So, disclaimer. This thread is inspired by Joker, but I don't want it to be *about* Joker. This is about how the media and politicians talk about mental illness and violence, and how it's explored in fiction and how certain kinds of media reinforce harmful and misguided preconceptions. This is not meant to condemn any one work of fiction, but rather talk about problems and frustrations that stem from these sorts of things.
Now, to start off, some basic information. Despite what the current Presidential administration would have you believe, the recent mass shootings in the US have little to do with mental health. According to this article from the Academy of American Family Physicians, less than 1 % of gun crime is perpetrated by those with mental illness, and only 3-5% of violent crime is committed by someone with a mental illness. In fact, the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.
That last article also states that while it would be inaccurate to say there's no correlation (there is, and I have spoken erroneously on this subject in the past few days), this way of thinking creates "an untenable situationin which mental health practitioners increasingly become the persons most empowered to make decisions about gun ownership and most liable for failures to predict gun violence", and that it further stigmatizes an already marginalized subset of society who are under extreme societal pressure and distrust. I would go farther to personally argue that the government's continued argument that mental illness is the primary cause of mass shootings, in order to deflect from the issues of gun control, while simultaneously attacking health care and resources for the mentally ill, is pushing in the direction of effectively criminalizing mental illness—not explicitly, so, but in the sense of "driving while being mentally ill", and whatnot.
The second article I linked also brings up some important matters regarding race and social and class matters, which I think are also important to consider. Furthermore, one must also consider the role of environment and treatment of the mentally ill; while not all abuse victims become abusers, I am personally a victim of a kind of abuse that, in addition to occurring as I was (and still am) experiencing depression, attempted to influence my values, and as a result I learned harmful and abusive behaviors of my own that I am still working very hard to unlearn. By focusing solely on mental illness, you ignore contributing factors that also contribute to harmful and violent behavior, such as poverty, social status, and many others.
So where does fiction play a part? Well, I'd first begin by suggesting that there are primarily two kinds of stories about the mentally ill and neurodivergent: "oscar bait" and "the horror show". I'm not saying that these are the only kinds of stories that exist, for the record, but more that they are the most common.
"Oscar bait" stories involve the kinds of characters that are "inspirationally disadvantaged", who achieve impressive things even under the burden of mental illness, infirmity, or by being a super powered savant whose mind operates mysterrrrrriiiiiously different from the rest of society's. These stories serve to prop up the mentally ill and aneurotypical so long as they do in a way that "overcomes" their limitations and can be useful to/pass as normal in society. In much the same way that a wheelchair bound person is considered heroic if they manage to regain the ability to walk, but apparently not so by continuing to use their chair, it creates the expectation for people who struggle with these matters to not just deal with the matter of what makes them different, but excel in the eyes of "normal society". These kinds of stories may or may not include whitewashing of negative aspects of mental illness, but often does.
As for the "horror show", this is where the pretext of mental illness is set against the imagery and themes of violence, either by making the mentally ill violent, or enacting violence against them. If a mentally ill person is the central character of a narrative, they are also more typically the villain, villain protagonist, or victim of violence; they can be all three of these things, as well. If a mentally ill character is ONLY a victim, it is more likely that they are a secondary character, whose victimization serves to motivate the (usually) non-neurodivergent protagonist.
It goes further. In the case of mentally ill villains/anti-villains/anti-"heroes", they are usually given traits of autistic individuals, depressives, or others on the neurodivergent spectrum in order to create a sense of otherness. Often, many traits of particular mental conditions are exaggerated, portrayed inaccurately, or equivocated with the villainous persona. Mental health facilities are often portrayed in a similar manner to a haunted house, or the center of some kind of cult, or as if it were a sterile, clean-looking house of cards just waiting to crumble and reveal the darkness beneath. And if a mental health practitioner is not busy playing the role of the actual main character, who has a mentally ill person as a friend or patient, they are often themselves portrayed as villainous or violent as well.
This kind of stigmatization serves only to increase distrust towards the mentally ill, while also othering them, and reinforcing notions like the government's that mental illness is a precursor to violence. Not only that, it stigmatizes the professionals and care facilities that exist to give help to the people who need it. Therapists are fine provided that they can help Chad work out his relationship with his distant father or help Stacy learn to manage work with her personal life, but lo, beware that one might spend too much time looking into the darkness lest they find darkness within themselves!
Through all of this, the notion of sociopathy and psychopathy are often found. Despite its prevelence in media, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual does not include an entry for psychopathy, and most psychiatric organizations avoid the term as well. The term sociopath meanwhile is used to refer to those who suffer from anti-social personality disorder, with most fictional portrayals of the condition focusing on and exaggerating its violent tendencies while minimizing the effects of the negative disorder on the person who suffers from it. Both of these attitudes are, arguably, done in service of "medicalizing" the idea of evil, by othering those who commit acts of violence and separating them from normal people and casting the mentally ill further into the category of "inhuman". Psychopathy too also has its origins in the idea of genetics and degeneracy, and when it fell out of favor to say that the worst of people committed crime because of their genetic or racial background, it instead became fashionable and easier to say instead that their brains aren't right.
What then about the tortured mad man? The violent individual in fiction who gets pushed so far, his fall from grace is portrayed as tragic, with the implication that society failed him and that all the harm he did could have been prevented? Where things like environment, upbringing, and economics ARE acknowledged. This plays into what I talked about above; it helps feed the notion that the prevention of violent crime is the responsibility of the mental health institution. But more importantly than that, it also combines "oscar bait" with "horror show", creating an exploitative play at sympathy while simultaneously engaging in the harmful othering and inaccuracies that are rife throughout works like these. And given the limited scope of stories featuring the mentally ill and neurodivergent, it feels as though it's sending the message that "you need to start taking care of the mentally ill or else there's going to be negative repercussions for the rest of us." In other words, take care of these dangerous people, lest the lions decide to escape their cage, bringing danger to us all.
We need more stories where mental illness and neurodivergence is normal. Where it's incidental. Where it's allowed to be portrayed with empathy and understanding, where the struggles of dealing with it are as normal as two people trying to work out their relationship. For things to truly change in how the mentally ill are treated, fiction needs to stop treating it as if it were a sideshow, a spectacle, or treated as if they were a horror movie monster.
At the same time, I'm not saying that in doing so one should whitewash the struggles or ugly parts of these kinds of experiences, but it should be done with a sense of social awareness and empathy.
Now, to start off, some basic information. Despite what the current Presidential administration would have you believe, the recent mass shootings in the US have little to do with mental health. According to this article from the Academy of American Family Physicians, less than 1 % of gun crime is perpetrated by those with mental illness, and only 3-5% of violent crime is committed by someone with a mental illness. In fact, the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.
That last article also states that while it would be inaccurate to say there's no correlation (there is, and I have spoken erroneously on this subject in the past few days), this way of thinking creates "an untenable situationin which mental health practitioners increasingly become the persons most empowered to make decisions about gun ownership and most liable for failures to predict gun violence", and that it further stigmatizes an already marginalized subset of society who are under extreme societal pressure and distrust. I would go farther to personally argue that the government's continued argument that mental illness is the primary cause of mass shootings, in order to deflect from the issues of gun control, while simultaneously attacking health care and resources for the mentally ill, is pushing in the direction of effectively criminalizing mental illness—not explicitly, so, but in the sense of "driving while being mentally ill", and whatnot.
The second article I linked also brings up some important matters regarding race and social and class matters, which I think are also important to consider. Furthermore, one must also consider the role of environment and treatment of the mentally ill; while not all abuse victims become abusers, I am personally a victim of a kind of abuse that, in addition to occurring as I was (and still am) experiencing depression, attempted to influence my values, and as a result I learned harmful and abusive behaviors of my own that I am still working very hard to unlearn. By focusing solely on mental illness, you ignore contributing factors that also contribute to harmful and violent behavior, such as poverty, social status, and many others.
So where does fiction play a part? Well, I'd first begin by suggesting that there are primarily two kinds of stories about the mentally ill and neurodivergent: "oscar bait" and "the horror show". I'm not saying that these are the only kinds of stories that exist, for the record, but more that they are the most common.
"Oscar bait" stories involve the kinds of characters that are "inspirationally disadvantaged", who achieve impressive things even under the burden of mental illness, infirmity, or by being a super powered savant whose mind operates mysterrrrrriiiiiously different from the rest of society's. These stories serve to prop up the mentally ill and aneurotypical so long as they do in a way that "overcomes" their limitations and can be useful to/pass as normal in society. In much the same way that a wheelchair bound person is considered heroic if they manage to regain the ability to walk, but apparently not so by continuing to use their chair, it creates the expectation for people who struggle with these matters to not just deal with the matter of what makes them different, but excel in the eyes of "normal society". These kinds of stories may or may not include whitewashing of negative aspects of mental illness, but often does.
As for the "horror show", this is where the pretext of mental illness is set against the imagery and themes of violence, either by making the mentally ill violent, or enacting violence against them. If a mentally ill person is the central character of a narrative, they are also more typically the villain, villain protagonist, or victim of violence; they can be all three of these things, as well. If a mentally ill character is ONLY a victim, it is more likely that they are a secondary character, whose victimization serves to motivate the (usually) non-neurodivergent protagonist.
It goes further. In the case of mentally ill villains/anti-villains/anti-"heroes", they are usually given traits of autistic individuals, depressives, or others on the neurodivergent spectrum in order to create a sense of otherness. Often, many traits of particular mental conditions are exaggerated, portrayed inaccurately, or equivocated with the villainous persona. Mental health facilities are often portrayed in a similar manner to a haunted house, or the center of some kind of cult, or as if it were a sterile, clean-looking house of cards just waiting to crumble and reveal the darkness beneath. And if a mental health practitioner is not busy playing the role of the actual main character, who has a mentally ill person as a friend or patient, they are often themselves portrayed as villainous or violent as well.
This kind of stigmatization serves only to increase distrust towards the mentally ill, while also othering them, and reinforcing notions like the government's that mental illness is a precursor to violence. Not only that, it stigmatizes the professionals and care facilities that exist to give help to the people who need it. Therapists are fine provided that they can help Chad work out his relationship with his distant father or help Stacy learn to manage work with her personal life, but lo, beware that one might spend too much time looking into the darkness lest they find darkness within themselves!
Through all of this, the notion of sociopathy and psychopathy are often found. Despite its prevelence in media, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual does not include an entry for psychopathy, and most psychiatric organizations avoid the term as well. The term sociopath meanwhile is used to refer to those who suffer from anti-social personality disorder, with most fictional portrayals of the condition focusing on and exaggerating its violent tendencies while minimizing the effects of the negative disorder on the person who suffers from it. Both of these attitudes are, arguably, done in service of "medicalizing" the idea of evil, by othering those who commit acts of violence and separating them from normal people and casting the mentally ill further into the category of "inhuman". Psychopathy too also has its origins in the idea of genetics and degeneracy, and when it fell out of favor to say that the worst of people committed crime because of their genetic or racial background, it instead became fashionable and easier to say instead that their brains aren't right.
What then about the tortured mad man? The violent individual in fiction who gets pushed so far, his fall from grace is portrayed as tragic, with the implication that society failed him and that all the harm he did could have been prevented? Where things like environment, upbringing, and economics ARE acknowledged. This plays into what I talked about above; it helps feed the notion that the prevention of violent crime is the responsibility of the mental health institution. But more importantly than that, it also combines "oscar bait" with "horror show", creating an exploitative play at sympathy while simultaneously engaging in the harmful othering and inaccuracies that are rife throughout works like these. And given the limited scope of stories featuring the mentally ill and neurodivergent, it feels as though it's sending the message that "you need to start taking care of the mentally ill or else there's going to be negative repercussions for the rest of us." In other words, take care of these dangerous people, lest the lions decide to escape their cage, bringing danger to us all.
We need more stories where mental illness and neurodivergence is normal. Where it's incidental. Where it's allowed to be portrayed with empathy and understanding, where the struggles of dealing with it are as normal as two people trying to work out their relationship. For things to truly change in how the mentally ill are treated, fiction needs to stop treating it as if it were a sideshow, a spectacle, or treated as if they were a horror movie monster.
At the same time, I'm not saying that in doing so one should whitewash the struggles or ugly parts of these kinds of experiences, but it should be done with a sense of social awareness and empathy.
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