PROVO — Jay Fox has gripe with Jim Carrey. And it isn't about the Grinch pilfering pretty packages.
The actor's previous movie about schizophrenia, "Me, Myself and Irene," irked folks like Fox who fret about Hollywood yarns that cast the mentally ill in a less-than-flattering light.
Fox, an English professor at Brigham Young University and a member of Utah's Board of Mental Health, wants stars and filmmakers to see the adverse effects that a popular movie has on the public's attitude toward mental disorders.
Fox, who studies depictions of mental disorders in films and how the public reacts, is driven by the belief that until misrepresentations are scrutinized, the public won't see how the depictions help create a world in which it is difficult for the mentally ill to find jobs or places to live.
A good example, he says, is Alfred Hitchcock's thriller about the schizophrenic killer Norman Bates. Even now, 40 years after the flick was released, many still use the word "psycho" when referring to the mentally ill.
His advocacy work for the mentally ill and their families is a labor of love for Fox, whose sister was diagnosed as schizophrenic at 18 and struggled to hurdle societal stigmas.
"I saw how the mentally ill are feared, looked down on, ridiculed and belittled for a condition that is not their fault," said Fox, who was 7 years old when his sister was diagnosed.
Shortly after his sister was hospitalized, Fox saw "The Snake Pit," a black-and-white film about a schizophrenic woman in a mental ward.
Fox, who now is certified to teach family-education courses for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, drew back in horror at scenes showing violent treatments and over-dramatized depictions of psychotic patients.
"That was so frightening to me," Fox said. "To me, that was where my sister was." Upon visiting, he was relieved to find the hospital very unlike the bleak institution shown on screen.
Janina Chilton started working at the Utah State Hospital nearly 30 years ago, shortly after Jack Nicholson's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was released.
She was utterly amazed how much attention the film attracted — and how it created the image in many people's minds that psychiatric hospitals are scary places.
The Academy Award-winning show is about the treatments given to patients in a mental ward. In the end, an unethical nurse convinces the hospital staff that the main character, played by Nicholson, needs a lobotomy, when he really doesn't.
"It altered how people viewed the hospital," Chilton said. "It even altered how patients viewed the hospital."
Chilton, a community relations worker for the Utah Division of Mental Health who speaks with Fox about troublesome movies, is a vocal activist for accurate depictions of the mentally ill.
Chilton says she doesn't hesitate firing off a letter to an executive of a company that has a product or an advertisement that she believes distorts the truths about mental disorders and treatments.
And there are a growing number of people like Chilton.
Last year, ABC yanked the drama "Wonderland" after the network received complaints by sponsors and advocates for the mentally ill. One scene in the show about a psychiatric hospital showed a mentally ill man stabbing a pregnant woman with a syringe.
"It makes it look like all mentally ill people are violent," said Chilton. "But it is a small percentage of people who are violent."
Not all portrayals are wrong, though. In presentations, Fox hails "The Madness of King George," the story of the English king who reportedly was diagnosed with porphyria, a metabolic disorder that causes neuropsychiatric symptoms.
Fox says the movie shows that mental illness has no socio-economic bounds and that "even kings can suffer indignities."
Chilton gets chills when she sees a clip of the "The Boys Next Door," which tells the touching story of three developmentally disabled men and a schizophrenic man who live in a group home — and how they are treated by a caring social worker.
In time — and with advocacy groups such as the NAMI that protest such movies as "Me, Myself and Irene" — audiences will see things differently, they say.
"Accuracy is what we ask for," Chilton said. "We don't even ask for sympathy, but accuracy is what we ask for."
E-mail: jeffh@desnews.com