When David Erekson was a teenager, he attended the Sundance Film Festival with his parents and saw a movie that exposed him to an unfamiliar place inhabited by people he didn’t understand. By the end of the film, he felt like he knew the characters in the story — but, even more, he had come to love them.

Erekson, now an assistant clinical professor and a psychologist at Brigham Young University, believes that this power of cinematography to connect viewers with unfamiliar subjects is especially important when films portray an issue as sensitive as mental health. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and mental health has become a bigger and bigger topic as nearly 44 million adults in the United States experience mental illness in a given year, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The conversation has been a part of the world of film for years, and although films have come a long way in reducing the stigmas associated with mental illness, there is still work to be done, according to a NAMI representative, a clinical psychologist and Erekson.

Stigmas

One mental illness stereotype films tend to perpetuate is the view that the person with the psychological disorder is “the villain,” Erekson said. Many moviegoers are drawn to sensationalism, often paying to see rated-R thriller movies such as "Psycho," "Misery" and "The Shining."

Viewing these films, however, can come at another cost. While they certainly excite their audiences, these films also include frightening portrayals of characters with mental health diagnoses, which in turn can frighten the public, said Marleen Williams, who holds a doctorate degree in clinical psychology and is a clinical professor at BYU's counseling center.

Gayle Hollingsworth, president of the Salt Lake NAMI affiliate, echoed this sentiment, saying that in such films “people with mental illnesses are totally stigmatized as being incurably violent.”

Williams said films depicting characters with mental illnesses in frightening ways can cause even deeper problems beyond creating a stereotype or stigma.

“When portrayals in films are negative, ridicule people with mental health problems or portray them in frightening ways, I think it really stigmatizes mental health problems and makes it hard (for people) to get treatment,” Williams said. “They feel so stigmatized about having a mental illness that they won’t go get help.”

Erekson added that another mental health stereotype in films is for the illness to be portrayed lightly — as an issue that is not really problematic as long as it can just be accepted. The problem with this is that it ignores the benefits of good treatment and therapy.

These stigmas are especially troubling since about 50 percent of people in the United States will qualify for a mental health diagnosis at some point in their lives, according to Williams. Despite this prevalence, people often do not recognize mental illnesses, let alone know how to respond to them.

“(Many people) don’t understand the treatability of (mental illnesses),” Williams said. “But as we have learned more and developed safer ways of studying what’s happening in the brain and what causes these illnesses, I think there are many filmmakers who have become more aware of these issues.”

Accurate portrayals in film

Depicting mental health issues in film can present many challenges, but Williams, Hollingsworth and Erekson each referenced several films that are accurate portrayals of mental illness.

All three pointed to “A Beautiful Mind” (PG-13), which tells of mathematician John Nash, who had schizophrenia. Although it is difficult to project onto the screen the inner workings of the mind, Williams said movie director Ron Howard overcomes that obstacle in this particular film. She appreciated the movie for its “sensitive portrayal” of a character confused by his own thoughts.

“Ron Howard brings you into the man’s delusions, and you don’t know until halfway through the movie that these are delusions,” she said. “You get to see things through the eyes of this man with a schizophrenic illness.”

Erekson said success in portraying mental health depends on whether the director has experience with a given illness or does research on psychological disorders rather than simply using the illness as a device for the film’s story.

When treated as a story device, mental illnesses are portrayed as the catalyst for violent behavior and conflict. When this happens, Erekson said, the human element is ignored and the illness is not treated as “the nuanced difficulty that it is.”

Erekson values the film “Lars and the Real Girl” (PG-13) for embracing the human component of psychological disorders. While many movies tend to ostracize or isolate individuals with mental illness, this film pulls the audience into the protagonist’s world and shows the importance of connecting and forming relationships, he said.

To accurately portray mental illness, a film should tell a story through the lens of a protagonist who is sympathetic and relatable, Williams said. She appreciates films such as “The Aviator” (PG-13) as a portrayal of someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder, “Saints and Soldiers” (PG-13) for realistically showing a character with post-traumatic stress disorder and “Ray” (PG-13) for depicting compassionate and multi-dimensional characters.

What she particularly admired in “Ray,” a film about the life of the musician Ray Charles, is that it showed the entire process of a person suffering with a mental illness — from the beginning with the musician as a young traumatized boy to depicting his descent into drug abuse as a means of coping with his pain to receiving treatment and getting the help he needed to recover.

Williams, Hollingsworth and Erekson also referenced “As Good as it Gets” (PG-13) as a film that eliminates stigmas by showing the power of good mental health treatment. Other films they mentioned include “Silver Linings Playbook” (R) as a portrayal of bipolar disorder, “Inside Out,” which Hollingsworth said does an accurate job of portraying a variety of moods that all people experience at some time or another, and “Good Will Hunting” (R), which Williams said effectively weakens the idea that therapy is weird and instead shows how helpful it can be. While the experts admitted that there have definitely been strides in how mental health is portrayed, all acknowledged that there is still much to be done.

The importance of these films

The main purpose in continuing and increasing the accurate portrayal of mental illness in films boils down to what Hollingsworth calls “stomping out the stigma.”

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“It’s important to get the word out,” she said. “It’s important to give knowledge where knowledge is needed about mental illness. Maybe after someone sees a movie they might reach out and help their family member or help their neighbor or friend.”

Furthermore, films can serve as a great teaching tool because of the power they have to offer intimate glimpses into people’s lives, especially people who may not be able to speak up for themselves, Erekson said.

”Filmmaking can change public attitudes, and when public attitudes are changed, society starts to change,” Williams said. “Good filmmaking can open up people’s minds and take them out of their comfort zone enough to think more carefully about things that need to change.”

Email: lotlotep@gmail.com

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