Mental Health In Film

Post Reply New Topic

It's so interesting to see how some mental health issues are portrayed in film. Take the recent movie - Silver Linings Playbook. This film features a central character, Pat Solatano, with bipolar disorder. The movie showed the complexities of disorders and also showed how traumatic events can affect people. But how well does it portray this type of mental illness?


Does it send out the wrong message that love is all you need to treat a complex health need like bipolar disorder? Would love to hear your thoughts on this. It's been causing a lot of stir but is it any different to other films & TV shows that deal with the issue?

I haven't seen the movie you are talking about, but I'll put in my two cents anyway. Movies are entertainment, pure and simple. Sometimes they are accurate and other times they are complete fairy tale. If we start holding Hollywood to the standard of being factual then we might as well forget anything besides documentaries and resign ourselves to ever being distracted from real life problems. I would think that most adults already know that you need more than love to treat complex mental issues, there are many movies out there which address that fact. "Sybil", "I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can" and "Girl Interrupted" are three that I can think of right off the top of my head which address the issue of mental illness and how bad it can get and some of the treatment involved in it.

Realistic (or as real as Hollywood actually gets anyway) movies about mental illness are interesting, but the "love is all you need" type are a romantic and feel good twist on them which some people like. The goal of most movies is to make money and not to educate the public about a social issue, so they can really show things however they want to.

I will say that the first thing I ever saw on film about bipolar disorder was back in the 70's on the tv show "Maude". Maude was diagnosed with it back when it was called "Manic Depressive", and I believe she had to take meds for it. I'm sure there are more realistic portrayals of it in other movies besides the one you mention.

Some people get so very upset over the way mental illness is shown in movies and tv shows because they feel that it stigmatizes people with it. I disagree. It's simply a plot device.

I vehemently disagree with the above opinion, at least not in this case. Suspension of disbelief is one thing: okay, so Arnold Schwarzenegger can jump through explosions and fire a million bullets out of a gun without reloading once, but those movies intentionally aren't set in reality, so we can accept the implausible as plausible. Movie magic. The same doesn't apply in film situations like the OP described.

Imagine there's a decently realistic drama movie about someone dying of cancer, and at the end of the movie they completely cure the cancer not with medicine but with the power of "love". A lot of people would be pissed off at that, and for good reason: when it's set in reality, it trivializes an actual illness which actual people die from in actual reality. Heck, let's go farther: what if it's a drama about a couple coping with the loss of their child, and then at the very end, they pray and the child comes back to life. What message would that send to grieving parents? "Well, your kid's still dead, I guess you didn't pray hard enough!"

In real life, people don't have action movie car chases or alien abductions, but they do have cancer. Their children die. There's only so much disbelief you can suspend with real-life topics and issues before it starts becoming far-fetched and just becomes outright stupid or even offensive. Even if they're used as such, cancer and mental illnesses are not "plot devices", it's real life. We make movies about them because they're issues which concern major portions of the population, and a lot of people with these issues can turn to these issues for some sense of catharsis. If some film told me that all I needed to get over my years' worth of bipolar hell was "love", I would throw something at the screen.

Movies can and do have ridiculous scenarios such as curing mental illness with love because they are movies. People aren't supposed to look to a movie to help them deal with their own real life issues, they are entertainment and escape from reality even when they are realistic. Documentaries are supposed to be realistic and accurate and people can watch them to try and get a better understanding of an issue, but movies have license to do whatever they want.

You aren't supposed to turn to movies to get viable ideas on how to deal with serious life altering problems. Thats mainly because everyone understands that movies aren't real, and even movies based on a true story usually have quite a lot of inaccuracies in them. To use your example of the couple with the dead child and prayer, I wouldn't think that anybody watching that movie would come away from it thinking that they didn't pray hard enough to bring their child back. They would have to have the belief that you could actually pray somebody back to life before they even saw the movie to come away with that notion so that's a whole different delusion of theirs to begin with. They don't and shouldn't make movies based on the idea that some people with obviously serious gullibility issues might see them and believe them. Thats one of the reason movies have ratings, young kids may believe everything they see especially if it's presented as realistic. By the time someone is 17 they usually understand things like the inability to pray someone back to life and adults who aren't Scientologists understand that you can't cure serious psychiatric disorders with love.

I basically assumed that the OP was worried that the "love is all you need" concept of psychiatric care might downplay the seriousness of psych illness for many people and trivialize the effort that those who have mental disorders have to put forth to cope with life. I never even thought that somebody might actually come away from a movie with a completely ludicrous idea that love was actually all you really do need in real life to get over a mental problem.

There are tons of movies that are otherwise completely realistic which have small breaks from reality that just do not ever happen in real life and I've rarely seen rational adults buying into those parts. Are you actually suggesting that movies either be completely realistic or completely and obviously fake? Maybe there should be an additional rating for movies that lets you know not to watch it if you are going to base any life decision on it, are looking to it to help you deal with a serious issue, or might believe that the impossible is possible. I'd really hate to have a mental health warning on movies now, but the way society is going nowdays I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it. "Warning, this film contains triggers!" is something that I could actually imagine coming to pass, with our culture of taking offense to every single thing, but a warning not to believe something that is by definition purely fake isn't something I'd think most people would actually need.

What exactly are the guidelines that you want to see for movies? What subjects do you want to see held to complete and total accuracy?

(One thing I'd like to see but I know I'll never see is a movie where it's not just the bad guys or the stupid folks smoke cigarettes. You see it all the time in real life, but on the silver screen it's always just the bad guys or the misguided who light up. It's never done by the normal folks without it being an *issue*, like they are trying to quit, etc. I'd also like to see Southerners not portrayed as stereotypical rednecks and I'd actually like to hear a true Southern accent and not that mix of Appalachian hillbilly mixed in with Tidewater Society Grande Dame, but I rarely see that either. The thing is, I don't get too upset over the fact that some people think only bad people smoke and all Southerners are hillbillies who don't know where we are from linguistically speaking)

I saw Silver Linings Playbook a while ago, but wasn't the main character at least implicitly criticised for not taking his medication? I certainly didn't pick up a "love is all you need" vibe, and I think Pat's mother also is unhappy about many of his less helpful decisions.

And some of the stuff I saw online suggested that Pat was not just bipolar, but probably had mild autism or Asperger's as well. Which might fit in, with some stuff I read about it being based on a book, but certain elements were loosely inspired by David O. Russell's son, who has autism (and according to some sites is bipolar, but I'm not 100% on that).

I would argue that almost all movies are based on real human experiences- war, grief, love, etc.. Even the most fantastical plots are derived from real human issues- that's what makes them interesting.

It's actually really common for people to "thank God" for medical stuff - in real life, not even movies. My younger son had medical problems when he was a baby so I spent quite a bit of time in the pediatric hospital (I think parents are the worst for this, seriously) and I can't tell you how many times I heard "thank God- He answered my prayers!" ... way more than I ever heard "thank you, Doctor". I find that a lot of the time when people talk about God doing something great, they're not really thinking about what that means for someone that God didn't do that for, so they don't mean it in an offensive way (although I certainly can see how it could be taken that way). And if they do think of that, they say He works in mysterious ways, or He only takes those that he loves the most, or whatever, to make it "ok". It's strange to me too, but it's certainly not an unusual thing to happen in real life, so I wouldn't be remotely shocked to see a movie with that message (I'm sure there are some, but I don't know about them).

Movies can be escapism, sure (I work on movies, I've written screenplays, I know), but they can also be deeply emotional. Surely you've cried at a movie before, yes? Why? Because with a good screenplay, we can form a connection with the characters portrayed onscreen; we become engaged in their storylines and relate with their issues. Sometimes we like to see ourselves as a character in a movie: as part of this escapism, people sometimes project themselves onto a character they can relate with. Romantic comedies, for example, are popular because they're about regular people like us who fall in love through a storybook romance, depicting an idealized realization of what most of us look for in life. This is common in cinema, and in particular drama, and in particular drama involving real-world issues.

Nobody goes to a fictional movie looking for direct guidance, but they do sometimes go for catharsis. When a movie tackles a particular issue such as an illness, it's not a far-fetched idea to assume that a good portion of the audience could be people dealing with the same issues, people who'd like to project themselves into an inspirational story for the exact purpose of inspiration. It may not be a majority, but it does happen.

Having a movie where a central illness is cured by "the power of love" is indeed a trivialization, plus it's just bad screenwriting. You can't have an AIDS movie and then have the character suddenly cured of AIDS and everyone lives happily ever after. I mean, you *could*, sure, but that would be profoundly stupid because that's not how the real world works. As a movie, that fails on several levels: for an otherwise realistic film, presenting an implausible break from reality (especially a deus ex machina) is jarring and likely to sever that emotional connection from an audience. Specifically, to trivialize a real-life illness such as AIDS or cancer lightly enough that it can be completely healed with "the power of love" is both undoubtedly potentially offensive to people whose lives are affected by such things and also just really, really bad screenwriting altogether. Heck, I'd at least be willing to willing to accept "God did it" as a reason before I would vague "love".

Could I write a romantic movie about child molestation in which a child falls in love with their molestor and they live happily together? I could, and by your logic, people shouldn't get so upset about it because I'm presenting a fictionalized, non-realistic portrayal. There are some topics which you just shouldn't touch, and especially ones which you shouldn't trivialize.

I watched Silver Linings Playbook the other night on Netflix. It wasn't a "love is all you need" plot. He got better after his parents made him actually take his meds. The love part was where he fell for a girl who had her own problems. It wasn't about how to get better when you are bipolar, it was about how a guy with a lot of problems and a girl with a lot of problems met and fell in love in spite of all their problems.

It didn't focus on the fact that he took his meds, it actually only showed it for a second the same way it showed it for a second that he spit his meds out before, so it was easily missed. But, if you notice, he got better once he started being med compliant. I also didn't see it as love making him take the meds, I think his parents and fear of going back to the insane asylum made him take his meds.

It was a pretty good movie though. I had no idea that the girl was in the Hunger Games. I could swear I've seen her somewhere and I've never seen Hunger Games. After I watched this Netflix suggested that I watch "The Other Sister" which I did. I liked it. It was about a girl that they said was mentally ret*d and a guy who was that met and fell in love. They never really specified what either of their actual diagnoses were, but Netflix showed that before in results when I typed in autism. They didn't seem autistic to me either. Watch it if you are looking for a good romantic movie. It has Diane Keaton - always a good actress even when you don't like her character -, Tom Skerrit - another huge favorite of mine!-, and the guy who played Phoebe's brother on Friends. The main character seemed familiar but I can't place her and haven't looked her up on IMDB yet. They portrayed the couple the same way Hollywood plays anyone like that. Loud voices, childish behavior, typical speech impediments and obviously fake laughter. While I did enjoy the movie, the portrayal of them seemed a little forced.

Hollywood does that same thing to anyone who has any sort of mental deficit it seems. I used to know a Down Syndrome girl who came through my line every day years ago when I worked at the Piggely Wiggely. She is the only Down Syndrome person I've ever met, but she didn't talk like Hollywood portrays just about everybody with Down's. I've noticed that they have a stock voice and "accent" for Down's and implied or stated mental retardation, just like they do with Southerners. Every Southerner on TV or in the movies (except for the few actual Southerner's who are actors and actresses) has an Appalachian hillbilly accent combined with a Tidewater/Atlanta upper class accent. Nobody has that combination and Tidewater is different from Atlanta but they just combine them and some words come out as one while some come out as the other. You don't know that if you aren't from the South though.

They always seem to go over the top when they show bipolar folks too. I don't know if I know anybody bipolar or not, and even though some folks here thought I might be bipolar, I'm not at all. Bipolar people on film just go way overboard with everything and I seriously doubt they are that way in real life. You see the same thing with depression in film. People just can't function or bathe or clean when they are depressed in movies, and I suppose they go over the top so they get the point across but it's not very realistic.

That was basically the plot of the Brooke Shield's movie "Pretty Baby". I have no problem with the fact that movie was made. It was just a movie.