It is argued that no publicity is bad publicity when it comes to raising awareness of an issue. But recent portrayals on people living with schizophrenia cast some doubt on this theory. The Voices, a black comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, currently in cinemas, has drawn fierce criticism from mental health campaigners. The movie portrays a murderer who is instructed to kill by the voices in his head, more specifically his talking cat. This film joins a long line of inaccurate and misleading film portrayals – who can forget Alphabet Killer; The Butcher Boy; Me, Myself and Irene; or Psychosomatic to name but a few?
At the same time as this film airs in our multiplexes, the BBC is broadcasting the latest documentary from Louis Theroux – the second part of a two-part programme airs on Sunday. It explores life in an Ohio state psychiatric hospital, where inmates have been declared innocent of crimes by reason of insanity and are being held until declared safe both to themselves and wider society. One of Theroux’s main subjects, Jonathan, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, killed his father. Another, Judith, who is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, refuses to acknowledge that she stabbed a woman on a bus.
Theroux approaches the subject matter with his known warmth, finding humour where he can. In doing so he raises important questions about the incarceration of people with mental health problems and the impact of potential over medicalisation. But he also by default reinforces the stereotype that people with schizophrenia are dangerous.
I don’t believe in censorship. There is clearly space for such documentaries, and albeit less clearly films like The Voices – but there also needs to be a reality check: a recent study of more than 40 films released between 1990 and 2010 found that over 80% of main characters with a diagnosis of schizophrenia displayed violent behaviour and nearly a third engaged in homicidal behaviour. Let’s put this in context, schizophrenia may not be regarded as a common diagnosis, but there are approximately 220,000 of us in the UK living with it; if a third of us really were killers, that’s a body count Quentin Tarantino would be proud of.
In order to feel safe and protected in their modest little identities, “normal” people need to create an wild otherness.
the purpose of the Other,Strange,Monster,Different is to reflect a lie that “we” will never be like “them”
Movies aren’t accurate depictions of reality, and I’m confident most people know this. No one expects to find the love of their life every hour and a half, even though the movies depict it. That being said, I think the fear of stigma by patients generates stigma, among other factors. If only we were brave enough to disclose our illness most people would know examples of schizophrenics personally, and I think they would trust their personal experiences over the movies’ depictions. We are not merely passive sufferers of stigma, we contribute to it as well. Having a mi does not imply not having responsibilities.
But we could show them otherwise, if only we had the courage to take some role in this. Hiding your mental illness will let the public become acquainted only with the cases where things turn violent. One thing we could do to fight stigma is to open up about our conditions.
Sometimes not…the show Perception has an SZ person in it who helps the FBI, and Fringe has someone who was in a mental hospital for many years (never pinpoints the exact dx but some say Sz) He is a scientist/doctor who assists the FBI, and actually saves the world at the end…
But yeah, for the most part it is portrayed negatively. people picking on what they probably don’t understand…unfortunately you see it in the negative light more than the positive.
The bad stuff is more interesting. The everyday life of most schizophrenics as well as non-schizophrenics isn’t something that would draw people to see the movie.
It scares people more to think the killer isn’t right in the head so they can have chop 'em ups more frenzied. In the movie business, you sell what gets attraction…we should be able somehow to fight this stigma in films legally, I just don’t know how?
The first time that I was introduced to a schizo was with Jason Voorhees on the big screen and him hearing voices telling him to “kill, kill, kill”
But that wasn’t a schizo - it was a movie character. Or was that a real person, dramatized by hollywood? Of all the less value it seems to make a movie about it and for people to want go and watch it.
You see pob the thing is some of us REALLY are afflicted with stuff like that and Hollywood being what it is will always capitalize on the polar extreme.
But very few of us kill. More normal people kill. Maybe it’s easier to think that someone - not like themselves - but with a mysterious mentally deranged brain - one of those - is doing the killing on the screen. I don’t know why, but people like to watch that kind of stuff. Some say it’s to fill the killing need in oneself in a safe way. After all in the Bible - no I’m not religious - we are all descendents of Cain.
