Is Accuracy Enough When Depicting Mental Health on Film? - Psychology Today

Many believe that the portrayal of Jeffrey Dahmer in the Netflix series Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story is accurate. But is accuracy enough when it comes to portraying mental health conditions on screen?

As director of the new Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab for the Promotion of Mental Health via Cinematic Arts at Northwestern University (PPSL), I have hosted many conversations about film and mental health with guests drawn from psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, film studies, religious studies, and Hollywood, and we have studied many movies and TV shows together. I've come to believe that compelling representations of mental health are often the result of a complex interaction of accuracy, artistic license, and other factors.

For example, the psychiatrist and PPSL Board Member Crystal T. Clark introduced me to the "Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am" episode of the Amazon series Modern Love, in which Anne Hathaway's character (whom we discover suffers from bipolar disorder) is seen moving through life as if she were in a brightly-colored musical. Suddenly, though, she falls to bed in depression and can barely keep a date she made. In the real world, though, crowds of people don't dance with you in the street when you are in your manic stage. That's definitely inaccurate. Also, you don't suddenly fall into depression; it's a gradual process, but boy, does it make for effective TV and add to our understanding of bipolar disorder.

In darker terrain, films like Fight Club and Psycho do not accurately depict dissociative identity disorder (DID). In fact, DID might not even technically exist, so how could it be portrayed accurately? Still, being cut off from part of your consciousness is a real experience — if not one as extreme as what we see depicted. And these films are undoubtedly influential works of cinema that profoundly affect their audiences.

Some horror films may present the most accurate media portraits of mental health we've seen – from The Babadook to Get Out to La Llorona. Such works highlight the isolation of mothering a child with special needs, repressed grief, and trauma caused by racism or genocide. Yet horror can also be exploitative and use trauma simply to entertain.

Back to Dahmer, which has taken great pains to be accurate in its portrayal of Jeffrey Dahmer's psychology, but still, there have been questions: What is the motivation for making the series now? And what is the impact on the victims' families or the LGBTQIA community? And doesn't this series further isolate those with mental health concerns by choosing to depict such a violent and disturbed individual?

Significantly, in our lab, we expose student screenwriters and filmmakers to as many voices and perspectives as possible. They are encouraged to decide for themselves: Is accuracy the most important aspect? When does creative license trump accuracy? What are the ethics of my depiction, even if it is accurate, especially when my characters are based on real people? Who is helped? Who is hurt? Is what I'm portraying helping to normalize mental health or further isolating those with mental health concerns? Ultimately, what is my goal as a writer and filmmaker, and what techniques do I feel comfortable using?

Bottom line: If your goal is to normalize mental health conditions, whether bipolar disorder, DID, or sociopathy (as is portrayed in Dahmer), you should be encouraged to present the most nuanced depictions whenever you can and to keep the question, Is my portrayal accurate?, always on the table. But at the same time and perhaps ironically, as Dahmer has shown, you should know that accurate depictions alone do not necessarily lead to the kind of positive change you may desire. Instead, it may take more reflection, art, and innovation.

Adblock test (Why?)

Article From & Read More ( Is Accuracy Enough When Depicting Mental Health on Film? - Psychology Today )
https://ift.tt/vyADtSN
Film

Bagikan Berita Ini