6 Mental Illness Myths Hollywood Wants You to Believe
Mental illness is one of those issues that not even smart people have a good grasp of. So we probably shouldn't be surprised that Hollywood's treatment of it is about as informed and respectful as showing up drunk to a stranger's funeral and crapping in the casket.
From serial killer movies to sappy mental hospital dramas, Hollywood uses mental illness as a convenient plot point, often forgetting to do even five minutes of Googling on the subject first. As a result we get things like...
#6.
The Magic Key/Instant Cure
On the Season 6 premiere of House, our hero discovers that a catatonic patient is constantly staring at something in the nurses' office. Anyone without House's keen intellect would've assumed that "something" was a ham sandwich, but House discovers that it's actually a music box which, when played, brings this particular patient back to the land of not pissing on herself in the corner (keep in mind this is something the staff has failed to notice for years, but Hugh Laurie spots in a single goddamn day).
But it's not just in medical dramas. We've seen this in pretty much all of the Hannibal Lecter movies (figuring out the one thing that makes the killer an insane murder machine allows the cops to predict who, when and where he'll strike next) and in every film where the primary villain gets talked out of his psychotic master plan by a hero that "understands" him.
Hell, that's even the ending of Spider-Man 2: Spidey talking Doc Ock out of his murderous insanity. "You're completely right, Spider-Man, I did say that people need to let dreams go sometimes. To Hell with my dead wife and everything else that I've lost, I'm totally pulling this fusion reactor on top of myself to save the lives of all the people I was hell-bent on vaporizing mere seconds ago."
In the medical community, this phenomena is known as "complete and utter whale shit" [citation needed], but in Hollywood it's call it "the magic key."
"Just stick this in your crazy hole and we'll unlock the sanity!"
See, Hollywood is convinced that sometimes there is just one specific thing that has to be discovered in order to cure a person of their shoelace-eating lunacy--or at least unravel the mystery behind it--long-term treatment and medication be damned.
Why It's Bullshit:
Simply put, psychology is not a game of Jenga, wherein one crucial block can bring down the entire tower of mental illness. No one factor made the person snap, and shoving one thing back into place won't make them whole. If it did, this mental illness stuff would be easy.
In the real world people with severe personality disorders are about as predictable as the weather, and so far the fact that we all know what causes lightning hasn't helped us figure out when and where it's going to strike with any kind of certainty.
For instance, think about all those cinematic serial killers brought to justice by the cunning insight of a psychological profiler. In real life that shit only leads to arrests about two percent of the time. The linked Malcolm Gladwell article took a comprehensive look at serial killer profiling and found that it's nothing more than cold reading - a parlor trick utilized by old-timey magicians and psychics to con people into thinking their mind was being read. People want to believe that Sherlock Holmes and his modern day incarnation, Dr. House (or Ben Matlock for you high-brow types) really exists. In reality, the only cases of successful psychological profiling were heavily doctored by the profilers themselves to make their predictions seem more accurate.
"And here's where I'll tell them the killer's address instead of screwing up everyone's lunch order like I actually did!"
#5.
A Day With a Crazy Badass Shall Cure Them All
There's seemingly one person in every silver screen mental hospital who's there either by choice or because the squares on the outside couldn't deal with how "real" they are. See Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted; or Michael Keaton in The Dream Team. Once they get inside, the rebellion starts small--screwing with the staff, shaking the other patients out of their passivity and generally doing things that in any other situation would brand you a totally disruptive penis.
Like this.
Whether it's by getting them to refuse to take their medication, taking them on an unsupervised adventure through the city or getting one of them laid, the rebel does more to help these poor nuts in one day than all their doctors and nurses with their fancy big city book learning have done in years.
Why It's Bullshit:
This isn't just idiotic, it's insulting. It plays to that stupid Hollywood notion that decades of schooling and experience with thousands of patients means nothing compared to one tough guy ready to give them a good old fashioned kick in the pants.
Tough guys.
See, if you could really break somebody out of a psychological shell with a single unsupervised trip led by a gruff tour guide in a leather jacket, we would fucking do that. That's way easier than what we're doing now.
But it's not the implied insult toward the mental health profession that makes this so irritating. It's the implication that in each crazy person, good mental health is lurking about one-inch beneath the surface, ready to be cured in a couple of days. So when somebody raised on these movies actually runs into an actual mentally ill person, they can't help but wonder why they don't just get over it already.
"You all need to stop being such GODDAMN LUNATICS."
#4.
Electroshock Treatment is a Savage, Primitive Treatment
According to movies like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Shine, A Beautiful Mind and Changeling, electroshock treatment (electroconvulsive therapy or ECT) is the equivalent of treating testicular cancer with thumbtacks and a crescent wrench.
A bunch of savagely indifferent doctors strap some poor bastard down and try to shock the crazy out - leaving the victim docile, slightly charred and with a bucket of fried chicken where their brain used to be. The portrayal of ECT is so overwhelmingly negative that it frequently gets picked last for kickball, behind Nazis and child molesters.
Go ahead and get in kids. It's not like he's got an ECT machine in there.
Why It's Bullshit:
In reality, ECT works and it's safe. It's painless and has the same level of risk as general anesthesia, and has been used successfully for years to treat depression. Patients who undergo the treatment typically find themselves more engaged, more active and altogether happier people.
See? Look how happy he is.
The only negative thing is that they have to keep getting the treatment to stay healthy. And as for the screaming, struggling patient being dragged down the hall to the electroshock room? Unless the patient is catatonic and their life is in immediate danger, ECT can only be administered with informed consent.
See, Hollywood always leaves out the part where the doctors sit down and carefully explain the benefits and risks of ECT to their patient so a rational decision can be made. Then they drag them down the hall to shock their balls off.
I get the feeling this article was only half-researched. #2 and #1 are especially glaring.
Reply#1 is not inaccurate. It just doesn't tell the whole story. However, it is completely true that most "Amnesia" sufferers in movies are completely inaccurate. The provided form of Amnesia by the writer is one type.
I know a guy with that kind of amnesia.
#2 is also incorrect. The reason that psychopath and sociopath are interchangeable in film is because they are interchangeable in the psychological community as well; the two terms are equivalent to the more modern Antisocial Personality Disorder and mean the same thing, as hermaphrodite and intersexed mean the same thing. A psychopath is essentially someone who lacks empathy for others. "Glibness and superficial charm" is one of the criteria for sociopathy, on the Bob Hare checklist- meaning that being charming is one of the hallmark characteristics of a sociopath. I'm not sure whether it's correct that a majority of psychopaths were poor, but from what I've read that seems doubtful, as it seems to be at least partially biologically based, meaning it can occur in anyone and is often suggested to be a hallmark of rather successful people. There is much about the diagnosis that is still unknown and much that is rather debatable. A great book on the subject is John Ronsom's "The Psychopath Test".
Reply#4 is incorrect. There is a long, well documented history showing that ECT has been and still can be a harmful procedure with debatable lack of merit that was misused; it was and still can be performed against patient consent. While Hollywood may exaggerate the problems with the procedure, there are real, serious concerns about it. Adverse side effects include memory loss, and in the past included much more severe side effects, sometimes destroying lives, which is why there was a string of lawsuits brought against practitioners in the 70s. Former patients, such as Plath and Hemingway, have criticized the procedure as having been unpleasant. While progress has been made, and the procedure today is drastically different (safer and more effective) it is still debatable. A great scholarly read on the subject is the book "Mad in America". Considering the seriousness of the subject, a bit more research should have been employed here.
ReplyWhen I was 16, my best friend and I were in a car accident. She got a concussion and had amnesia, as a result of a blow to the head, exactly what you've just tried to convince us does not happen. She lost all memory initially, did not recognize any of her family or even her own face in a picture. Most of her memories came back gradually, though there are still many things she doesn't remember. It was terrifying and absolutely nothing like what you've described. I find it interesting that this article pointing out how little research Hollywood does in making these movies is so poorly researched.
ReplyWhat your friend had/has was retrograde and anterograde amnesia while the author only looked at anterograde amnesia. Overall, though, his point remains: Memories do not come flooding back to you after seeing something that reminds you of your past as proven by your friend and many other cases.
This is an ill-informed article, especially concerning sociopathy (psychopathy, which is NOT psychosis, but the old, politically incorrect name for sociopathy) and autism. As others have mentioned, many sociopaths qualify as charming, well-spoken, often above-average intelligent individuals. Lying isn't their only trait, it's also the lack of 'innate' sense of morality and concern for their fellow man. In autism, there is something called Asperger's syndrome, which is often linked with 'genius' abilities, especially in math, as well as the capacity to focus upon one task much more fully than the average person. Also, it's called Memento, not Momento.
ReplyAsperger's is not "often" linked to genius ability - it's once in a rare while, no more than 1 in 100 Asperger's patients. Asperger's itself is usually high-functioning autism, which is a milder form but is hardly some kind of "gift of genius" like you imply. On top of that, Asperger's is barely a couple percent of autism cases - the other 98% are exactly what the author was talking about, and close to half come with other developmental delays like mild retardation. Ask someone who actually HAS Asperger's and they'll tell you it's nothing like the movies - being a human calculator is all well and good, until you realize you can't tell people what you've discovered because of the deficits you have in your other thought processes. In general, what you'll hear is they'd be more than happy to trade the savant aspect to be normal in other respects
In short, quit thinking that just because the internet adopted Hollywood-style Asperger's as a meme, the internet must be right....
But some psychopaths can be charming, eloquent and educated, like Ted Bundy, or witty and suave, like Rodney Alcalá. Those are the most dangerous, because women will fall for them, and next thing you know, they're working on rape prevention committees, and starring in game shows.
Reply'He may be a genius but I wouldn't trust him to sit on the toilet the right way' a quote from QI by Stephen Fry, reminded me of the closenesss of autism and genius in the brain.
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ReplyDisappointing, uniformed and almost entirely rubbish.
ReplyI'm appalled by the number of poorly written, poorly researched articles showing up on cracked these days, purporting to be exposé pieces or whatever. People buy into "myths" that aren't actually myths as much as they buy into any other bullshit, ironically enough in the case of this article that's supposed to be about the bullshit people believe. Sufferers of ASPD are not the closest things to sociopaths; sociopaths are, and they're very real, although perhaps some confusion lies in the interchangeability of the terms "sociopathy" and "psychopathy", as the DSM has yet to establish the specific criteria. Anyhow, while ASPD is broad and regards behavior, psychopathy involves measurable differences in cognition, neurology, and emotional response. Most of these people were born into relatively normal lives, but they were literally born without the hardware necessary to experience empathy. Some of them grow up to be serial killers, but most of them are just charismatic, self-serving selfish jerks who will take advantage of you before you figure it out. I suggest you read "The Mask of Sanity", the foremost treatise on the subject. You're an idiot, Geoff, and I'm disappointed in cracked for delivering your bullshit to stupid people that'll believe it because it's on cracked.
ReplyMaybe read the title of the article again, it wasn't about myths people actually buy into (although there are ertainly alot that do), it was about what Hollywood tells us about mental illnesses.
I was genuinely hoping you'd address DID/MPD in this. I'm a married mother of 5 kids who lived with DID for about 25 years before diagnosis and another 7 before recovery. Contrary to popular belief, it's real, it's a coping tool run amok that many multiples manage to keep hidden until life hands them more s**t than a brain can take, and they are not criminals who can use a diagnosis to escape prosecution or responsibility for their crimes.
ReplyIt's the single most horrifying mental illness related to trauma, rather than biology, but is also one of the few which can be "cured".
*face palm* And before I get further into my rant... Thank you for this article. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and I love your willingness to use humor to educate.
haha. a Cracked mom. Awesome.
"Yes, one of the most realistic depictions of amnesia was Dory the fish in Finding Nemo."
ReplyOr Drew Barrymore's character in '50 First Dates'.
That was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Apparently I don't watch many movies or tv.
"Momento"? Was that deliberate?
ReplyWhile it's true that there's rarely a magic switch to cause an amnesiac's memories to come flooding back, it's entirely inaccurate to say that amnesiacs "usually can't form new memories". There are two main types of amnesia: anterograde amnesia, which means that the victim cannot form new memories, and retrograde amnesia, in which the victim loses a chunk of their old memories but are still able to retain new information. In some cases a person may have both. Also, it is perfectly possible to have amnesia after a head injury - this is the cause of post-traumatic amnesia. All this information is accessible on Wikipedia as well as more reputed sites, so it's not like it would have been hard to research.
ReplyYou just make it sound boring.
I'm just going to point out.... the time period that those movies with the screaming patient being dragged to the ECT room is accurate. In the time period where that was one of the main treatment for the mentally insane, it was a painful experience and the patient had no choice in the matter. So yes, while today's ECT treatment is safe... Hollywood kinda had it right for the movies. Bit of a fail on that one Cracked. =/
ReplyVery true about the time period
I'm also sure in some countries they can still perform ECT without consent, the justification being that you're so mentally ill that you cannot consent/don't have the ability to make rational decisions for yourself. Also from a friend who has had ECT, it hurt afterwards, and they also lost a lot of memories and had blank spots from their past, that never returned.
I'm glad you said that, scoped, because I was going to make the same point. A huge amount of memory loss generally occurs, and the doctors don't always make that clear to patients. It's generally surmised that the loss of memory after ECT was among the reasons Hemingway killed himself. Also, ECT is not given on a regular on-going basis. It's given as a series of treatments with a finite end. There were a lot of mistakes in the article. I wish more care had been taken in doing the research.
It's bad enough when people say "MOmento" (a moment in Spanish) when they mean "MEMento" (a souvenir), which is like all the f*****g time. But now they're spelling that s****y movie wrong, too.
Replys****y movie? Not by a long shot. That you take time to keep track of such linguistic faux pas? Disturbing.
Cracked confused psychotic and psychopaths on this one.
ReplyThis would have been interesting if it had been accurate and logical. I'd point out the mistakes but it would require me to rewrite most of the article and I can't be arsed.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesYou are/were a psychology major I take it? Of all the liberal arts majors to pursue.
What's wrong with being a psych major? I graduated with a degree in psychology and I find it to be very rewarding and interesting. It is something that literally everyone could learn and be enlightened from.
Why all the thumbs down? It's true.
Actually Hollywood psychopaths like the Joker are not wrong. Psychopaths are people who have no empathy and no remorse. So you're wrong on this one Cracked.
ReplySo are you.
This article should be included as a disclaimer on everything Hollywood releases that is about or featuring mental illness.
Reply