Pop Culture and Mental Health: How Hollywood Has Humanized Mental Health
With mental health conditions being represented by many characters in movies, both “hero” and “villain”, how has Hollywood shifted away from harmful stereotypes and stigmas?
Image by NAMI
In popular culture, many times scriptwriters will base protagonists of films on relatable scenarios. Along with this, the antagonists will be portrayed as having common negative experiences from our daily lives. Though it is common for both the hero and the villain of the story to be thought of as having a certain mental health condition, one thing that Hollywood has done remarkably well is the personification and accurate portrayal of conditions, reducing its contributions to generalizations and stigmas regarding mental health.
With the example of Joker (2019), the directors and actors ensured that research was done to accurately portray The Joker’s life events that led to him becoming a commonly-recognized villain, humanizing him and making us realize that some conditions may be developed in response to events that are out of our control. This was noted by Kamran Ahmed, an Australian journalist in his article “As a psychiatrist, I was blown away by the latest Joker”, and it is noted that the most recent film focuses on humanizing a commonly-recognized joker, instead of villainizing him based off of outdated statements. As Ahmed also notes, former comic strips were guilty of this, with even Batman himself using inaccurate rhetoric to describe The Joker. This is a major step by the film industry, recognizing that there are events that can cause people to struggle with mental health, and that they shouldn’t simply be villainized.
With the example of Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Hollywood has accurately portrayed the struggles of a person living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A Wired article by Vasilis K. Pozios, M.D., and Praveen R. Kambam, “How Bad Is Katniss' PTSD in The Hunger Games? We Asked the Experts” analyzes the accuracy of Jennifer Lawrence’s theatrical portrayal of Everdeen using the DSM-5 questionnaire, and determines that her portrayal matches up with symptoms of PTSD. By accurately portraying symptoms of PTSD such as trauma and avoidance, while also being careful not to overgeneralize the symptoms, the portrayal of a character with PTSD contributes to her humanization as much as possible.
In conclusion, as we strive to make many voices heard, we also want to ensure they are accurate. Hollywood is doing just that through the portrayal of characters, whether hero or villain, who live with mental health conditions. By humanizing the characters who represent mental health conditions, and a shift away from harmful, previously-used language, the movie industry is becoming more and more progressive in the way it portrays challenges that may impact many of us.