Portrayal of Mental Health in Different Mediums: Do They Do a Good Job

on


How is Mental Health Represented?

Mental health doesn’t tend to be represented too often within film and TV shows; however, book authors seem to frequently write characters who have mental health issues. A great example would be the main character from Sharp Objects, Camille Preaker. I’ll talk more about her later in this post.

I’ve seen many movies over the years like everyone else, and I’ve found that either movies try to avoid mental health topics, or they just do a bad representation of such issues.

Which Medium Does It Best?

I’ll be honest and say that I’m not quite sure, I’m leaning more towards TV shows since I’ve seen a lot of TV series with decent mental health representations. Such TV shows/ series would be: 

  • Red Band Society 
  • Sharp Objects (based on the book)
  • Hollyoaks 
  • Jessica Jones
  • Retched

You’ll realise that I have not put 13 Reasons Why in my list, that’s because I think it is a very damaging show for people with mental health issues and it romanticises mental health like many other TV shows. But the book could be a good representation of mental health, however I haven’t read it and probably won’t ever read it due to how triggering the TV show was.

I would say that Sharp Objects represents mental health brilliantly. For example, the lead character will have flashbacks which trigger her into either avoiding the topic or doing other stuff. That’s probably the best representation of PTSD that I’ve seen on TV. Though Iron Man 3 did try but he recovered by the halfway mark of the movie which is very unrealistic.

The movies that I’ve seen multiple times which I think do a good job of showing mental health are:

  • Girl, Interrupted 
  • A Beautiful Mind 
  • Good Will Hunting 
  • Silver Lining Playbook 
  • The Machinist 
  • The Silence of The Lambs 
  • Shutter Island

You're probably wondering why The Silence of The Lambs is on my list of movies that show mental health. That’s because Hannibal Lecter is a psychopath which does come under antisocial personality disorders.

My favourite of all the movies that I listed is Girl Interrupted. It’s a brilliant representation of how mental hospitals used to be back in the day before the world moved to care in the community. And it shows the early confusion of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD) if you live in the UK.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t listed Split, then that’s because I think it is damaging to people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) but I do think that people are smart enough to know that people with DID are very unlikely to somehow have super strength and climb walls. I would talk more about this topic about Split and its representation of DID but I’ll leave it there because I don’t fancy digging myself into a hole.

Should Mental Health be Shown More on TV/ Movies?

I would say yes especially since the topic of mental health is spoken about a lot more these days. But I do think that it is hard to write a good story/ character with the inclusion of mental health.

However, I do think that more documentaries should be made around mental health. Some good ones that I’ve seen are: - On the Psych Ward (BBC) - Back on the Psych Ward (BBC) - Don’t Call Me Crazy (BBC)

There are a lot more programs on TV that talk about mental health. I don’t watch them as often anymore especially since they can trigger me sometimes. But I do read a lot of mental health stories.

If you want to know more about the Shows or Movies that I've mentioned, then there is plenty of info online. If you want to know more about the conditions that I've mentioned, then keep an eye out for future posts where I will discuss them, or you can have a look online.

Comments

Post a Comment