MHA's Blog: Chiming In

Comedy and mental health have always gone hand in hand. There’s an old saying that comedians need to be miserable to be funny. In recent years, more comedians have been vocal about what’s making them miserable.  Comedians have been more open about their mental health conditions and trauma they’ve suffered. Maria Bamford’s Special Special Special takes it to a new level, though.

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The Three Faces of Eve, made in 1958, is one of the earliest films to deal with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).  Despite being tied to its time, the movie handles the illness with intelligence and sympathy.  In a time when movies were censored for content, how did this movie get made?

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The debate over whether people with mental illnesses are a threat to society has gone on for an extraordinarily long time. Despite the overwhelming evidence that having a mental illness does not make you violent, there has always been a group of people who feel that locking them away from “normal” society will make the world a better place.  Being sick allows society to refuse them their Constitutional rights to a fair trial because their actions make people uncomfortable. This fight is often fought on the ground, as it were, with the police and in the court system.

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I wanted to discuss the way pop culture deals with veteran’s mental health, and to my surprise, a number of potential options appeared. Veterans are a common topic on TV procedurals (stereotypically watched by traditional, middle Americans who love apple pie and freedom), and due to the two wars and the influx of baby boomers remembering how Vietnam veterans were treated, the topic comes up a lot. The theme is usually how the government has failed veterans (and how they have!) and how the local community needs to step up and take care of them. Often, one of the main characters of the show is a veteran himself. Shows like NCIS, CSI and Bones have characters that are veterans, and have episodes about veteran’s issues. Recently, the issue has appeared in a more complicated fashion on more complicated cable shows like Justified and Sherlock. One episode about veterans that stuck with me is Criminal Minds’ “Distress,” from its second season.

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After hearing about it since last summer, I finally got a chance to see Silver Linings Playbook. The movie has been on a tear since its release, winning The American Film institute Best Picture of the Year, The Toronto Film Festival People Choice Award, and the Independent Spirit Award Best Picture of the Year. In addition, it was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, the Golden Globes and the Producer’s Guild. Stars Jennifer Laurence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver all racked up numerous nominations for their work. But was it actually any good? Was the mental health piece of the movie an honest portrayal of people with bipolar disorder?

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