Home>TV Shows Challenging The Stigma of Bipolar Disorder
TV Shows Challenging The Stigma of Bipolar Disorder
By Elizabeth Forbes
As bipolar takes center stage in new movies and TV shows, it's unclear whether the exposure will challenge stigma—or reinforce it.
UPDATE: August 7, 2014—The ABC series Black Box will not be returning for a second season Entertainment Weekly reports. The show starred Kelly Reilly as a neuroscientist with bipolar disorder. It was routinely panned by critics—and by many viewers with bipolar, who took exception to the character's sensationalized symptoms. Still, Black Box managed to run an entire 13 episodes, unlike ABC's other bipolar-centric series this season, Mind Games.
Carrie Mathison and Pat Solitano are getting company.
The dedicated CIA agent on Showtime's Homeland and the flawed hero of David Russell's feel-good film Silver Linings Playbook are being joined this year by two new TV series and four movies featuring main characters who have bipolar.
Time will tell whether that's a good thing for the rest of us here in the real world. Does this mini-trend reflect a softening of stigma or crass exploitation of the "illness du jour"? Will these shows and movies promote understanding about living with bipolar or reinforce damaging stereotypes?
Naturally, there are no all-or-nothing answers.
Robert Whitley, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, says educational campaigns to bring mental illness out of the shadows have made it more acceptable to include bipolar in stories as a matter of course. (As a parallel, think of the growing presence of gay characters in recent years.)
Whitley has studied how mental illness is represented in news accounts—he found 40 percent of newspaper articles from 2005 to 2010 emphasized danger, violence and criminality—but he has also monitored portrayals in movies and TV shows for years.
As far as characters with bipolar, he says, "there's a progression over decades of no portrayal to a very negative portrayal and now we're getting a more three-dimensional portrayal with some negative aspects."
Marie Gallo Dyak, an executive with the nonprofit Entertainment Industries Council (EIC), says characters with psychiatric challenges have definitely proliferated since the advocacy group established its PRISM Awards in 1996.
Dyak oversees the PRISM Awards, which recognize accurate depictions of substance abuse and mental disorders in entertainment media. In earlier years the bulk of submissions addressed drug and alcohol use, she says, but these days at least half the entries revolve around mental health issues.
She has also seen a shift from single episodes addressing mental illness to story-lines that are woven over a season.
As for the current crop of projects with bipolar in the forefront, she says, it's the nature of TV that success breeds imitators. Homeland no doubt paved the way for the ABC shows Mind Games, in which a former professor with bipolar and his con-artist brother solve clients' problems, and Black Box, about a neuroscientist with bipolar.
"If someone hits on something that really resonates with the audience and it's working, you're probably going to see other shows," says Dyak, citing the proliferation of music contests like The X Factor, American Idol and The Voice.
(Not that they'll all succeed: After its debut in late February, Mind Games was widely panned by critics, ignored by viewers, and canceled after five episodes. Black Box, which followed in April, didn't fare much better.)
Lisa Brown, co-founder of the Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival in Toronto, has also seen a sea change in how mental illness is depicted in movies. Not only are there fewer stereotypes of "mad scientists or obsessed ship captains" than there were 20 years ago, but she's seeing more balance between tales of tortured souls and stories that aren't as dark.
"We've never had a lack of programming," Brown says. "What we have had is a lack of really positive stories…. There would be years where the films would be so difficult, I would say, 'God, when is the festival going to be over?' But now some of the work is more hopeful."
Rendezvous with Madness showcases independent and art house films, but Brown also keeps up with mainstream offerings. She's a big fan of Homeland. She's less enthusiastic about Silver Linings Playbook, which some in the mental health community have criticized because Pat loses control in several scenes. (When the movie opens, he is returning from court-ordered hospitalization because he attacked his wife's lover.)
With a character like that, Brown muses, "is it better to have some publicity than no publicity?"
Research in the 1990s largely established that most people form their ideas about mental illness based on what they see in mass media, and that television is especially influential. Greg Philo, a professor at the University of Glasgow, argued that media representations can even displace someone's personal experiences in influencing opinions.
"Media" in these terms typically includes news outlets. Yet fictional TV and movie characters who are presented as dangerous because of a mental illness, or as figures of ridicule (as on some children's programs), obviously reinforce harmful stereotypes and reduce empathy.
The consequences for people living with a mental illness go beyond social stigma. A 2006 Canadian review concluded that negative media images "impair self-esteem, help-seeking behaviors, medication adherence and overall recovery."
Even when characters with bipolar aren't crazed criminals, they're often given extreme manic symptoms. Whitley, the McGill professor, mentions a scene in Silver Linings Playbook when Pat trashes his therapist's waiting room.
"I've been working in different hospitals and clinics since 1999 and I've never once seen a person kick up a clinic like that," he says.
Overall, though, "characters are becoming more well-rounded and are being shown as people who are capable of holding jobs, having romantic relationships and friends," he says. That can chip away at false expectations that someone with bipolar can't live a regular life.
As for the over-the-top manic elements, he says, "Drama is drama and we just have to remember that."
Dyak, the entertainment council's vice president, says her organization's outreach programs in Hollywood have to respect the sometimes conflicting needs of dramatic storytelling and accuracy.
EIC puts writing teams in touch with consultants who can offer expertise, whether mental health professionals or people with lived experience. Dyak feels that as audiences grow more sophisticated, scriptwriters have more interest in making stories about bipolar and other mental health conditions as realistic as possible.
"The writers do not want to be called out by their fans or viewers," she says—but in the end, their bottom line is not mental health education.
"Scripted fiction is there to entertain us, to keep our interest," Dyak notes.
In the larger scheme of things, Dyak feels even off-base depictions of bipolar can at least provoke discussion about stigma and mental health. A show like Homeland may generate "water-cooler conversations—'oh my God, did you see that character, what did you think?'" because people are engaged by the storytelling.
For viewers who have a mental disorder, though, she sees an even greater benefit ?to having more characters with bipolar on TV and the big screen. Says Dyak, "If the symptoms are accurate and the stories are well-told and acted … maybe we're doing something to increase help-seeking behavior. Driving people to seek help is the best thing we can do."
Read More: 6 TV Shows Featuring Characters With Bipolar
9 Must-See Movies About Bipolar Disorder
Printed as "Are We Ready For Our Close Up?" Summer 2014
addiction, media, movies, substance abuse, Summer 2014
Elizabeth Forbes, a veteran reporter and editor, has been overseeing content for esperanza and bp Magazine since 2009.
Kristen October 20, 2018 at 1:36 am
Hit me up when you want tomake another I have bipolar and it effects everything I would love to show people how bipolar is and what it can do to you and your family
allison strong November 29, 2016 at 1:48 pm
I was really disappointed when this show was canceled as well. Really good article.
We loved Kelly Reilly in Black Box. Loved the other Kelly Reilly show w/Vince Vaughn "True Detective Season Two." She was outstanding as a Los Angeles white collar gangster's 'Better Half.'
Reilly was really good as a substance abuser trying to get clean in "Flight," the 'flawed hero' Denzel Washington vehicle.
I have seen bipolar patients in "Law and Order SVU" who won't take their atypical because of side effects.
There is a true shortage of stories to be told. With 400 series either on Networks cable or, streaming series, when a show is successful and been on the air for many years, they start really reaching. They need the off-kilter to create tension and conflict.
Like "The Good Wife" with Michael J Fox playing someone with TD and cannily using it to his advantage to delay depositions, etc., Interestingly, they did not go into his probable underlying mental illness. I just realized that.
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