas into people's minds. Even if the individual has no prior exposure or knowledge to something, the media can project into people's minds and leave a lasting impression. Though obviously people are aware of what they are listening to or watching, thoughts and assumptions can drift into their minds without even realizing it. These thoughts that drift in are extremely influential. The massive impact it can leave on America's perception leads to generalizations, assumptions, and stigmas. The media influence is not always negative, however. In most cases it has beneficial and positive aspects. Without the media, people would be drastically less informed and conscientious about major issues in the world around us. In some cases, however, the way the media portrays an issue can twist one's perception, leaving an assumption instead of a factual concept. Mental illness is one of the biggest concepts that the media has distorted due to the majority of portrayals the media presents. Mental health is extremely important and plays a key role in every individual's life. Yet it is also has millions of misconceptions. Mental illness is more common that one would like to believe. In reality, one in five Americans will suffer from a mental disorder in any given year. Though that ratio is about equivalent to more than fifty-four million people, mental illness still remains a shameful and stigmatized topic (National Institute of Mental Health, n.d.). The taboo of mental illness has an extensive and exhausting history, dating back to the beginning of American colonization. It has not been an easy road to say the least. Due to the endless efforts and research of certain foundations and individuals, the ideas and functions of mental health have improved significantly. The advancements made in the field are impressive and without them humankind would not be the same. Yet then why do only fewer than eight million people who are in need of help seek treatment? (National Mental Health Association, 2001). The history, stigmatization, and perce...
According to the DSM-IV, schizophrenia is classified under the section of “Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders”. Schizophrenia is one of the most serious major chronic brain disorders in the field of mental health; it is a neurological disorder that affects the cognitive functions of the human brain. People living with this incapacitating illness can experience multiple symptoms that will cause extreme strain in their own and their families and friends life. The individual can lose reality, unable to work, have delusions and hallucinations, may have disorganized speech and thought processes, will withdraw from people and activities, they may become suspicious and paranoid, may behave inappropriately in every day social situations. They may neglect personal hygiene and dress improperly, use excessive make-up; every day life is becoming chaotic for everyone involved.
Mental illness is often portrayed wrong in the media. Most movies and television shows exclude the details that truly go along with mental illnesses. We must clarify the actual effects of mental illness versus the misrepresentation we are shown on television and in movies. Mental illness is unfortunate, becoming a cliché.
“One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” was a groundbreaking movie, when it was first released in 1975. It challenged the general concept of mental health and abnormality in the United States. Its influence emboldened people form every aspect of the society to pay attention to Mental Health Institutions in the U.S. Today, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is still accepted as one of the most influential and significant movies in the world. Moreover, the movie was able to question the general stigma over the mental disorders successfully because it portrayed both mentally ill and healthy people in the same scenery, while establishing a fluid dynamic between its characters. Their dynamic relationships helped the audience to understand the nature of mental illnesses better. Many people got to chance to see how normal insane people can be, and how far sane people can go on the scale of abnormality. Overall, the movie centered itself around the idea of abnormality and how it relates to mental health. It highlighted some common misconceptions among the mental health field by showing how deviant
Oftentimes, the portrayal of mental illness in movies is skewed solely for cinematic purposes. However, careful examination of current evidence can better guide perceptions and accepted management of such illnesses. A focused comparison of schizophrenia as seen in evidence-based publications, current psychiatric care, and a motion picture film better reveals discrepancies and similarities in the representation of this illness.
This stereotype contributes to the stigma individuals’ face and encourages social exclusion and intolerance, especially in schizophrenia (Ray & Brooks Dollar, 2014). Ken sought out help and went to the emergency room because he recognized he was severely depressed. There, the doctor promised he would not be put in restraints, yet when he was taken to the hospital, he was placed in restraints because it was company policy (Steele & Berman, 2001). Due the stigma that individuals with mental illness are violent, Ken was not treated fairly (Stuart & Arboleda-Florez, 2012). Stuart and Arboleda-Florez (2012) are very credible authors to be writing on the effects of stigma in mental health. Both authors have experience in psychiatry, combatting stigma and mental health issues.
The purpose of this film is to show how different cultures view schizophrenia. The film will first show how people suffer from this disease in the eastern part of the world, like the article Ellie Zolfagharifard wrote stating how all people that were for this article, all of them stated that what they experience were negative qualities. This film would then introduce this professor that studies schizophrenia in the western world. Showing how, like in Zolfagarifard’s article, that people in the western countries of the world looks at schizophrenia.
and homophobic stereotypes in film have been noted and addressed, they have been “watered down” (Byrne, 2009). However films that are still showing negative representations of mental illness are still as relevant as ever. He puts these stereotypes into four distinct categories. When the treatment of mental illness is portrayed in a comedic manner it is very often based on inaccurate information, disregarding the honest representation of what's happening for the comedy value, misinforming the viewers. In his opinion more modern day films have intensified the humour. For example Me, Myself and Irene, a Farrelly Brothers film is the exact portrayal of inaccuracy. The main character Charlie, played by Jim Carrey, is diagnosed with ‘advanced delusionary schizophrenia with narcissistic rage’ but the character is represented as someone who has a split personality disorder which the author states is the main misconception about schizophrenia. Similarly to Wahl, Byrne is assertive in the fact that these misrepresentations are what is responsible for normalising the misconception that schizophrenia is the same as a split personality disorder.
This article puts into perspective how those who are mentally ill lose their quality of life by becoming stigmatized by those surrounding them personally and in a broader sense. Their jobs, housing, health care, and affiliation with others is negatively impacted because of the stigma placed upon them because of their mental illness. This article continues to describe the stigmas that are placed upon the mentally ill by our Western culture. The authors state that mentally ill persons deal with being feared and excluded because of their mental state. They also deal with being viewed as irresponsible because of their mental diagnosis. Finally, they are seen as immature and childlike, thus requiring constant care to be put into place for them. Not only do these authors focus on public stigmas, but they also focus on how these cultural stigmas cause those who are mentally ill to begin to internally stigmatize themselves. This causes self-esteem issues; thus, this causes the individual to feel less worthy and less likely to succeed in his or her future in all areas of
Mass media “references to people with mental health problems found more than four in ten articles in the press used derogatory terms about mental health and nearly half of press coverage related mental illness to violence and crime” (Esseler, 244). This is causing for people to look down upon the mention of mental illnesses and many times ignore the importance of confronting this issue. Therefore the importance of removing this stigmatization is crucial. Education allows to make more informed decisions and then changing the perception of mental illness can lead towards policy changes toward the improvement of mental health (Sakellari,
Shutter Island, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is a frightening film full of twists and turns that presents a highly dramatized depiction of mental health and psychiatric treatment. It fulfills a checklist of the classic elements of Hollywood’s psychological horror genre: foreboding asylums, psychiatric experimentation, dangerous mental afflictions, multiple personalities, intense hallucinations, and even lobotomy. The media’s portrayal of psychiatric disorders and treatment is an important contributor to the continued stigmatization of mental illness in our society. This paper will analyze which aspects of Shutter Island portray