The Popculty Podcast
The Popculty Podcast
Mental Health in TV & Film: Yikes! From 'Psycho' to '13 Reasons Why'
With the pandemic wreaking havoc on our collective sanity, what better time to talk about mental health representation in media! Licensed Social Worker and friend of the show Megan Wykhuis is back to lay out the Seven Big Bad Mental Illness Tropes that movies/TV just can't get enough of. Then we go hard on some classic but problematic faves, Hollywood's misguided obsession with "crazy"/violent white men, and the most irresponsible show ever to air (can you guess?)!
Next time, for contrast, we'll rave about our favorite *positive* portrayals of mental illness (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend! The Magicians! My Mad Fat Diary!) and debate a few that are...er, complicated.
What are some of your favorite shows/movies/characters dealing with mental illness or addiction? Let me know and we might share your thoughts in the next episode! Tweet @popculty, or send a voice memo/email to podcast@popculty.blog.
CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of mental illness throughout, some discussion of addiction (~00:40:30 - 00:46:30), brief mentions of sexual assault, brief mentions of mass/school shootings, moderate-heavy discussion of suicide/self-harm (~00:57:30 - 01:10:00).
If you are in crisis, please reach out to one of the support organizations below:
- NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) helpline: 800-950-NAMI
- RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-HOPE
- SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP
References:
- From 'Split' to 'Psycho': Why Cinema Fails Dissociative Identity Disorder - The Guardian
- Mind Over Pop Culture: 'Fatal Attraction' - Mental Health America
- Glenn Close Regrets How 'Fatal Attraction' Portrayed Mental Illness - The Mercury News
- Release of '13 Reasons Why' Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates - NIH (National Institutes of Health)
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[up-beat intro music] Welcome back to The Popculty Podcast, where we highlight the underrepresented in pop culture. I'm your host, SJ. [music fades out] Hey there, listeners, I hope you're hanging in there. It has been a tough year, to say the least. Between the social isolation and loss of nearly 3 million lives worldwide from this pandemic, we've all been through a global trauma. Even with the beginning of the vaccine rollout, experts warn that we haven't yet reached the"post" in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We're still in the trauma phase. And the data has shown the effects of that on our mental health. In the U.S., rates of depression and anxiety have tripled since the beginning of COVID. ABC reported that opioid overdoses have risen by 29%. Calls to national hotlines have skyrocketed, and a Gallup poll found that more Americans rated their mental health worse in 2020 than any year in the past two decades. These effects have been felt hardest by women, communities of color, essential workers, the elderly and the disabled. On top of that, a spotlight on police brutality and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes has only added to the fear, anxiety, and trauma for Black and AAPI communities. All of these mental health concerns have been called the "hidden fourth wave of the pandemic." As you listen to this, you yourself may be - as a lot of us are right now - hitting that proverbial pandemic wall. As we wait patiently in line for our shot at the shot, the overwhelming grief of losing loved ones, of losing an entire year to sickness, violence and fatigue, is settling in. Once we get the jab, there's going to be re-entry anxiety, and it's still not clear what the long-term societal effects of this earth-disrupting event will be. I know all of this sounds dire, and I don't want to leave you with just the gloomy stats. So here's one more - A 2011 review of depression studies concluded that the majority of individuals who experienced depression will recover within one year. So most of us will bounce back from this. If this whole experience has proved anything, it's that humans are resilient creatures. But the point is, for better and for worse, mental health has never been more of a pressing global concern than it is right now. Maybe we're finally ready to start having these long-overdue conversations that can move the needle forward on destigmatizing mental illness. In that spirit, I called up a friend of the podcast who happens to know a bit about this sort of thing.
Megan Wykhuis:My name is Megan Wykhuis, and I am a school social worker in the Northwest region of Colorado. I have my Master's in Social Work at this point, and I'll be going for my licensing exam this spring.
SJ Palm:When I talked to Megan a year ago, she had just had to postpone that licensing exam due to COVID. But in between the pandemic and having a baby, she did finally end up squeezing that in too, so I'm happy to report that she is now a Licensed Social Worker (LSW). You might remember Megan from her guest appearance in part two of our Jessica Jones series, where she praised the show for its depiction of sexual assault, addiction and PTSD. I wanted to talk more with her about how mental illness is represented in TV and film, overall. I struggle with bipolar type two disorder and have family members with related diagnoses, so this is a topic that's very personal to me. And given Megan's chosen profession, it's obviously very personal to her too. Both of us have a real stake in positive portrayals of mental health conditions, so we really wanted to go deep on this. We spoke for several hours, exploring the history of on-screen depictions of mental illness - the good, the extremely problematic, and the in-between. [to Megan] The more I was thinking about these things and revisiting these movies and shows that I had a nostalgic place for in my heart, but then upon rewatching them I'm like, "Oh! Mental health rep, not so great." [Megan laughs] I can't wait to talk about this.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, when you start watching it with a different lens on you're like,"Oh shit, this is not how I remembered it... Little cringe-worthy." Yeah, uh-huh.
SJ Palm:[to you] In this first episode, we travel the timeline of harmful stereotypes, from 1960's Psycho to 2017's 13 Reasons Why. Content warning for this episode - Obviously, this is going to be an in-depth discussion of mental health conditions and addiction. So if you have any sensitivities around those issues, just take care in listening to this episode. Pace yourself, or skip it altogether, if you find it's too much. We are mostly going to be talking about these things in a very clinical and analytical way. The only thing that I would really issue a trigger warning for is probably our discussion of 13 Reasons Why at the end of the episode, in which there will be a mention of sexual assault and some discussion of suicide. So just a heads-up about that. Feel free to skip that section if you need to. If this episode triggers anything for you, I really encourage you to schedule a session with your therapist if you have one, reach out to your local mental health services provider if you don't already have a therapist, or you can always call a national support hotline like RAINN or NAMI, which I will provide the contact info for in the show notes. Oh, by the way, one last thing--
Megan Wykhuis:I'm also, like, really pregnant right now.
SJ Palm:Megan was very pregnant when we recorded this episode, so if she sounds out of breath or like she's moving around, it's because she's rolling around on an exercise ball, trying to get comfortable while we talked for four hours. Yeah, she was a trooper. [to Megan] So you called in for our Jessica Jones episode, and you talked about how that show subverts a lot of the common, inaccurate tropes we see in pop culture involving mental illness and addiction. I'd like to start this conversation there, and I wondered if you could break down those seven big tropes a little more for us, before we get into some of our examples.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, absolutely. So one of the harmful and inaccurate tropes is that people with mental illness are violent. And I think we see this one time and time again. When I was doing some research for this, I was like, really any horror movie ever. And also, if you just look at the media, if you just look at news, anytime school shootings or mass shootings of any sort come up, a lot of times people will bring up, "Oh, well, it's because they have a mental illness." And typically, with mental illness, people are victims of crimes. It's not as much that they are perpetrators of violence. So I think it's a pretty harmful trope that exists out there. And it's something that we do see a lot in film, television, as well as news.
SJ Palm:Absolutely. That's a good place to start. When you look at the common denominator among mass shootings and school shootings, it's not mental illness, it's-- well, maleness, and access to guns, if you want to get real about it.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah.
SJ Palm:And most people with mental illness are more inclined to self-harm than they are to hurt others. The rates of self-harm are just incredible compared to the rates of committing violence against others. That's relatively very rare.
Megan Wykhuis:Right, exactly. And I'm not saying that those with mental illnesses can never be violent, because that can be the case sometimes. But it's a very small percentage. And it's not represented well, because when we're looking at things like, you know, The Shining and Psycho, and movies like that where we see really violent depictions of characters with severe mental illness issues. That's the problem, is that that's all we're seeing, is that like, 1%, versus the other 99% that are nonviolent.
SJ Palm:Yeah, I was thinking about this with the recent Joker movie. And I really love the series Dexter, but I also realize that that's just another example of that, too. It's like, he's a sociopath, and of course that means he's a serial killer, too. I mean, I love him, but it's just reinforcing that.
Megan Wykhuis:I know, it's so played out! It is! And it's like, "Okay, cool. Can we have another white man with a mental illness who's violent?" That is what it is, time and time again. And when I saw that, uh... Didn't Joaquin Phoenix-- he won the Oscar for Joker, right?
SJ Palm:He did. Yeah.
Megan Wykhuis:And it's like,"Oh my God, are we not tired of seeing the same shit play out over and over again?"
SJ Palm:I mean, I am.
Megan Wykhuis:Right? It's a little frustrating to me. Like, come on, let's come up with some original storytelling.
SJ Palm:No, I know. Let's move on to our second trope...
Megan Wykhuis:Second trope is that people are different or othered by their appearance. And this happens, again, in a lot in horror films - masking, physical deformities, or people will start attractive, and then as they develop a mental illness, they become unattractive.
SJ Palm:That is so interesting. And obvious.
Megan Wykhuis:isn't it, isn't it? It's like the mental illness is coming out and being ugly.[laughs]
SJ Palm:Right. It has to be physically manifested somehow. I know I've seen that in horror movies, but I was trying to think of a specific example.
Megan Wykhuis:Well, I think of Psycho, as a good example of
SJ Palm:Yeah. that. And that is a little bit different, because it's not like his physical appearance is changing that much, but rather, he's taking on a different persona. He is taking on his
Megan Wykhuis:Another trope is that all mental health issues mom's persona, so it's a little bit different. I would also think of The Shining though. Jack Nicholson at the beginning versus Jack Nicholson at the end of that film - Yeah, very different. His physical appearance does change. He looks just more chaotic. His face gets redder, hair sticking up on end. He just looks really disheveled. are severe. This is one that really bothers me, because it's something that I do see tons, playing out over and over again. It's that there is no, like, minimal mental health issue. It's all very extreme.
SJ Palm:Nothing in moderation.[both laugh]
Megan Wykhuis:Yes, exactly. And again, I would just reference The Shining being an example of that...Psycho... And I love Psycho, and I love Alfred Hitchcock. I took an Alfred Hitchcock class when I was in college. I was pursuing some film stuff at the time, and I loved Hitchcock's work and everything, but whoo! Talk about a problematic director. [laughs]
SJ Palm:Oh, yeah.
Megan Wykhuis:For a lot of reasons. But yeah, looking at a case like that for Psycho - So, Norman Bates in Psycho, the diagnosis there is DID, issociative identity disorder, r what most people think of s multiple personality disorde. It was reclassified in the D M later on as dissociati e identity disorder. It is *suc* a rare disorder, and it's isportrayed in that film. It's n t super accurate to how I would o about with the diagnosis, and then it's also just a very rar disorder. Like, there's st ll people who don't believe it s a disorder. So it's a co tentious topic.
SJ Palm:When I was looking into Psycho and the way that DID has been presented on screen, it turned into this rabbit hole. And we can talk about it more when we talk about Psycho as a problematic example, but Hollywood's obsession with DID(formerly multiple personality disorder) is really interesting. And you also had these stories of like Sybil, who, I guess hers was ultimately... A lot of people said it was a scam, or it wasn't true. So I think that leads people to think that it's not a real disorder. Because you have, on the one hand, these stories of people claiming to have DID, who were later disproven, and then you also have Hollywood taking that diagnosis and turning it into these really sensationalized stories - these movies like Psycho and Split. It is an interesting one.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, absolutely. And then any time you have schizophrenia portrayed on the screen, it's also very severe, typically. And it's usually paranoid schizophrenia that is portrayed. And that is another one that is just repeatedly... Hollywood likes to show that mental health issue. I mean, it's probably one of the highest tier mental health issues, for sure. As far as disorders go, you've *got* to be on medication to deal with that.
SJ Palm:Right.
Megan Wykhuis:So that's another problematic one.
SJ Palm:Yeah. And it's not to say that these aren't serious issues, but it's just the way that movies and TV typically portray them, you only get one version of it, which is so severe, coupled with that first trope of violence, and yeah, it's just not good.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that bothers me with within the severity trope is that a lot of times, it'll[just] be one disorder, and it'll be very severe. And there's also a lot of crossover with mental illness. There's a lot of co-occurring disorders, which is one of the things I brought up with Jessica Jones. That's why I like Jessica Jones so much is because she's got co-occurring stuff going on, which is more realistic, and it's what we see more in the mental health world.
SJ Palm:Absolutely. Should we move on to number four, then?
Megan Wykhuis:Yes, so number four is that there is no recovery. This is problematic for a lot of reasons, but it's portrayed in the way that a main character (whoever is suffering with the mental illness) can't move forward, or their mental illness defines their character. And I'm thinking of things like Monk. And I love Monk. I'm a big detective show kind of girl, so I love it.
SJ Palm:Gotcha.
Megan Wykhuis:And, like, Tony Shalhoub? I just love him. I can't help myself. He's a riot to watch. It's funny, but man, in thinking about this podcast, and during this episode, I was like, "Oh... well, shit."[laughs]
SJ Palm:"Gonna have to talk about the problematic Monk."
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, exactly. And I didn't even think about this being problematic, but it is! And one of the reasons is because [for] that character specifically, there's no recovery showcased in it. It's just really stigmatizing in the mental health world, when people don't believe that recovery is possible. And when they see it shown that this person is going to a psychiatrist every week, they're going to therapy three times a week, and they're not making any progress - That's a problem. When we are showing therapy on the screen as not being effective.
SJ Palm:Mm-hmm. As an endless process.
Megan Wykhuis:Exactly.
SJ Palm:Which, therapy can be a lifelong thing that is helpful for a lot of people. I'm a big believer in therapy. It's helped me a lot. But to not show therapy having a positive effect on the patient, to just kind of be rehashing the same thing over and over, week after week, in a show like Monk, gives people the impression that this is just something that is always going to be at the forefront of this person's life. That it's never going to get easier for them to deal with. But that's just usually not true. Like, if you put in the work, and if you seek treatment - whatever that means for you, whether it's medication or therapy - you can absolutely get better. And that's just not something that we see. It doesn't seem to be something that Hollywood is interested in showing, and it doesn't seem to be something that TV writers are interested in writing about, because that's not the juicy, dramatic stuff. What they want to see is someone suffering and struggling, or, in Monk's case, being funny with his diagnosis. And I get that that's "good TV," but again, it gives people really the wrong idea.
Megan Wykhuis:I totally agree. I feel like mental illness is either sensationalized or it is made to be a joke, a lot of times.
SJ Palm:Which leads us to...
Megan Wykhuis:The next trope that we wanted to talk about is that therapists are a joke.[slight pause] Oh, yes! I love that you put First Wives Club and Freaky Friday on here. [both laugh] Sorry, I hadn't seen those additions.
SJ Palm:Those are the first two that came to my mind. Granted, I love both those movies--
Megan Wykhuis:Totally.
SJ Palm:--but you know what I'm talking about? Like in First Wives Club, her therapist is the woman
Megan Wykhuis:Yes. who's cheating with [Annie's] husband. And the whole therapy session is really a joke - It's meant to be laughed at. And then Freaky Friday is the same way. It's just, "...And how do you feel about that?" And we're supposed to laugh, you know! I know. I know, totally. And I did also include on here-- which, I don't know if people will agree with me on this, but I included Good Will Hunting.
SJ Palm:Yeah, can you talk about that?
Megan Wykhuis:I include it on here because when I think of the terminology "therapists as a joke," I don't always mean in a comedic sense. I mean that they're not professional and that they're not ethically following their roles as a therapist, that boundaries aren't a thing. And that is absolutely the case with Robin Williams' character.
SJ Palm:Yeah, you're totally right.
Megan Wykhuis:So the first time I watched it, I wasn't in grad school. I was, you know, early 20s at the time, and just livin' a carefree life, and I loved it. I thought it was great. And then I watched it again when I was in grad school, and I was watching some clips from the movie in order to talk about ethics and boundaries and things like that. And I was like, "Oh! Oh, god. Okay. Well, it's not great for that reason." It's kind of a problematic therapist client relationship in a lot of ways. Because Robin Williams' character I think is a good mentor role. But as a professional therapist, you wouldn't want to do a lot of self-disclosure, you wouldn't want to have a lot of big reactivity to what your client is saying, and things like that. I also included on here 13 Reasons Why. Full disclosure, I haven't seen the show,
SJ Palm:That's fine, neither have I. I have no problem tearing it to shreds, though.
Megan Wykhuis:Okay, great!
SJ Palm:I've done enough research on it that I feel like I have seen it, and I hate it. So feel free to include it.
Megan Wykhuis:Agreed. I've read a lot of articles on this show, and I've read the book. Because I work with kids, kindergarten through 12th grade. I work predominantly with secondary schools though, so it's mostly middle and high school. And a lot of suicidality and suicidal ideation increased after that show aired, so it's very problematic for a lot of reasons- It glamorized suicide, it glamorized self-harm, all this stuff. But one of the other things that came up is that-- and I don't know if this happens in the show, but in the book, she tells her school counselor about her rape, and he doesn't believe her.
SJ Palm:Yikes!
Megan Wykhuis:Yikes, indeed. Yikes, indeed.
SJ Palm:How many layers of bad can you put into this show? It's just like, wrong choice after wrong choice on the part of the creators. What are they thinking??
Megan Wykhuis:Right? That was one of the things that really stuck out to me when I read the book. I was like, "No counselor would ever do that!" And I've talked about it with some of my counselor colleagues/friends and other school social workers. It's that unrealistic portrayal. And that's the portrayal that kids are getting - that if they tell somebody that they're assaulted, nobody will believe them. And that is... messed up, to say the least.
SJ Palm:And that's the position that you're in with these kids. If they watch the show and they feel like, 'Well, I can't go to my counselor because they won't believe me'... I mean, that affects how you can do your job. That is just such a cycle of...[makes sympathetic noise]
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's hard enough, because you're already in a position of authority as an adult, right? So getting kids to trust you? You have to put in the time and the effort. And for things to so quickly take away that trust, just at the ground level with watching a TV show, it's like,"Really?? Come on! And how did you not think of the ramifications of this?" Clearly they did not have somebody consulting on mental health.
SJ Palm:Nope, not at all. God, that is just not the representation that mental health professionals need. And kids are so impressionable at that age, it's already an uphill battle.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah. Absolutely.
SJ Palm:Ughhhh, 13 Reasons Why. We will hate on you some more later. [laughs]
Megan Wykhuis:Our next trope is that mental hospitals are evil places.
SJ Palm:[chortles] I love this one.
Megan Wykhuis:Right? This is the case in a lot of them. And I didn't even put this on our list, but A Beautiful Mind also has a section with a mental hospital that's not great. But yeah, this is shown in horror movies, this is shown in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, this is shown in Girl Interrupted. Time and time again, [we're shown] that mental hospitals are not good places, that nothing good happens there, that it's horrific, that the workers are abusive... And I should acknowledge that in the past - like, a long time ago - yes, mental hospitals? Problematic places. You didn't want to get sent there. They were pretty awful. And used electroshock treatments and things like that that are super outdated, that we wouldn't do now. So institutionalized care hasn't always been the best. That's fair. However, again, when we only see that depicted, and we never see it being a positive thing, that's a problem.
SJ Palm:I think you're absolutely right about the legacy of asylums and places like that. Because they were such really scary places in the past, I think we really can't let go of that idea. Especially horror movies really love that. There's a mental hospital near where I live where John Carpenter shot one of his horror movies. To be fair, some of those places are really creepy. But yeah, we're not helping ourselves by constantly defaulting to this image of evil places where people get hung out to dry and electroshocked. Which, electroshock sounds scary, and it used to be, but they don't do it like that anymore. They actually know what they're doing now. So we also have to take into account modernity, you know?
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
SJ Palm:Moving on to our last trope... Do you want to break that down for us?
Megan Wykhuis:So our last trope is that you should be able to overcome your mental illness by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
SJ Palm:Good old 'Murica!
Megan Wykhuis:'Murica! I didn't have a whole lot of specific examples in media for this, because I think it's just so ingrained in our society. This is just, I feel, like an understood thing. For a lot of reasons, I think this affects men disproportionately than women. Because with women, there is more of a sense of community and being able to talk about things. And I think the stigma with mental illness with men is greatly elevated by this inability to talk to other men, and the stigmatization that if you ask for help, you're "weak," or "girly," or however you want to quantify that statement - a lot of problematic things, obviously. And we'll talk about the gender differences in mental illness, because there's some good examples that we'll bring up. But this is one of those that culturally and societally, it plays out on those levels many, many times over.
SJ Palm:You know, I jokingly say, "'Murica," but I do believe the whole "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" thing is a distinctly American phrase or invention. I don't know if you have seen media from other countries that maybe doesn't have this concept so deeply embedded in its mental health representation?
Megan Wykhuis:I think it's westernized cultures. Any culture that's individualistic, in the sense that they don't want to ask for help, and there's less of an emphasis on community and more emphasis on self. I would say those communities are more the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" type. But, for instance, I'm thinking of anime. I went to Denver Pop Culture Con last year, and there was a panel on the "magic girl" character in anime. And I thought that was a really interesting concept, because it was a superhero in a totally different way than I had ever visualized superheroes. Because in Western culture, we've got a very different idea of what those things mean. And in Eastern cultures, it's more about like, feelings and working with your friends. I'm thinking of, like, Sailor Moon, you know? I don't know if you ever watched Sailor Moon. I loved Sailor Moon as a kid.
SJ Palm:I never really got into anime. But I saw enough to know exactly what you're talking about, yeah.
Megan Wykhuis:So I would say when you're looking at cultures that deal more with the community and family, those sorts of things, you have less of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality.
SJ Palm:Interesting. Cool! Okay, so now that we've got our tropes down, I would love to get into some specific examples. A few we've already mentioned, but we're going to get into them more. You and I compiled this list, more or less a timeline going back to the 1960s, of how mental illness has been depicted on both the big and small screen. We tried to pick examples that were representative of their era; ones that are pretty iconic, that most listeners will be immediately familiar with; and we also tried to present a range of mental illnesses. So starting with our oldest example and proceeding in chronological order, first up we have Psycho in 1960. As we mentioned, that film was sort of the beginning of Hollywood's obsession with dramatizing dissociative identity disorder. When I was researching about DID and the history of its representation on screen, The Guardian had an article called "From Split to Psycho: Why Cinema Fails Dissociative Identity Disorder." And it was talking about how our obsession with it goes back all the way to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written in 1886. And it can be seen in superhero movies today, with characters like the Incredible Hulk and even Superman versus Clark Kent! That's almost like a split identity itself.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah!
SJ Palm:I thought that was so interesting. I had never thought about it that way.
Megan Wykhuis:I've thought about it in that way, only because there's this podcast called Feeling Super, and they talk about mental health in pop culture as well.
SJ Palm:Oh, cool!
Megan Wykhuis:They talked all about the Incredible Hulk and DID, and I was like, "Okay, this is great. I love it. Let's dive in." Because it's actually a pretty accurate representation of DID, unlike most other representations of DID. Because a lot of times what happens is they fail to actually show the dissociative part, and there's this awareness of other personalities, and people can just pop in and out of their personalities or whatever. That's not DID. You have to have the dissociative part in order to be diagnosed with that disorder. And Bruce Banner absolutely has that, right? He comes out of that Hulk state, and he's not aware of that other personality, right? He doesn't know what he did.
SJ Palm:So they have no memory of what they did while they were this other personality? That's how that works?
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, so typically, you have like your main personality who is aware of the other personalities. It's the dominant personality, and then there's the submissive personalities. There's usually only one dominant personality, though, that's aware. And then the submissives are not aware at
SJ Palm:Ohhhhkay. That's su h a different way than I'm use all. to seeing it represented in mov es.
Megan Wykhuis:Yep. [laughs]
SJ Palm:I think we all appreciate Alfred Hitchcock as a filmmaker. Psycho is obviously a classic--
Megan Wykhuis:Totally.
SJ Palm:--but as this article was saying, "Psycho is a horror masterpiece, but as a portrayal of a real-life mental health condition, it's nonsense." I kind of have to agree. It sounds like you do too.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes. Strongly.
SJ Palm:Unfortunately.
Megan Wykhuis:And for the time period too, you know... I mean, when did Psycho come out?
SJ Palm:This was 1960. So granted, this was 70 years ago... Er, I can do math-- Sixty years ago.
Megan Wykhuis:I just am gonna agree with you, because math is not my strong suit either.
SJ Palm:I mean, who knows what year it is anymore? [both laugh]
Megan Wykhuis:Right? But yeah, in the '60s, I'm sure it wasn't horrifically absurd portrayal o mental illness at that time. mean, it's terrible by ou standards today
SJ Palm:Though, to be fair to Psycho, the portrayal of DID has not exactly improved over time. I mean, we just had Split in 2016, which again, rehashes pretty much all those tropes that we were just talking about. Moving up several years, then - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes.
SJ Palm:I...am a little ashamed to say that I haven't seen this. But I know it's a classic... I can't tell if you're rolling back because you're pregnant or because you're ashamed of me.[laughing]
Megan Wykhuis:I'm rolling back because I'm pregnant. I'm uncomfortable. [laughing] I am not ashamed of you. I mean, I haven't seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a long-ass time. I think I watched it early in high school, and I haven't seen it since.
SJ Palm:What's your recollection of it, or your conception?
Megan Wykhuis:The big negative trope that it falls into is that mental hospitals are evil places. I mean, that's pretty much the premise.
SJ Palm:Oh, boy!
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, right?
SJ Palm:Another one of *those*.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes. And again, it's Jack Nicholson who's the main character.
SJ Palm:He just loves these roles.
Megan Wykhuis:[laughing] He does. He does. That portrayal of a mental health facility is... I mean, it's probably one of the worst. They have kind of a power struggle. And then all of the other people in the mental hospital with Jack Nicholson are either totally comatose and not responsive, or they're flying off the handle in a rage and being violent.
SJ Palm:One end of the spectrum or the other. Again with the extremes.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes, exactly. So it doesn't get into the depth and complexity that is mental illness. It doesn't really give voice to the people that it should, because it's more of a conflict between Jack Nicholson and the director of the facility. That's kind of the overall conflict going on there. So you kind of lose the nuance of mental illness, which is a big fat bummer. It was praised at the time for a lot of reasons. It's a good film. You know, it's definitely a good film. It's well worth your watch, so if you haven't seen it, go out and watch it. But problematic with mental health representation, as a lot of things are.
SJ Palm:I'll definitely still keep it on my list to watch. It's one of those classics that... See, unfortunately, I didn't grow up with a TV--
Megan Wykhuis:Oh! Yeah.
SJ Palm:--so when we finally had a TV in our house, like,
Megan Wykhuis:No shame. when I was in high school, I've been constantly playing catch-up
SJ Palm:--because I was deprived as a child. So I will on watching the classics, and it's this never-ending thing. So that's one of those... Th Shining is another one, whic you're about to talk to me abo t next. That's another one I ave not seen-- let you take this one away, as well. We've got The Shining in 1980. Tell us about that.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah. Yeah, so--[laughs] Sooo, The Shining.*Again*, Jack Nicholson.
SJ Palm:Mm-hmm!
Megan Wykhuis:It's a really excellent film, I will say that. Also, it's a great film to watch right now, because it's about isolation. [laughs]
SJ Palm:Oh, hey!
Megan Wykhuis:As we're all social distancing and stuck with our loved ones. If you're sharing a space with one or two people, this might feel similar.
SJ Palm:Right. I haven't seen this movie, but I obviously know the scene where he's breaking down the door with an axe and his wife is screaming. Maybe not something to aspire to, in these times of isolation.
Megan Wykhuis:No.
SJ Palm:But certainly something that we can maybe empathize with.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes. Absolutely.
SJ Palm:Good to know.
Megan Wykhuis:So, The Shining depicts schizophrenia and OCD. With Jack Nicholson's character, he has a lot of-- And this is something that comes up with schizophrenia pretty often, I would say. It's something that comes up in A Beautiful Mind, as well. They like to depict visual hallucinations, instead of auditory. And auditory are a lot more common with schizophrenia. The Shining is a really great horror film. However, it's the violent trope again, and the physical change of Jack Nicholson's character. As he develops more with his psychosis, then it becomes more about his physical appearance changing. He's not the attractive guy that he was at the start of the movie. But there's a lot of cool symbolism and stuff in there. There's a cool hedge maze, which kind of denotes being trapped in his own mind, and things like that.
SJ Palm:Sure. It is Stanley Kubrick, who I really admire as a filmmaker.
Megan Wykhuis:But as far as th schizophrenia diagnosis goes, they show-- And I get it, in fi m, you want to show more visua stuff. So I think that's why i's a common trope with showi g schizophrenia on the scree- you show more visual hallu inations than are common. But i's also not super accurate.
SJ Palm:Right. That's a good point about the medium. When hat's not the most common thin with schizophrenia, s... you're working with a visual medium, your default is to show things. It's unfortunate that that lends itself to inaccuracy. But film is also a sound medium. You would think they could work with some aural cues and do some sound stuff.
Megan Wykhuis:I know.
SJ Palm:There is an Oscar for sound mixing. So it's not like it's outside their wheelhouse.
Megan Wykhuis:I feel like that would be more interesting, to be honest. Because then you kind of question like, "Wait, what is that? Where's that coming from?" And I think as a viewer, you're just kind of dropped more into the world a little bit, and it's more experiential for you. So I think that would be really cool.
SJ Palm:No, totally. I agree. I think it just requires directors and writers to think outside the box and not get stuck in these well-trod paths. Just experiment a little, and in doing so, you can maybe do more justice to the thing you're presenting.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah.
SJ Palm:Okay, so Fatal Attraction after that, in 1987. This was an interesting one, when I started looking into it. Now, have you seen Fatal Attraction?
Megan Wykhuis:I've seen clips, and I know the premise.
SJ Palm:So I have seen Fatal Attraction. I saw it many years ago. Alex, Glenn Close's character, is presented as having borderline personality disorder. And over the course of the movie, she becomes obsessed with Michael Douglas's character, stalks him, and in the most famous scene, boils his Now, what's interestin about Fatal Attraction is that unlike every example we'v talked about so far, this movi actually gets the symptoms o BPD technically correct - inten e fear of abandonmen, unstable/intense relationship, impulsive and risky behavio, suicidal threats or self-injur, intense mood swings... All f these behaviors are symptoms f BPD that are embodied in t e character of Alex. But it's O extreme, and she's SO violent- Again, those two big trope, right? And the biggest probl m with this film is that she s 100% the villain. We're nev r rooting for her. We are alwa s thinking, "Poor Michael Dougla. He's being stalked by this cra y woman who's trying to kill him" Mental Health America has a go d summary of it, and they writ, "Because of its Osc r nominations, Fatal Attraction s one of the best-kno n illustrations of a person with a mental health condition in p p culture. The problem is th t it's one of the mo t stigmatizing. By making t e villain of the movie a pers n with a mental health conditi n (whose behavior is caused kid's pet rabbit in their kitchen. y that illness), we've enshrin d mental illness as a villaino
Megan Wykhuis:[chuckles] Yeah. s thing - a trait that belongs o people who need to be killed y 'good people'. Her actions a e used to illustrate borderli e personality disorder becau e they follow the textbo k symptoms so completely. H r story arc mirrors the slash r movie villains of the tim, right down to the 'he's n t dead' jump at the end. At o time in the movie does anyo e think to get her help, even wh n she attempts suicide, or even o call the police about h r behavior. The movie nev r mentions mental health, exce t to call her a 'crazy bitc' repeatedly[laughs] Yeah.
SJ Palm:Another article I came across gave a little more context for this characterization - "To please 1980s test audiences, the movie avoided a possibly sympathetic backstory for Alex (that she was molested as a child) and stripped away any psychological complexity that could help explain why the character obsessively stalked a married man (Michael Douglas), and targeted his family. The final ending the movie used - not the intended original - completed Alex's transformation into'femme psycho-killer' and one of the screen's most memorable villains." Which is a really good way of summarizing what happens in that movie. Glenn Close actually has gone on record many times saying that she regrets that depiction of her character. She said, "That did nothing but feed into the stigma. They made her into a psychopath." She has a sister with bipolar and a nephew with schizoaffective disorder (which is elements of schizophrenia and a mood disorder), and she has since become an advocate for mental health. In 2009, she co-founded Bring Change to Mind, a nonprofit whose mission is to"encourage a more open and empathetic discussion of mental illness." So, good for her for owning her role in that movie. But also, to find out that she wanted a different ending for her character, and that it was like, the male director and these test audiences who were basically like, "No, we don't need to sympathize with her. She's just crazy" - That's so frustrating.
Megan Wykhuis:I agree. Ugh, man. I have read articles with Glenn Close talking about that.
SJ Palm:She has also said that it would be way more interesting if that movie was remade today, from Alex's point of view. And I 100% agree.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes!
SJ Palm:I think that's one of those classics that would definitely benefit from a modern retelling, with a perspective switch.
Megan Wykhuis:Agreed.
SJ Palm:Maybe Hollywood is listening.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, right? Hopefully.
SJ Palm:Let's put it to the universe.
Megan Wykhuis:I like it.
SJ Palm:So moving along several years then, jumping to 2000.[apprehensive sigh] Oh, my God... Requiem for a Dream.
Megan Wykhuis:Yep.
SJ Palm:Oh, boyyyyyyyy...
Megan Wykhuis:I know. And this is Darren Aronofsky, right?
SJ Palm:It sure is.
Megan Wykhuis:And I-- I like Darren Aronofsky. I don't know how you feel about him.
SJ Palm:You know, I have...I have complicated feelings about him.
Megan Wykhuis:That's fair.
SJ Palm:I think some of his films are borderline brilliant. I also think that Jennifer Lawrence was too good to date him.
Megan Wykhuis:[laughs heartily]
SJ Palm:I also don't understand why he wears a scarf constantly, as if his head will fall off if he doesn't. [Megan continues laughing] There's a lot of things about him that I just find very weird. He also directed Black Swan, which we might talk about later.
Megan Wykhuis:Oh, we gotta talk about Black Swan.
SJ Palm:We should, we should. Yeah, he can be very polarizing, as a filmmaker.[apprehensively] This... movie... [exasperated
Megan Wykhuis:He sure can. noise] Look, all I will say about this movie is that I watched it when I was too young-- Oh, no!
SJ Palm:--it traumatized me, and I will literally never watch it again.
Megan Wykhuis:How old were you when you saw it?
SJ Palm:Oh, probably... early teens.
Megan Wykhuis:Okay. I was like,"Please tell me you were at least a teenager."
SJ Palm:Yeah, at least a teenager, but...
Megan Wykhuis:Still horrifying. Oh, yeah.
SJ Palm:I mean, I think I would be scarred if I watched that movie for the first time now, honestly. I just remember it being really upsetting.
Megan Wykhuis:It's horrific. It really is.
SJ Palm:I will never watch it again. I don't think I'm alone in feeling that way. I wish I had watched it when I was a little older, but I think this is a common feeling about that movie, right?
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think that is a film that you watch *one time*.
SJ Palm:Mm-hmm.
Megan Wykhuis:And then you're good. You know?
SJ Palm:Yep.
Megan Wykhuis:It's-- it's...
SJ Palm:It's not one you buy on DVD. [laughs]
Megan Wykhuis:It's one of those that does scar you forever.
SJ Palm:Not worth it.
Megan Wykhuis:I did own it on DVD.
SJ Palm:[appalled] Oh my god! Why?? Why would you do that to yourself? My god. Masochist! Hey, fair enough. We all went through that
Megan Wykhuis:Because I was a sick, sick person. [both laughin] I don't know. I think I saw t for the first time in colleg. I was in film school at the ime, doing film classes... Lis en, it was a very-- maybe a mo e pretentious time i'pretentious film student' phase. Yes, yes. I do think it's a very interesting depiction of addiction.
SJ Palm:Okay. Do tell.
Megan Wykhuis:Okay, so you've got a couple of different storylines that are going on, right? Oh my God, and I don't remember anybody's name right now. So, sorry about it.
SJ Palm:I mean, I just remember the actors.
Megan Wykhuis:I don't even remember the actors. [laughing] So, that's where I'm at.
SJ Palm:Okay, you've got Jared Leto as, like, the main guy. You've got Jennifer Connelly...
Megan Wykhuis:That's right.
SJ Palm:...as the cocaine addict? One of the other addicts. And then the poor little old lady-- I want to say it's Ellen Burstyn, but I'm going to look it up real quick[computer keys clacking in background]-- who gets...
Megan Wykhuis:On diet pills, right? [squeals]
SJ Palm:...addicted to diet pills. That was, like, the saddest storyline. I had such a hard time with that, 'cause I just felt so sorry for this little lady.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah.
SJ Palm:It is Ellen Burstyn, by the way.
Megan Wykhuis:You've got coke, heroin, and diet pills, are the three. And it's different addiction storylines for each person. With Jennifer Connelly's line, it's that she ends up soliciting herself for drugs. With Jared Leto's line, he ends up getting an amputation from an infected wound...
SJ Palm:I forgot about that! That wasn't even the most horrific thing, in my mind! I completely forgot about it![Megan laughing] Or maybe it was so horrific that my mind was just like, "Nope!"
Megan Wykhuis:Oh, that was the most horrific scene.
SJ Palm:Honestly, I probably blocked it out. But that does happen, yes, it sure does. I just remember the little old lady vacuuming her room on speed, and that has stuck with me. Every single storyline is just so deeply, um... [
Megan Wykhuis:[blows out a heav breath] rief silence] fucked up! [ aughs] Yeah, exactly. And I think this is where you get the 'no recovery'...
SJ Palm:Yep.
Megan Wykhuis:...Everything is really severe... And I think part of this was to showcase how much
SJ Palm:Mm-hmm. of an issue addiction is, and how it can make you become a totally different person, blah, blah, blah. I think now we understand that addiction is a mental illness, at least, in society that I like to be a part of. I think some people still have a problem with that, are still like, "It's a choice." Which, you know, I mean, on some level - yes, we're responsible for our choices. But on another very different level, there's a lot of things like genetics that play a huge role in addiction. Sure.
Megan Wykhuis:My biggest issue with Aronofsky is I feel like he's so brilliant sometimes, his work is so beautiful, the style with which he directs is phenomenal--
SJ Palm:Oh, he's got style for days.
Megan Wykhuis:He does! He does. And it makes it really cool to watch.
SJ Palm:Oh, yeah. I mean, Black Swan is, like, fucking incredible to look at.
Megan Wykhuis:I know!
SJ Palm:His movies are so visually incredible.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes. But then it's like, "Oh my god, what am I watching?!" [laughing] You know?
SJ Palm:No, I hear you. The content of it, the storyline, the actual ramifications for these characters... And it's the same with Black Swan, honestly. I'm seeing a pattern here.
Megan Wykhuis:Uh-huh.
SJ Palm:The end message that you're left with as a viewer, for both Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, is just so garbled and kind of trash!
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah.
SJ Palm:In Requiem for a Dream, there's no hope of recovery. You're going to fall into this downward spiral of self-destruction, you're going to end up ho'ing yourself out, or amputated, or trapped in your living room, hallucinating and talking to your TV. There's no escape. It's a theme with him, where he doesn't like to give his characters an out. He's instead more interested in the visual style.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, I think he really likes to focus on 'How fucked up can I make this movie?'
SJ Palm:"How far can I take this?"
Megan Wykhuis:Exactly. It is that sensationalism. I think it's focusing on 'How can I make this story the most outrageous that I can, within the confines of this really beautiful storytelling?'
SJ Palm:Yeah, totally.
Megan Wykhuis:It's packaged just right. But it's...it's really horrific. I agree, there's no recovery. Everybody is their worst selves in that movie. When you watch Jared Leto steal his grandma's TV to sell--
SJ Palm:[pitifully] I knowww.
Megan Wykhuis:--I was like,[agonized] "Oh, God. She has to buy it all over again." And they go through this, it seems like every couple of months.
SJ Palm:It's soooo sad.
Megan Wykhuis:So that's Requiem for a Dream! [laughs]
SJ Palm:That is Requiem for a Dream. Oh my god. I'll never watch it again. I'll never put myself through it. But that's also another common thread with Aronofsky's movies - I feel*bad* after I watch all of them.
Megan Wykhuis:Oh, yeah.
SJ Palm:This movie, Black Swan, Mother - They all leave me feeling gross. And at a certain point, I'm like, "Why would I put myself through that?" But again, the-- Mm, the style! It slaps.
Megan Wykhuis:I know.
SJ Palm:Argh! I wish it didn't. You know what this movie actually reminds me of? It really screams those anti-pot messages that we were hearing in the 1950s. What am I thinking of? Uhh, Reefer Madness! It screams Reefer Madness. I don't know if you've ever watched the original?
Megan Wykhuis:I HAVE WATCHED IT! IT'S AMAZING! [both
SJ Palm:There you go! Oh my god, I'll never forget that laughing] scene of the girl slowly walking down the hallway, pondering what she's gonna do-- And then she THROWS HERSELF OUT THE WINDOW![laughing] Because she smoked one joint and her life is now ruined. That movie is bonkers. But this movie was like the 1990s version, or the 2000 ersion, of Reefer Madness a l ttle bit.
Megan Wykhuis:It was! It's so extreme!
SJ Palm:It's really reductive in a lot of ways, too. For someone who's such a "visionary" filmmaker, I can't believe that[Aronofsky] fell back on this'Drugs will ruin your life' kind of propaganda that we've seen since the '50s and '60s. I just don't get it!
Megan Wykhuis:I don't either.
SJ Palm:It's such a 'Don't do drugs' message. Like, 'Just Say No.' Do you think Nancy Reagan put up money for this movie?[laughs] Like, what the fuck?
Megan Wykhuis:[jokingly] She's got a producing credit. It's minor, it's fine. [both laugh]
SJ Palm:Oh, God.
Megan Wykhuis:Should we move on to our next movie?
SJ Palm:Yes. Much less feel-bad is A Beautiful Mind, which came out just the year after, 2001.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes. And I put this on the bad list, however, I feel like it's probably debatable. It does follow the story of John Nash, who did actually have schizophrenia. Russell Crowe's the main character in this one. It's a good movie, I think it's solid. There's just some problematic elements. Some of it I've already mentioned, like the visual hallucinations. That was not the case for John Nash. John Nash did not have visual hallucinations, he had auditory hallucinations. And they chose not to portray that. They made it a more extreme example, they made it a more severe example, of what John Nash was dealing with, as well. And they also-- My issue with A Beautiful Mind is that they show that he is hospitalized at one point, but they don't say he stops working, that this affects his life...
SJ Palm:Yeah, he's still a math professor, right? Throughout the whole thing?
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah. It tackles a little bit of his personal life, for sure. There's scenes with his wife and his child, things like that. But I don't feel like it gets at how mental illness really does impact the different areas of your life. I think they wanted to make it like, "Hey. Even if you have schizophrenia, man, you're gonna do okay." Which is...good - I mean, that's hella more refreshing than a lot of the other stuff we've talked about, right?
SJ Palm:Right, much better than the 'no hope' thing.
Megan Wykhuis:Exactly. They talk about recovery, they talk about medication, they talk about treatment - All good things. However, they don't show the very real struggle that was years and years. It's on a very condensed timeline of, 'He went to the mental hospital for like a week, and they told him to do medication, then he's better.' It's not that simple. And so I think it's just that simplification piece that really helped me put this in the negative category. There's not those layers that need to be there for me, in order for me to say it's a *good* mental health representation.
SJ Palm:That's fair. It is still kind of romanticizing it in a way that's not helpful. It's not maybe as damaging as some of the other tropes, but it's still not accurate.
Megan Wykhuis:Right.
SJ Palm:Just a year or so later, we got the TV show Monk, which we have talked about a little bit here already. Let's just go over that briefly. That was on the air from 2000 to 2009. I never really watched it, but I've seen clips and promos. And every promo I've seen is like, "Isn't it so funny how every [object] has to be in its place? And he's such a good detective because he has OCD!" The whole thing is very gimmicky. And that's what I had an issue with and why I never really watched it. But you actually watched the show and enjoyed it, right?
Megan Wykhuis:I did. I was watching it, I think, as it came out. So, I would have been in middle school, early High School. Again, I love terrible detective shows. I don't know what's wrong with me.
SJ Palm:We all have our guilty pleasures.
Megan Wykhuis:Right? I can't help myself. It's just what I like.
SJ Palm:No shade.
Megan Wykhuis:But anyhoo. No, I watched Monk when it was coming out and I really enjoyed it. And it was definitely that trope of using mental illness as a comedic element. It's also one of those where if you were to take out the OCD, you would not have a show.
SJ Palm:Yeaaaah. That's a problem.
Megan Wykhuis:Yep.
SJ Palm:Because again, people are not their diagnosis. They have lives outside of this. They have lives outside of their therapists office, and outside their jobs. Everyone has so m ny different dimensions to t eir lives and to their i entity. To pigeonhole them i to this one thing and say, " ou are your diagnosis" is so h rmful for people, and might m ke them afraid of getting that d agnosis - Which can be h lpful, as we'll talk about w th Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Megan Wykhuis:[gasps in excitement] Yes, absolutely. With Monk, that's the main issue for me, is that if you were to take that diagnosis away, th t's the major plot points ev ry episode. We also talked about how it's untreatable, which i another issue, right? Monk g es in-- I think you see him in his therapists office al ost every episode.
SJ Palm:Really?
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah. And he makes zero progress. I mean, he is *the same*. I think he develops as a character a little bit, but his diagnosis, his treatment, and his mental illness does not seem to change.
SJ Palm:That's so interesting that they would go through the trouble of having him be in his therapist's office every episode, but not allow him to do the work, to not allow it to progress in any way. That's such a weird writing decision. I'm also wondering, his therapist in the show - would they fall into that trope of therapists being a joke? Or are they more like the'straight man' to Monk's 'funny man'?
Megan Wykhuis:Straight man.
SJ Palm:Okay, gotcha.
Megan Wykhuis:In this show, it seems like the therapist knows what they're doing.
SJ Palm:Interesting.
Megan Wykhuis:The other thing with Monk-- and you kind of mentioned this-- is that sometimes, in showing mental illness on the screen, we use it almost as like a superpower. We kind of amplify some of those things, so that his hyper-awareness that comes with OCD and his extreme attention to detail become almost this positive, like, "Well, if he didn't have [OCD], then he wouldn't be able to be such an amazing detective." Which is fine, in some ways. But also, that's kind of bastardizing what a mental illness is, and that there's very real consequences that go along with having those[compulsions] when you have OCD. And it is an obsessive compulsion to do X, Y, and Z.*That* doesn't feel like a superpower.
SJ Palm:Not at all. And that touches on something I'd like to revisit when we talk about a movie like The Hours, which is when you show people with mental illness being creative or being really good at their jobs, I think that's really important. But at the same time, when you're only portraying it as a gift to the world, that's a problem. Because the day to day reality for the person with that illness is that it doesn't feel like a gift. It feels like an enormous curse and a burden and something that they might not survive. OCD, I don't have it, but I have talked to people who do, and it sounds *horrible*. They're constantly second guessing themselves. They have to quadruple check dates and times, and everything has to be confirmed a certain number of times in a row. It's so tedious, it's so exhausting for them. And it's something that they are compelled to do everyday. It does not sound fun.
Megan Wykhuis:No.
SJ Palm:And it is not funny for them in it. So, a show like Monk just kind of feels like it's making light of the daily struggle that people with OCD actually have.
Megan Wykhuis:And with some of these disorders, too, I think when we say these things, almost as a colloquial term - Whe
SJ Palm:[exasperated sigh] Do't get me started on that. people are like, "[high-pit hed voice] Oh, I
Megan Wykhuis:Right? I'm like- I'm a little triggered by it
SJ Palm:Mm-hmm.[laughs] And I don't love it
Megan Wykhuis:I really don't like it when people do that shit. And they do it with"bipolar" all the time, too.
SJ Palm:Yep.
Megan Wykhuis:Ugh, god. And when you do that shit with somebody who has that diagnosis, let me-- let me just tell you - It's really awful for that person. You know?
SJ Palm:Yeah.
Megan Wykhuis:So, listeners, this is my PSA for the episode--
SJ Palm:Yes, please!
Megan Wykhuis:Check your language around mental illness. Because I think people do it totally unintentionally. I don't think it's meant with harm or ill intent, by any stretch. I think it's just something that has kind of gotten looped into our language, as a culture. But it's not okay. And, like, you need to stop. [laughs]
SJ Palm:Cosigned.
Megan Wykhuis:Please don't do it! Don't say diagnoses like they are *traits* that you have.
SJ Palm:Thank you, yes. I wonder how you feel about the word "crazy"? I find myself saying, like, "That's crazy!" all the time. And I know that's one of those words that some people are very sensitive to. So I've tried not to use it as much. But it has become such a commonly used term in our everyday language, I find it almost unavoidable.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah.
SJ Palm:Especially when you're talking about politics right now. [laughing] I mean-- that is actually crazy! I don't know any other word to describe it. And maybe I just need to pick up a thesaurus. But there's nothing[else] that quite captures what I'm trying to say, or what I'm feeling about a situation. How do you feel about that?
Megan Wykhuis:No, I-- I think it's a really good point. I'm glad you brought it up. It's something that I've tried to be more conscious of, too. I'm a trainer for a program called Youth Mental Health First Aid. It's a national program. And we talk about language. And we talked about the term "crazy" in that class, actually, because it can feel so stigmatizing. And it can feel not great to people who have been diagnosed with mental illnesses, specifically, I would say, because at some point, somebody has told them that they're crazy. And that is really harmful. But I think you just have to know the difference between connotation and denotation, you know what I mean? Like, I think if you say that things in the political landscape are crazy, that's very different than calling a person crazy because of their behavior.
SJ Palm:Oh, sure. Yeah.
Megan Wykhuis:It's more when it's that direct usage that I have an issue with it.
SJ Palm:Gotcha.
Megan Wykhuis:I try not to say the word "crazy" as much either. I'm trying to replace it with the word "wild", because that feels a little bit better to me.
SJ Palm:Same, I'm definitely trying to use that one more. But you're right, connotation and denotation is really important. Like, I definitely don't go around calling people crazy. It's always about a situation, like, "This thing that happened to me was crazy!" It's always very abstract, and that's probably less harmful. But it is a word that I'm watching out for, and we should all probably just try to use a little less.
Megan Wykhuis:Totally.
SJ Palm:Let's go to our last problematic example, which is...[sighs] Oh, [sarcastically] the*beloved* 13 Reasons Why, which came out in 2017. It's a Netflix series that is somehow still on the air...
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah!
SJ Palm:Uhhhh... Where do we start with this show? [both laugh] I guess we kind of touched on it in our first segment on tropes, because it plays into a lot of those, as you were saying. I also went to a pop culture conference, and there was an entire panel on*all* the ways that this show*fucked up* and how--
Megan Wykhuis:[claps] [bursts out laughing]
SJ Palm:I'm not even kidding you! An entire panel!
Megan Wykhuis:I love that.
SJ Palm:It was just paper after paper, citing all these studies"It did this, and it did this and it neglected to do this And *this* was the re l-world consequence."
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah.
SJ Palm:And I mean, in my very first episode, I referenced the fact that this show caused something like a 30% increase in the number of teen suicides-- was it the month or so after its debut?
Megan Wykhuis:I believe so, yeah.
SJ Palm:It is something staggering like that. You can look up these studies - A number have been done at this point. The real-world harm of this show has been well-documented. *And* the show is still on the air.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah.
SJ Palm:Um... [pause] [clicks tongue] [sardonically] How does that make you feel?
Megan Wykhuis:It's pretty-- it's pretty messed up. And I think one of the bigger issues for me is that if you're tackling a difficult topic like this, number one - Get somebody who knows what the fuck they're doing in the field.
SJ Palm:Right?!
Megan Wykhuis:Like, please. And have them inform you on this stuff, because...
SJ Palm:How-- Why couldn't they have an on-set counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist-- any number of "-ists" to be on set? Any number of authorities who could give them some pointers. Most shows and movies that deal with this type of thing will at least have that. I couldn't believe that they didn't at least do the bare minimum of that. And then, the other thing I couldn't believe they didn't do is offer any resources before--
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, the warning?
SJ Palm:Yeah! Those warnings that you see at the beginning or end of episodes that deal with suicide. Most shows are so good about that, because it's literally the lowest bar to cross. All you have to do is put some on-screen text with the national suicide hotline number. It is so easy to do.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, they don't do a trigger warning at the beginning, and they don't do a resourcing at the end. And those are both huge problems. I think one of the issues that Netflix ran into with that, is that if you are bingeing it, they have the autoplay...
SJ Palm:Hmm...
Megan Wykhuis:That was one thing that I've thought of in the past, and I was like, "Maybe they had an issue with that?" But that's-- that's a problem! You've gotta include that in yo r wrap time then, if that's th case
SJ Palm:Uh, yeah. There are ways around that that don't require much work. That's not an excuse.
Megan Wykhuis:No, it's a pretty minimal bar.
SJ Palm:It really is. I could not believe they didn't do that. It just makes me feel like they were willfully thumbing their nose at not only the standards of television shows that have come before that deal with sensitive subject matters, but it was almost like, "We're too cool for those warnings," or something like that. I get a really bad sense about the creators of this show. And the fact that it hasn't been canceled, despite the number of studies that have been done, despite the outcry from parents whose children have attempted or committed suicide because of this show... I don't understand how it's still on air. How is Netflix okay with this?
Megan Wykhuis:You know, I'm pretty sensitive about this show because of the work that I do. And it is something that I've-- I've had multiple kids bring up that show.
SJ Palm:Really, have you?
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah. It's usually regarding self-harm. It's usually regarding suicidal ideation.
SJ Palm:[bracingly] Oh, boy...
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah, no, it's really serious stuff usually. And I've had a number of kids who've attempted, and I've had to do some hospitalizations with kids, and it's really scary. It's a horrific thing. Those are-- Those are the worst parent phone calls I ever make, is telling them, "Hey, I think we're gonna have to hospitalized your kid."
SJ Palm:That's awful.
Megan Wykhuis:When the show came out, I had just started my position at the school, and everyone was watching it, and it was so glamorized, and the kids loved that show. They loved it. It's gross to me, because I think they felt so seen and so heard by the main character's struggle, by Hannah Baker and her struggle, and I think they want to see themselves in this stuff. And then to come to that conclusion that, 'Okay, well, the only conclusion that's worth drawing is to kill yourself'...
SJ Palm:Oof.
Megan Wykhuis:You know, that-- that's the message that our*children* are walking away with. And I mean, I was working with seventh and eighth graders who were talking about this stuff. This is like twelve, thirteen years old.
SJ Palm:[breathes] Oh my God.
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah. Um, I had a kid who had self-harmed in school, I had to go get him stitches. And he referenced this show too, and I was like--
SJ Palm:Oh my god!
Megan Wykhuis:--"Great."
SJ Palm:This is sooo fucked up.
Megan Wykhuis:It is.
SJ Palm:Wow. I mean, you're really confirming all the stories I've heard, counselors saying, "Yeah, I've had so many kids come to me and talk to me about this show." To hear you confirm it from your own experience is really hitting home. And I can only imagine how helpless you must feel, knowing that this show is on the air, and you can't stop these kids from watching it. But you're the one who has to deal with the fallout - you and these kids' parents. It's just--[sympathetic sigh] I can't even wrap my head around it.
Megan Wykhuis:No, it's really hard. And I think the worst cases I had were the ones that were the closest to Hannah's story. And by that, I mean kids who experienced sexual assault or rape, and then also had some suicidal ideation because of that trauma. The ones who really closely identified with her... Those were the roughest cases. Absolutely. And again, we're talking about how representation is so important - It's something that you bring up on your podcast all the time. And to see a young girl going through something of that caliber, that, you know, they've probably never talked to anybody about this stuff before. Talking about sexual assault and rape is, shockingly, not a fun topic, right? It's a really hard thing to disclose. And when you're finally able to voice that, and then no one hears you, or believes you... That's the issue, you know? And I think they identified so closely with that, which is horrifying. The last thing I want a kid going out of my office saying is,"Well, Megan didn't believe me." So the counseling aspect of that show really bothered the fuck out of me, to be totally honest. Because it just-- It zaps your credibility. It zaps your ability to have that relationship with kids and have them trust you.
SJ Palm:I can only imagine. What a frustrating position to be in.
Megan Wykhuis:[sighs] Yeah.
SJ Palm:Oh, man. So then, what do you tell kids that come to you, who are talking about this show, saying that it's encouraging them to self-harm, or they're thinking about suicide? How do you deal with that? What do you tell them? And does anything get through? Media is powerful, so I can imagine it would be really hard to combat the messages that they've already been receiving through the show.
Megan Wykhuis:Something you're taught when you go to school for this kind of stuff is just checking reality, I guess, is the best way to put it. If a kid comes in saying, "Well, clearly, the only answer is to kill myself," being like, "Well... I hear what you're saying there, sure. And also, what makes you say that? What makes you think that the only way out is through killing yourself? Why do you feel that way? Tell me more about what's brought you in today for that reason." So kind of getting at the motivations and the core values and things like that, and picking apart what is it that really brought them in and is making them feel that gravity of the situation, that extreme.
SJ Palm:Right. 'Cause it can be so easy to get sucked into that negative thought spiral. And once you have it in your head, it can be all-consuming. You really need someone who is outside of your experience, a third party coming in and being like, "Well, hold on. Let's re-examine the situation from an omniscient perspective," and kind of challenging your view on things, which can become warped.
Megan Wykhuis:Right.
SJ Palm:Now, you read the book- Was that recently? Do you remember the book very well?
Megan Wykhuis:No, it was probably like seven years ago, that I read the book. So, it s been a minute.
SJ Palm:Fair enough. Do you remember the book having similar messaging? Or do you think the show took some liberties?
Megan Wykhuis:I think the book is very similar. I mean, the counseling piece that I told you about was in the book. So that's horrifying to me.
SJ Palm:Yeah, that's bad.
Megan Wykhuis:Because I've read other... A lot of times kids will recommend books to me, like Y.A. stuff, and I'll read it, so I know what the hell they're doing. And there's plenty of other stuff that has decent representations of mental health in it. There's a book called Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock that is actually a pretty decent depiction of mental health. Also a suicidal kid, and there's a homicidality/suicidality component to it, so there's the threat of some school violence and stuff. But that one - I read the afterward in it and holy shit, they had so many psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, therapists on board with this.
SJ Palm:Good!
Megan Wykhuis:And they did a really good job of showing symptomology throughout, which was really interesting. So I'm hoping that kids pick up things like that instead. [laughs] And it ends positively, with the kid getting help.
SJ Palm:Oh, good. That's the exact kind of thing that we need more of. That's good to see that there is something positive out there.
Megan Wykhuis:And apart from all of [what we mentioned], looking at the actual mental health represented in [13 Reasons Why], statistically s eaking, completing suicide w th self-harm, by cutting your a ms open - That is not super c mmon. Okay? And also, it's not s per common for girls to die t at way. I'm just thinking if y u're showing a suicidal t enager, and you're showing a g rl committing suicide-- And I sh uld say "completed suicide." Tha's the language you want to use not "committed." "Co pleted." I'm still working on y lingo. It's years of bui t-up rhetoric trying to get out of there.
SJ Palm:Oh, sure, yeah.
Megan Wykhuis:So we're not perfect either. [both chuckle] We're doing our best, guys. But when we're talking about teenagers and suicide completions, that's probably not the way that it would go down, statistically speaking.
SJ Palm:Mm-hmm.
Megan Wykhuis:So, I don't think it's a super accurate representation. And I'm trying to remember if she had made any attempts before... I don't think that was the case, though, either.
SJ Palm:And that's really uncommon too, right? Most people who complete suicide have attempted a number of times.
Megan Wykhuis:Yes.
SJ Palm:It usually doesn't happen out of nowhere.
Megan Wykhuis:No, no. There's usually signs, yeah. And so, the fact that it missed all of the symptomology - That's a problem for me. That's why I liked that other book. I think it showed the progression of mental illness and the progression of getting to that point of feeling like they wanted to take their life. It's a very serious feeling! It doesn't come out of nowhere.
SJ Palm:Yeah, exactly.
Megan Wykhuis:There is a certain impulsivity with youth that definitely contributes to that. But no, I don't think it was a very accurate representation, though. The other thing with this, when I talk to kids about this stuff - You cannot demonize this show.
SJ Palm:Oh, they won't hear it.
Megan Wykhuis:So, if we've got parents listening, and you're going to try and talk to your kid about this, I suggest really not going hard in the paint against this show. Because it will not go well for you.
SJ Palm:[trying not to laugh] Oh my God.
Megan Wykhuis:Because kids really relate to it! You need to come at it from like, "Okay, I hear what you're saying. I hear why you like the show. Let me bring up some questions." That's the approach I would suggest.'Cause I've talked to a number of kids about how it's problematic-- and I'm not their parent, you know. They're automatically going to hate you, as the parent, coming at it from a 'This isn't good for you'[standpoint]. So I would ju t caution, if you're going to ha e that conversation - Go gentl
SJ Palm:Seriously. That show is such a good example of the scarcity of good representation for young people. They don't have many shows that they can watch and feel like they relate to the characters, or see characters that experience things like them, so they're latching onto this show because it's all they have.
Megan Wykhuis:Yep.
SJ Palm:That is a huge part of the problem. And if we had more representation that was real and honest and relatable for kids, that they could recognize themselves in, they wouldn't be so quick to jump on-board the first thing that comes along, even if it tells them to kill themselves! It really does boil down to representation.
Megan Wykhuis:That's exactly right. And I think that's why your podcast is so important and why we need to have these discussions. We need to talk about representation of minorities, of LGBTQ people of color. We need to be telling these stories and let them have representation of *themselves*, right? Like, you shouldn't have to always relate to a white dude on a screen. Sorry, you just shouldn't have to do that.
SJ Palm:Exactly. I'm really looking forward to talking about and contrasting this show to something like Euphoria.
Megan Wykhuis:Yassssss.
SJ Palm:Because I think it is leaps and bounds ahead of this show. You know, it pushes some boundaries, but it centers a queer black girl, who struggles with mental illness, who is dealing with just being a teenage kid also-- It's doing all the things. And that's why I really like it, but we'll get into that later. But yeah, this show just makes me super appreciative for things like Euphoria... [sing-song voice] even though I can't think of anything else like it!
Megan Wykhuis:Uhh, yeah...
SJ Palm:I say, "things like," but that's about it.
Megan Wykhuis:For real, for real.
SJ Palm:Just looking back over these problematic examples that we've gone through, what jumps out to you about gender representation and how it relates to mental illness?
Megan Wykhuis:When I'm looking at films like Psycho and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Shining, all of those films have the main character as a man. All of them also have a component of violence to them, and I think that is something that is really played out - That mentally ill men are violent. And that is, again, not the case. Does it happen? Yes. But typically, again, mentally ill people are victims of violence and not perpetrators. It's also all white dudes.
SJ Palm:It really is, and that is a glaring issue. I mean, this list could not be whiter. Uhhh, I don't think there's a person of color in... Let's see, nope, nope, nope, nope... I don't know all the characters in 13 Reasons Why, but I know the two main characters that I've seen are both white... Yeah, there's not a character of color in any of these.
Megan Wykhuis:That's like a main cast character.
SJ Palm:Yeah, no main characters.
Megan Wykhuis:In Requiem for a Dream there is a person of color that plays a significant role, but I...
SJ Palm:Wait, the drug dealer??
Megan Wykhuis:Yeah. Yeah!
SJ Palm:[laughing] Oh God, that's such *great* representation!
Megan Wykhuis:[laughing] I know. I was like, "Do I even mention this?"
SJ Palm:That is not the racial representation that I'm looking for.
Megan Wykhuis:No.
SJ Palm:Fail! Yeah, it's bad. Normally, I would say [the whiteness of this list] is probably the result of some bias on our part, as white people. But in this case, I think that's saying more about Hollywood. Apart from Tony Shalhoub, who is of Lebanese descent, but I think is often cast and read as white-- Other than him, yeah, it's all white guys. And we'll talk a little more about race when we get into our good examples, for sure. You know, the other thing is, looking over this list, a lot of these men with mental illness - You mentioned that a lot of them are violent, but I also see this trend of men with mental illnesses fairly often portrayed as geniuses, in something like A Beautiful Mind, Monk; whereas women with mental illnesses are kind of portrayed as just destructive, either to themselves or others, like in Fatal Attraction or 13 Reasons Why. I wonder if you agree with that.
Megan Wykhuis:I would agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. I think that they're considered destructive. I think something that also commonly plays out when you're showing women with mental illness is that they're overly sexualized.
SJ Palm:Yes.
Megan Wykhuis:There are certain mental illnesses that do get at sexualization, but like Fatal Attraction?! [lets out a laugh/sigh]
SJ Palm:No, totally. That's a prime example. And we didn't get into Skins, but that falls into the same trap. So, yeah, it's a thing. [to you] We'll pause our discussion there for now. Next time, it's going to be much less of a downer, as Megan and I get into some of our favorite*positive* examples. I hope you'll join us then. [up-beat outro music kicks in] What are some of your favorite good and bad portrayals of mental illness? Tweet at me, @popculty, or email the show at podcast@popculty.blog. You can support the show by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts, or by becoming a patron for as little as $2 a month. Just scroll to the link that says 'support the show,' click on that, and sign up at any tier. With your help we can keep this show awesome and ad-free. Time to shout out our newest patrons - Alexandra, Lisa, and Zack. You three have been amazing friends, especially this past year, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support, both through the podcast and just personally. As always, a huge thank-you to our sustaining patrons - Suzy, Mary, Ken, and Alexandra. The Popculty Podcast is produced and edited by yours truly, SJ Palm. Cover art by Max Badger. Until next time - Support women directors, stay critical, and demand representation. [music fades out]