By Angelina Tang
The day before Halloween, I went and saw a horror movie. Nothing too special, just your typical yearly October horror movie. From a cinematography perspective, it was okay; typical jumpscare-y film, exorcist and religious tone, typical “but the horror isn’t over” ending that my well-versed-in-horror viewing companion disapproved of. From a storytelling perspective, however, I, as an author, had a slew of conflicting opinions.
The story pushed a multitude of themes, some of which contradict one another. For instance, having your main character forgive her abusive mother by excusing her actions as due to possession unintentionally pushes the message of “abusive parents must be forgiven to overcome trauma.” But without going into a full-length film review, the movie got me thinking about something else, too, something I’d studied over the summer–the demonization of schizophrenia, and, by extension, other mental illnesses in media, as well as the societal impacts such inaccurate depictions lead to and perpetuate.
In the movie, the main character’s demon-possessed, abusive mother was labeled as having schizophrenia. It’s not made clear whether this was a misattribution of the signs of being possessed (hearing voices, not fully being in control of one’s own reality), or rather that the character simply had schizophrenia and was also possessed, but either way, the demonization of a mentally ill, schizophrenic character was definitely there.
This is a trend that we unfortunately see in media time and time again, whether it be on the screen or in the pages. In particular, characters labeled as having schizophrenia are depicted as insane, criminal, or incapable of being sympathized with. Norman from Psycho (1960) and Miles from Schizo by Nic Sheff are two instances of poor rep.
Schizophrenia is most well-known for its symptoms of hallucinations and disordered thinking. We don’t experience the same sort of reality that they do, and thus, it’s harder to understand their thinking. This on its own already produces a sense of alienation, but the media portrayals of people with this diagnosis make it even worse; now, in addition to thinking people with schizophrenia are “weird,” the societal perspective has attached names such as “criminal” and “murderer” to them due to being portrayed as such in film.
Due to stigma, those with the diagnosis feel isolated; they may be afraid to tell their friends or family, thus destroying their support circle, and feel ashamed of their diagnosis. Such is the danger of labels existing at all–mental illness is different for everyone, since the way our brain functions is unique for each of us. By clumping people into groups based on a long, vague list of symptoms, you box them in and inevitably associate additional labels or symptoms with them that they may not have, such as the association with being criminals without self-control onto people labeled as schizophrenic.
Another major problem with inaccurate media portrayals is that that perspective finds its way into the mental health institution as well. This institution has severe flaws to begin with, from the basic concept to its execution and everything in between. The idea of having mental hospitals where one is medicated and “cured” of their mental illness pushes the message that being neurodivergent, or having a reality that isn’t “normal,” is equivalent to being sick and in need of fixing. This often makes those admitted feel even worse about themselves, and the lack of control over their own schedule stresses many patients out; when the problem is psychological, it certainly isn’t going to be fixed by placing further psychological stress on them.
Most mental hospitals around the country are also very poorly maintained. Based on the accounts of people who have been admitted in the past, these institutions are generally comparable to jails. Part of this is due to the fact that the workers at such places have preconceptions–ones often developed from media consumption–about the labels placed on their patients. Generally, people who have been diagnosed as mentally ill do not go into this field of work. These are “normal” caretakers treating people they believe to be crazy, criminal, and incapable of caring for themselves like children, or worse, animals. It’s no wonder the patients’ treatment is so poor when their own nurses have such a low image of them, and media misconceptions only exacerbate this problem.
With more positive representations, we could perhaps strive to reverse the narrative; even if we cannot completely reinvent the mental health institution and do away with harmful labels, we can remove some of the stigma by promoting a more welcoming and realistic image in popular culture. By changing society’s schema of what schizophrenia and other mental illnesses like DID and BPD are, we would take our first step towards creating a more just and open world.
