Over the years, the stage and screen have not been kind to the mentally ill.
While illnesses like cancer, disabilities like multiple sclerosis, and other medical issues have largely been dealt with favorably in Hollywood, mental illnesses have usually gotten a bad rap.
Until recently, fictional portrayals of the mentally ill usually showed them as violent, dastardly, or worse. At the pinnacle of the beginnings of change on the silver screen, however, was the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starring Jack Nicholson.
One Flew Over the Transition
The film is at once stereotypical pre-90s Hollywood with the mentally ill being shown as either drooling shufflers or violent spaztics and no in between. Nicholson himself portrays a character that is not severely mentally ill, but is using his ability to get a diagnosis as a way to avoid a harsh prison sentence.
The film's plot, however, has thematic undertones that attack the previous norm in which hospitals the likes of which Nicholson's character finds himself were common. Patients were heavily sedated with mind-numbing drugs and herded about like sleepy children in barely adequate institutional housing conditions. The portrayal of the sometimes harsh and even inhumane treatment of those patients who refused to conform, including the use of electroshock therapies and lobotomies, was shown in a (rightfully) negative light in the film.
The film sits at a transitory period in our history when this standard treatment of mental patients was being replaced with today's more therapeutic, accepting approach. So although the movie is hard to watch for some who suffer from mental illnesses, it is a strong showing of how far we've come at a time when changes were just beginning.
Ocean Heaven
Fast forward to 2010 when action film and martial art's movie star Jet Li stars in a dramatic role as the father of an autistic boy. Li's character learns that he has a terminal illness and must make arrangements for the continued care of his beloved and very disabled autistic son. It's a touching, emotionally intense film that portrays the struggles of life around autism as well as the rewards that parents reap from keeping up the good fight.
The depiction of the way a loving father and close family friends teach the autistic young man life's basic skills as well as how to cope with the death of loved ones is a touching tribute to the everyday struggles autism brings to families everywhere.
The boarding school for autistic children in Ocean Heaven is a far cry from the sterile, tattered institution shown in Cuckoo's Nest.
The Negative Mythology Continues
Yet the negative stereotypes associated with mental illnesses continue in Hollywood. Many films still portray the mentally ill as problematic, violent, and as some sort of negative burden on society as a whole. But the tide is turning, slowly, as more and more films continue showing mental illness in a positive way.
Even films that halfway make fun of mental illnesses, like Adam Sandler's Waterboy (1998) still manage to show the mentally ill in a positive light and leave the audience with a better feeling about the mentally ill than they might have had before. Other early films like Deer Hunter (1978) dealt with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a way that was not entirely negative.
Other films like Rain Man (1988) and Mercury Rising (1998) also dealt with autism in a positive way. At the same time, disassociative and personality disorders are often the crux of horror films and the central theme for the antagonist in films even today.
Despite having come a long way since the days of "all of the mentally ill are bad" to today's "some maybe aren't" portrayals in Hollywood, there is still a long way to go from here. With continued public outreach, the public perception of mental illnesses can continue to be swayed.
