Mental illnesses refer collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders or health conditions that involve significant changes in thinking, emotion, functioning, and behaviour that cause distress or consequences in social, occupational, or familial activities.
Freudian psychoanalysis claims that many mental disorders are caused because of childhood abuse, trauma, or neglect. Other perspectives believe certain traits or conditions are hereditary or are caused by developmental defects in the brain as we physiologically develop.
The primary misconceptions on psychological disorders stem from how the media portrays the same. The press exaggerates violence, for example, so strongly and correlates it with a mental illness, so anytime we see someone violent, we assume they are psychologically troubled. Violence risks come along with substance abuse, but it’s wrong to generalise and stigmatise. We often find mental illnesses accompanied by headlines like, ‘man with mental illness goes on stabbing rampage.’ Still, people don’t know that a person with a mental illness is ten times more likely to be a victim of violence than the one committing it.
It’s horrifying to watch industries like film and beauty use mental illnesses as scare tactics to boost sales or television shows where references to mental illnesses are nothing more than one-liner jokes.
Some movie creators have noble intentions but fail to execute them correctly. As a result, they end up hurting, not aiding, the community they wanted to help, as exemplified by the movie ‘Music,’ directed, written, and produced by Sia, a famous Australian singer. This movie sheds light on Zu’s (the protagonist) challenges she faces as she experiences raising a young autistic girl.
While her initial intention was to represent the autistic community and explore the themes of finding your voice and creating a family, she faced retaliation on the choice of casting and how the movie-makers created the scenes.
For the role of the young autistic girl, famous dancer Maddie Ziegler was cast instead of an autistic actress. When asked why she didn’t choose an actress on the autistic spectrum, she replied by saying that she attempted working with actresses with autism. Still, they found the environment too stressful and could not handle it – a statement that directly contradicted the very essence of acceptance in the movie.
The other backlash they faced was that the movie was not friendly for people on the autism spectrum to watch because of the fast, constant flashes of colours and bright light. Most people on the autism spectrum are sensitive to light, sound, and other such stimuli; hence the flashes of light during the dance numbers are not something they would find comfortable.
It is imperative to remain aware and understand these themes before commenting on them or building exaggerated versions of the same. Acceptance needs to be the primary response when exposed to any psychological topic. If we can achieve this, we will indeed have become a new, open society.
