Mental Illness in the Media
SPURTHI NRUSIMHADEVARA | OCT. 24, 2021 | FEATURES
Movies and television shows, as well as other forms of entertainment, have the direct ability to influence how people perceive the world. However, the failure to accurately portray mental illness in the media fosters a crippling stigma in society and has overwhelmingly influenced the public's understanding of mental illnesses. The media generalizes mental disorders rather than constructing an accurate portrayal, often depicting those with mental illnesses as severely disabled, unpredictable, or violent. In some instances, the media idealizes the struggles of tackling a disorder, luring viewers to the idea that their sadness defines them. Impressionable people who consume these false portrayals regarding mental disorders may reflect on their own struggles with mental illnesses, causing them to feel ostracized and invalidated.
Society’s disapproval of people who live with a mental illness or are seeking help for emotional distress makes it hard for those struggling to recover or recognize they need help. According to “Our World in Data,” in 2018 970 million people worldwide suffer from a mental health or substance abuse disorder, meaning about 13% of the population is at risk of being stigmatized because of their illnesses.
In today’s media coverage on mental disorders, there is a tendency to emphasize a supposed relationship between violence and mental illness. News stories regularly suggest a strong link between mental disorders and crime, contrarily, the majority of the perpetrators of violence do not suffer from mental illnesses. In fact, they are more likely to be the victims, rather than the cause of a casualty.
From 1994 to 2014, nearly four in 10 news stories about mental illness analyzed by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found a correlation between mental illness and violent behavior, even though less than 5% of violence in the United States is directly related to mental illness. Stereotypes that portray people with mental illnesses as dangerous and incompetent reduce these individuals to nothing but exaggerated versions of their diagnoses. Despite this statistic, the association of mental illness with violence has a profound impact on the way people, particularly teenagers, view this issue.
“I’ve seen people that have mental illnesses and it’s not properly known or understood in society,” said junior Lavanya Rajasekar. “And I think that it should be, and people should respect that.”
The public relies on mass media for information about the happenings in the world. However, when the media such as news publications misrepresents mental illness, it can be prejudicial. For example, in 2013, The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, printed a headline that read “1200 killed by mental health patients.” This prompted a reaction from the charity Rethink Mental Illness.
“It’s incredibly disappointing to see a leading newspaper [splashed] with such a sensational and damaging headline,” said Sue Baker, Chief Executive of Rethink, in an interview with Independent. “Inflammatory news stories such as these inaccurately make connections between violence and mental illness, [and] in turn, affect the way a variety of people view mental illness through these outlets, creating false generalizations regarding how people with mental disorders act.”
Entertainment also plays a role in pushing the negative stigma against mental disorders. Whether it is portrayed inaccurately for the sake of amusement or lack of exposure to the illnesses, movie makers fail to incorporate a process of recovery that the characters go through. When it is covered, filmmakers neglect to mention the staggering variables that contribute to the character's journey to self-betterment. This instills the belief that there is no hope for those who battle mental illness just because they cannot recover as fast.
“There are many examples of television shows where the main character is personally talking to a therapist, and a lot of the time it makes it seem as if therapy is a quick fix to most mental illnesses when it may not necessarily work for everyone,” said senior Akila Jayaraman.
A popular example of mental disorders being misrepresented in film, is the 2003 movie “Wonderland” in which a schizophrenic man is misrepresented as crazy and commits inhumane acts. The portrayal of characters like this permits people to feed into a stereotype based on a tradition of misunderstandings. In the 1999 film “American Pie,” there is an emphasis placed on the idea that substance abuse and depression are “normal teen behavior.” The impact of this misrepresentation is seen to affect today's students, like Stanton senior Astha Metha.
“A lot of people misuse the word depression,” said Metha. “Even when people are talking about it passively, they’ll take such simple situations like failing a test and put it together with something as serious as depression, misrepresenting what depression really is.”
This portrayal of young adults aesthetically benefiting off of their mental illnesses lead some teens to think their mental illness defines them as a person.
“In both social media and television shows, you see a lot of people say that they are depressed or have anxiety just for the sake of following the trend,” said senior Medha Rathore.
This motif of “beautiful despair” seen in many television shows has made it harder to know who needs help and who is trying to fit in with this dark, romanticized trend. It also discourages people who do suffer from mental illnesses from getting the help they need.
Though it is challenging to impact how mental illness is portrayed in the media, people can take individual steps toward change by speaking up and advocating for those who are directly affected by this issue. Shining a brighter and more accurate light on mental health in the media could lead to not only a better understanding of mental illness in our society, but also to the empowerment of those with mental illnesses, potentially giving an individual refusing to seek treatment the courage to do so.