I watch a lot of genres. Most lead characters have baggage. (I mentioned this in a previous blog.) However, these days many characters are depicted with having mental health issues. The main directive is to show a character as crazy, violent, anti-social, completely out of their minds, and most of all as a murderer. It is mental illness versus Criminality. This is not always a good or realistic portrayal. I actually think it stigmatizes people in the real world who have mental health issues.
However, one of my heroes is Carrie from Homeland. She has Bipolar 1 Disorder, as do I. She is very smart, brave, intuitive, thinks outside the box, and can piece together minutiae of assorted evidence. She actually uses her illness to her advantage, though I never thought it was a smart idea to go off her medications to solve a case. Carrie’s Bipolar 1 Disorder is portrayed rather accurately. it was the first time I had seen someone depicted with this mental illness almost completely factually.
There are the scary crazy criminally insane people like Jack Nicholson’s character Jack, in The Shining. I was mortally terrified of this character and even finding out what he was retyping on his typewriter, ”All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy”, was so skin crawling creepy, yikes! He goes out of his mind, but it is not quite apparent right away. His deterioration is subtle, increasingly disturbing, and then seriously overt. it is almost like he contains it on paper, then it creeps outward to his family, to the entire house. When Jack’s insanity gets to his peak he is outside in a plow. It is as if his mind has been let out into the world, and nobody is safe. His insanity is at its peak.
Here is a list on Ranker that indicates the highest ranking psychopaths in film. https://www.ranker.com/list/psychopath-movies/ranker-film
Even comedies delve into the progression into insanity and a desire to murder. Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus – The Pink Panther Series (1964-93) eats himself away inside over Inspector Clouseau. He tries to kill Clouseau repeatedly. His failures to kill him draw him further into craziness. Dreyfus even gets facial tics as he deteriorates. And yes, I found this hysterical. Apparently mental illness can be amusing.
Another Jack Nicholson film where he is insane is in another iconic film, One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest. Actually he had anti-social personality disorder. Here Jack Nicholson plays a prisoner who is sent to a mental ward, where he encounters men who have different levels of mental illness. In addition, these men have several types of mental illnesses. Nicholson plays Randle Patrick McMurphy, or RP. In some sense RP gives them all a sense of purpose by rebelling against the sadistic nurse Rached, and the ”system”. Rached, however, is also mentally ill with, dissociative identity disorder.
It is tragic; seeing people convulsive on a table, being given Shock Therapy. The archaic ways, which people dealt with mental illness is all too apparent in this film. Their eventual freedom from being institutionalized is refreshing, but no less tragic, as their lives will never be free like this again.
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tTP1TcwrygpLDRg9JLPz0tVSMtJLVfIL0stUijJSFVILk3Ozs9XL1bISy0uAQBDXw8T&q=one+flew+over+the+cuckoo%27s+nest&rlz=1C9BKJA_enCA590CA590&oq=one+flew+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j46i67j46i512j0i512l2.3945j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Oddness is somewhat acceptable these days. Mostly odd characters in animated TV and film count on their list of oddball characters. The Adams Family, both a cartoon, TV show and film, showed people who were creepy, bizarre, drawn to horror. The odd one in the family was the ”normal white girl“, or is that the Munsters?
Odd detectives, some who are mentally ill with drug use and alcoholic, among schizophrenia, and Bipolar Disorders. Sherlock Holmes is a clear example that has been around for ages. Sherlock is a Cocaine Addict, and in Elementary, he is a hard core Heroin addict.
Creativity and Mental Health issues are sometimes synonymous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_and_mental_health In reality, their are geniuses who have had severe mental illnesses. https://www.northernlakescmh.org/learn/general-mental-health-topics/famous-people-who-have-had-a-mental-illness/
Mental illness should not always be synonymous with violence. Most soldiers do not have mental illness, and they are taught to kill. Depictions of characters having mental illness and doing harm is not statistically correct. It puts people who are suffering from mental illness in the hot seat. Making harsh accusations of people who already are suffering without any help, are more than ripe for jail time. And their nightmares just become greater.
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