Mental illness in movies is typically showcased in a less-than-positive light. Those with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia are often showcased as violent criminals. Think Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho or Kevin Wendell Crumb in M. Knight Shyamalan’s Split – both main characters suffer from some sort of mental illness and both are portrayed as violent individuals to some degree. This is a very typical practice of Hollywood productions. Typically, characters that suffer from mental illness are showcased as violent criminals or as outcasts to society. In Crant’s piece “The Relationship Between Media Portrayal of Schizophrenia and Those with Schizophrenia,” she cites a study that as completed in which 50 participants were shown various movie clips that depicted different mental illnesses such as drug addiction and schizophrenia in both negative and positive lights. For this study, the evidence suggested that the way in which the participants were exposed to mental illness through media influenced their perception of said mental illnesses to some degree. Based on how the mind develops different prejudices based on different life experiences, it is not hard to believe that this effect is seen on people outside of this study and in the general public as well. However, contrary to these very stereotypical Hollywood portrayals, the character of Owen Milgrim in Netflix’s mini-series Maniac is not portrayed as having violent or disturbing actions in his everyday life. Instead, Milgrim’s character develops throughout the show from a quiet and solitary schizophrenic man ready to lie on trial for his criminal brother to a cured man that stood up to his controlling family. This powerful shift in depiction of those with mental illness in Maniac helps decrease the stigma that schizophrenics or sufferers of other various mental illnesses are typically violent criminals that need to be feared. Instead, Milgrim is depicted as a relatively normal person with relatively normal tendencies which erases the stigma to a degree.
Informational Sources:
CRANT, JULIA. “The Relationship between Media Portrayal of Schizophrenia and
Attitudes toward Those with Schizophrenia.” Journal of the Indiana Academy of the
Social Sciences, vol. 21, no. 1, May 2018, pp. 192–198. EBSCOhost
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=a9h&AN=136144910&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Image Sources:
– https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054215/
– https://netflixs-maniac.fandom.com/wiki/4200367/owen-milgrim
Mental Health 