Tales from a Bruised Mind

In today’s episode of Tales from a Bruised Mind, I’ll be taking a little look at how Hollywood has played a role in understanding mental illness, what movies stick out to me as important ones, not just in a relatable sense, but also influential for me.

Hollywood Industry and mental illness

Much in the way that mental illness is still not very commonly talked about in our everyday lives, Hollywood has also had limited dealings with the subject. So much so I found it hard to find any information on why and how the film industry has chosen to shy away from the topic.

However, I came across a fascinating research paper on mental illness and how it is depicted in film, which you can read in full at the link here. The research found that for most of the time, characters with mental illness depicted in Hollywood films were represented as violent figures and heavily stigmatised.

The research also found that mental health professionals were also represented in a ‘antagonistic and misleading manner’. Sure, Nurse Ratched was certainly pretty evil, but I can assure you there are very many amazing doctors in the real world!

Of all the films out there in the world, very few go into detail about bipolar disorder. Some of the main films include Silver Linings Playbook, Shutter Island, and Love & Mercy.

But which one did I find the most relatable?

Important films that have influenced me

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest

The famous Jack Nicholson film from 1975 might not be a true depiction of bipolar or schizoaffective disorders, but it does a bloody good job at depicting life in a psychiatric ward. When I first saw this film, I was simply blown away by it. The wild people, the seclusion, the loneliness, the terrors, the fear of not knowing when you were going to get out. When I was admitted twice in two years to a locked psychiatric ward, it felt like a prison. When I got back to my regular life and watched this film, everything made sense. The film is so well done, it’s one of my all-time favourites.

Love & Mercy

If you’ve been following along on my story, or read my book, you may have heard me talk about The Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson. In 2014, a movie was made about him and it wasn’t completely about the music. But it was also about Brian’s endless struggle with his mind and the treatment he was put under his doctor at the time, Eugene Landy. Landy wasn’t a very nice bloke (he actually ended up getting his doctor’s licence revoked completely and told to never contact Wilson ever again) but the story surrounding the whole time is fascinating.

Love & Mercy is an amazing film and pretty accurately depicts the feelings of having a serious meltdown, or as I like to call it, an mental episode.

More films on bipolar? Mental illness is simply not talked about yet

Like everyday society, Hollywood still has some way to go to supporting mental health properly and telling some still unspoken stories.

But it’s unlikely to do so unless there is money involved. Despite mental illness impacting so many of us, how many would watch a 90 minute movie about it?

I guess it’s just early days still, but we could see a lot more in the mental health space in the coming years.

What do you think about mental health’s depiction in films?

Zak