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6 Ways Hollywood Totally Sucks At Portraying Mental Health
http://ift.tt/2qI4OwL And then there's Silver Linings Playbook, which has this scene, where Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence talk about all the medicines they've tried that make them not as "sharp," and bond over how they stopped taking them. While some people definitely do get put on medications that leave them feeling flat, gray, or tired all the time, the takeaway here really shouldn't be "Well, I guess all medicine is bullshit. Better try ballroom dancing instead!" 1 "Split Personalities Are Separate, Complete People!" Hollywood usually portrays someone with dissociative identity disorder (what used to be called "multiple-personality disorder") as a character who is actually two or more full characters, often with their own names, outfits, and at least one annoying accent. In movies like Secret Window or Split, the personalities can even talk to each other, and often they'll fight until at least one of them is vanquished (usually the evil-er one).
Hollywood's take on DID is a tempting premise, especially as a cheap reveal (see: The Club Where They All Fight) or lazy, red-herring generator in a murder plot. For instance, all the clues may point to a woman, so this man couldn't have done it -- but actually, the "woman" was his cross-dressing alternate personality, as in Dressed To Kill, Psycho, and a whole bunch of shows. Yet another reason for this gimmick's popularity is that actors fucking love it, because they can show off their vaunted range. But here's the thing with DID -- some researchers believe that the disorder is actually induced in suggestible patients by their psychologists/psychiatrists (who are probably Hitchcock fans themselves). In fact, as we've mentioned before, possibly the most famous pop-culture portrayal of this disorder, Sybil, was basically a long con in book/movie form. In any case, DID isn't supposed to be about multiple, distinct personalities -- it's about the fragmentation of a single identity. Think of a vase breaking into tiny shards, not into a bunch of full-sized, functional vases.
It's been decades since medical science made this important distinction (hence the name change), but Hollywood's still stuck on the old, tired stereotype because, well, cocaine, we guess. Yeah, two can play that game. Nimby Smith thinks about TV all the time and can be reached at Nimby (dot) Writer (at) Gmail (dot) Com, if any fancy Hollywood agents are interested in TV scripts. Also check out 6 Mental Illness Myths Hollywood Wants You To Believe and 5 Ways We Are Absolutely Lost When It Comes To Mental Health. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out The One Self-Help Group We'd Actually Join, and other videos you won't see on the site! Follow us on Facebook, and we'll follow you everywhere. Gear up for a very important mission with The Guardians Of The Galaxy with this adorable Groot tee. Or show off your quiet intensity in this nifty Drax shirt. Hurry, the universe NEEDS you. Funny via Cracked: All Posts http://www.cracked.com May 5, 2017 at 01:02AM
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