Being Sane in an Insane World:
An Exploration of the Sociocultural Role of Mentally Ill
Teenagers in Contemporary Drama Film
Name: Robin Morsman
Student number: 10749322
Programme: MA Film Studies
Supervisor: Marie-Aude Baronian
Second reader: Blandine Joret
Completion: University of Amsterdam
Date: 28/06/2019 | Word count: 18.517
Abstract
Since the beginning of cinema, mental illness has been a popular tool for making compelling narratives. Many scholars in the field of film studies have researched to what extent the portrayals of mental illness in film are accurate and how that has an impact on the viewer.
However, these scholars overlook Foucault's notion that mental disorders should be considered as a social construction. Indeed, too little attention has been paid to the depicted society in which mental illness exists. By examining five contemporary drama films depicting mentally ill teenagers, this thesis aims to get a better sense of our current cultural ideas surrounding mental illness. Using a discourse analysis and drawing on theories from Foucault and Laing, I will argue that contemporary film slowly starts to contribute to destigmatizing mental illness by communicating more humane and realistic portrayals. The larger issue, however, is the idea that insanity has become a reaction to the inhuman expectations of a repressive society. The purpose of this thesis is thus to not only focus on representations of ill individuals but also on representations of the social system and to rethink the boundaries between sane and insane.
Key words: Mental Illness / Teenagers / Discourse Analysis / Ill society / Alienation /
Otherness / Social Pressure.
Table of contents
Introduction 4
1.
A sociocultural understanding of mental illness 91.1 Mental illness on display 11
1.2 Film as a social world 13
1.3 Conclusion 17
2.
A brief history of psychiatry and mental illness in film 182.1 Psychiatry in film 19
2.2 Mental illness in film 22
2.3 Conclusion 24
3.
Being sane in an insane world: R.D. Laing revisited 273.1 Conforming to a world gone mad 28
3.2 Foucault, Laing, and the anti-psychiatry movement 29 3.3 The false-self system and authentic human experiences 31 3.4 The inner world and the outer world 34
3.5 The experience of the patient 36
3.6 Us and Them 39 3.7 Conclusion 40 Conclusion 42 Filmography 45 Bibliography 46
Introduction
The area dividing the brain and the soul is affected in many ways by
experience –
Some lose all mind and become soul: insane.
Some lose all soul and become mind: intellectual.
Some lose both and become: accepted.
This is a poem written by American novelist and poet Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), who's works I discovered in my late teens. Bukowski wrote about many things, but, most importantly, he wrote about the tragedy of people so occupied with becoming accepted in society, that they lost sight of who they truly were. It struck me that Bukowski was often describing a type of insanity in which people were perfectly content to live, in his eyes, mediocre and unsatisfying lives. Being an outcast himself, he did not understand how people enjoyed waking up in the morning, working all day for a boss they did not even like, and then going home to eat and sleep, only to do it all over again the next morning. The poem above appeared in the posthumous book What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the
Fire (1999). In this poem, we get a sense of the ominous world that Bukowski imagined.
People who follow only their gut feeling and only act upon their inner desires will become outsiders and considered insane by society. People who are pragmatic and only use their mind will become intellectual. And finally, the people who lose both mind and soul, the people who let go of their true self and of everything that defines them as an individual, will become normal and accepted by society.
This interpretation might seem a simplified or poetic reflection of our Western society, but it is not without its truth. Bukowski's standpoint is very similar to that of Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing (1927-1989). Both wrote about an insane world and urged us to always recognize our true self, instead of trying to conform to an abnormal society that teaches us to lose both mind and soul. Where Bukowski stopped at poetry, Laing unleashed a true academic revolution and claimed that mental illness was a perfectly logical reaction to a repressive society. In other words, what has now become normal is part of the pressures of a terminally ill society: ''Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal'' (Laing, The Politics of Experience
and The Bird of Paradise 10). It is precisely this relationship between mental illness and an
Mental illness is a topic that has been discussed in many academic fields, such as psychology, philosophy, as well as the humanities at large. The field in which I will position my research is that of cultural studies of mental illness. In Madness and Civilization (1964), Foucault makes the important point that the concept of mental illness always relies upon the society in which it exists (xi-xii). Since I will aim for a cultural understanding, rather than a strict psychological understanding of mental illness, I would like to follow Foucault's discourse on madness as a social construction. I will then focus my research on film studies of mental illness by analysing the plot and characters of five contemporary English-language drama films that depict mentally ill teenagers: The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2012), X+Y (Morgan Matthews, 2014), Charlie Bartlett (Jon Poll, 2007), It's Kind
of a Funny Story (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, 2010), and Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly,
2001).
Foucault demonstrates how since the Middle Ages it was customary to put the insane on display: ''Madness became pure spectacle, […]. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, […] madmen remained monsters – that is, etymologically, beings or things to be shown'' (65). It is precisely this notion of madness, and later mental illness, as a spectacle that became one of the main reasons for cinema's obsession with madness. Cynthia Erb, writing about deinstitutionalization and the post-war context of madness, notes that ''because of the potential for spectacle, the configuration of confinement and bestiality that characterized the Classical Age surfaces over and over in films about madness, and remains one of the key ways of stigmatizing the insane'' (52). While this is certainly true for a lot of films, I would like to demonstrate how a selection of contemporary drama films does not set up mental illness as a spectacle. Elaborating on concepts often associated with mental illness, such as alienation (Kohn 111; Wellman et al. 436; Seeman 783; Corlett 700; Twining 422) and otherness (Greer and Jewkes 20; Foster 5; Morant 7), I will demonstrate that, instead, the films contribute to destigmatizing the insane by showing more humane and realistic portrayals of mentally ill characters.
In this vein, other scholars in the field point to the underestimated influence that depictions of the mentally ill have on the public perception (Hyler, Gabbard, and Schneider 1044; Hyler 195; Eisenhauer 16; Beachum 5; Dinan 3). Others in the field of film studies specifically point out that movies often contain inaccurate portrayals of mental illness (Granello, Pauley, and Carmichael 98; Granello and Pauley 162). Patricia Owen, examining the effectiveness of accurate and inaccurate film portrayals on college students, adds that ''popular movies contribute to misinformation about characteristics, causes, and treatments of
mental illness'' (61). Again, examining five films, I will argue that this seems to be changing. More accurate portrayals of mentally ill teenagers contribute not only to minimizing misconceptions regarding mental illness but also misconceptions regarding the practice of psychiatry itself.
Most research in this field is based on reception studies, focusing on the ''possible impact of [these] media images on the public'' (Wahl and Lefkowits 521). As far as textual analysis goes, research focuses on examining how accurate the portrayals of mental illness in films are, overlooking Foucault’s idea that mental disorders are always dependent on the culture in which they exist. This means that little attention has been paid to the depicted social environments in which mental illness takes place. According to Laing, it is the ''social system, not single individuals extrapolated from it [that] must be the object of study'' (The Politics of
Experience and The Bird of Paradise 95). Thus, revisiting the works of Foucault and Laing,
this thesis intends to look at contemporary drama film as a means to engage, not only with the mentally ill but particularly with the social environments and institutions that are depicted, such as high school, mental hospitals, and families. Examining a topic that has always had a stigma attached to it by society, this research will not only aim to get a better sense of the current cultural ideas surrounding mental illness but also of the current state of the stigma. With this, we can better understand what these cultural beliefs are and how they live among high school students.
Research question, corpus, and outline
In this thesis, I aim to answer the question: How does my corpus of five contemporary drama films, depicting mentally ill teenagers, reflect the way we make sense of current, Western cultural ideas on mental health, and how do these films work with concepts such as alienation, otherness, a divided self, and an ill society? On the one hand, I aim to demonstrate that a number of contemporary films slowly start to contribute to destigmatizing mental illness, by communicating more humane and realistic portrayals. However, there is a larger issue at stake. Researching mental illness is not merely a matter of reducing stigma anymore. Mental illness has become a reaction to the inhuman expectations of a repressive society. Following Laing's argument, it is now necessary to not only focus on the mentally ill individual but also on the social system as an object of study and seek to reduce the terminally ill state of our Western society. Laing's ideas on a divided self, authentic experiences, and inner and outer worlds are reflected and woven into each contemporary drama film of my corpus. Thus, on the other hand, I also aim to demonstrate that the films revisit Laing from a contemporary
perspective and actively rethink the boundaries between normal and abnormal, sane and insane, and Us and Them.
The primary research method will be a discourse analysis of five contemporary English-language drama films starring male protagonists that are mentally ill. It's Kind of a
Funny Story and The Perks of Being a Wallflower are both based on very popular books by
the same name and Donnie Darko ultimately became a cult classic, but all five films are considered to be more independent than mainstream. None of them were produced by production companies that lie within the major film studio system, all are characterized by having a low budget, and all are obviously dealing with a 'taboo' topic.
Donnie Darko is a story about a troubled teenager called Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal),
who encounters a scary six-foot-tall rabbit, named Frank (James Duval). Not only does the rabbit convince Donnie that the world is going to end, but he also influences Donnie to commit various crimes, like setting a house on fire. This film is generally considered to be a science-fiction film, in where Frank travels through time to warn Donnie. However, if one sets aside the time-travel narrative, there remains a realistic portrait of a schizophrenic teenager struggling with hallucinations. It's Kind of a Funny Story depicts a depressed boy named Craig Gilner (Keir Gilchrist) who checks himself into a mental hospital because of his suicidal thoughts. Fifteen-year-old Charlie (Logan Lerman), in The Perks of Being a
Wallflower, is also depressed. He is struggling with the fact that his best friend committed
suicide but is also trying to cope with repressed memories of his sexual abuse that are slowly coming back to him. X+Y follows a teenager with autism, Nathan Ellis (Asa Butterfield), and his struggles to emotionally connect with other people. Lastly, Charlie Bartlett is about a rich teenager called Charlie (Anton Yelchin). He is not necessarily diagnosed with a mental disorder himself but does regularly visit a psychiatrist and also encounters a number of peers who are, in fact, seriously mentally ill.
To answer my research question, I will divide this thesis into three chapters. The first chapter will be a literature review, aiming to answer the question: What is mental illness in the cultural and social sense of the word and what role does it play in contemporary Western drama film? Starting with Foucault's Madness and Civilization, I will explore the cultural and social history of madness and how this influences the role of madness in film. I will establish a distinction between madness and mental illness and discuss sociological concepts, such as alienation and otherness. In the second chapter, I will draw parallels between psychoanalysis and cinema and look more closely at the historical development of mental illness in film. I aim to answer the question: In what way have psychiatry and mental illness in film
historically developed, and how does that development relate more specifically to contemporary drama film about mentally ill teenagers? This chapter will demonstrate that film history has produced certain stereotypes of not only mentally ill people but also of psychiatrists. Exploring these stereotypes, I will argue that the majority of them is not present in my corpus. The ones that are still present have become much more nuanced. This contributes to my hypothesis that contemporary films make an effort to portray more realistic teenagers and psychiatrists.
In the last chapter, I will seek to explore the relevance of Laing in the twenty-first century Western society, aiming to answer the following question: How does my corpus of five contemporary feature films revisit R.D. Laing's ideas on an 'insane' world, enable to reconsider the notion of mental illness, and reflect upon the stigma that has been placed on mental illness? To do this, I will first introduce the anti-psychiatry movement that emerged in the 1960s. Then, I will examine in depth the works of R.D. Laing and relate it to a discussion of my corpus. Ultimately, I will argue that Laing's concepts and ideas are very present in the plot and characters of contemporary cinema and that Laing's thinking is more than ever relevant for reflecting upon mental illness today. The films thus make a powerful statement about the need to reconsider the very notion of mental illness itself and its place in our twenty-first century Western society.
Chapter 1: A sociocultural understanding of mental illness
In this chapter, I will explore the cultural and social history of mental illness and how that is reflected in the role it has commonly played in Western film. I will make a distinction between madness and mental illness by drawing on Foucault's understanding of madness as dependent on the society in which it exists. I will consider different cultural and historical discourses of madness and relate them to film while acknowledging stigma and prejudice. Considering film as a social world, I will also discuss sociological concepts such as otherness and alienation. I will start by carrying out a literature review, aiming to answer the question: What is mental illness in the cultural and social sense of the word, and what role does it play in contemporary Western drama film?
Mental illness is a topic that has been discussed in many academic fields, such as psychology, philosophy, as well as the humanities at large. The field in which I will position my research is that of cultural studies of mental illness. In Madness and Civilization (1964), French philosopher Michel Foucault contributes to this field by tracing the changing Western attitudes towards the concept of madness throughout history, from the Renaissance up until the late eighteenth century. An important point Foucault makes is that the concept of mental illness always relies upon the society in which it exists (xi-xii). Since I will aim for a cultural understanding rather than a psychological understanding of mental illness, I would like to follow Foucault's discourse on madness as a social construction. Madness and insanity are abstract concepts that hold no essence in meaning, but are merely the product of social responses, as noted by Gomory, Cohen, and Kirk:
So, it is with the word madness, because it is a word first and foremost and, lacking immanence, its meaning is primarily determined by those responding to it. Indeed, the history of social responses to madness suggests an abundance of possible meanings, often contradictory (e.g., devil possession versus pathological personality organization versus brain disease versus inept training for social life versus a metaphoric haven for escaping from wrenching difficulties) (121).
An important thought through all of Foucault's work is the relationship between knowledge and power. Madness and insanity are not only the product of social responses but also the product of complex knowledge/power relations. While power creates knowledge, knowledge
in turn also creates power. On the one hand, Madness and Civilization shows that civilization had the power to organize and confine the mad in a specific place. These places were called 'hospitals' and were located outside of the same civilization that put them there. In these houses of confinement, the mad were being examined, and so became sources of information about distinct types of madness and for new types of therapy. Furthermore, the hospitals were under examination as well, becoming a source of knowledge about the practice of confinement itself. On the other hand, knowledge about madness can have a considerable influence on the public's opinion and how that public behaves towards madness. Lumping every person into distinct categories, giving them a certain identity, means that power can be exercised. In other words, the mentally ill are stigmatized and categorized as a minority so they can be controlled.
At this point, it is important to make a distinction between madness and mental illness. Public knowledge of madness and mental illness is communicated through discourse. Foucault shows how madness in the classical age had once been a language of physiological problems but shifted to a view of madness as a psychological problem instead. It is this psychological discourse that is still around today. He writes:
In the serene world of mental illness, modern man no longer communicates with the madman: […] the man of madness communicates with society only by the intermediary of an equally abstract reason which is order, physical and moral constraint, the anonymous pressure of the group, the requirements of conformity. As for a common language, there is no such thing; or rather, there is no such thing any longer; the constitution of madness as a mental illness, at the end of the eighteenth century, affords the evidence of a broken dialogue, posits the separation as already effected, and thrusts into oblivion all those stammered, imperfect words without fixed syntax in which the exchange between madness and reason was made. The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue of reason about madness, has been established only on the basis of such a silence (xii).
Here, I would like to propose that madness is a linguistic classification that serves to reject everything that is even remotely deviant from the normal, societal standard, while society still feels the need to categorize it, as it has always had, in order to understand and authorize it. It is then only through language that madness has become medicalized. Categories such as mental disorder and mental illness are merely the alternative for earlier labels such as madness. These new categories only reinforce the concept of madness as a medical problem.
However, Gomory, Cohen, and Kirk show, by discussing the medicalized language of Andrew Scull, a historian of psychiatry, that it would be wrong to consider madness only as a socially constructed phenomenon because that would mean that the problematic behavior found in the mad can easily be ignored. With this in mind, I would like to follow Scull's argument on mental illness as ''another term for certain extremely troubling or troubled behavior that has dire consequences both for the person and others close to the person, and not, as often assumed by the laity, a medical problem'' (16). It is thus from a sociocultural perspective, instead of a medical and psychiatric perspective, that I am seeking to understand mental illness.
1.1 Mental illness on display
Long before cinema was invented and mental illness was being represented in film, it was already in other ways being exhibited for the public's entertainment. Foucault demonstrates how since the Middle Ages, long before madness became medicalized, it was customary to put the insane on display: ''Madness became pure spectacle, […]. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, […] madmen remained monsters – that is, etymologically, beings or things to be shown'' (65). It is precisely this notion of madness, and later mental illness, as a spectacle that became one of the main reasons for cinema's obsession with madness. Cynthia Erb, writing about deinstitutionalization and the post-war context of madness, notes that ''because of the potential for spectacle, the configuration of confinement and bestiality that characterized the Classical Age surfaces over and over in films about madness, and remains one of the key ways of stigmatizing the insane'' (52). In other words, what cinema does to madness is combining different historical and cultural discourses of madness, in order to make an attractive and entertaining movie, while at the same time trying to make sense of the concept. Foucault has written about these different cultural discourses of madness:
Madness was thus torn from that imaginary freedom which still allowed it to flourish on the Renaissance horizon. Not so long ago, it had floundered about in broad daylight: in King Lear, in Don Quixote. But in less than a half-century, it had been sequestered and, in the fortress of confinement, bound to Reason, to the rules of morality and to their monotonous nights (60).
During the Renaissance, madness was still considered to be an extension of a person's nature; madmen were travellers and respected by society. In the classical age, this changed drastically
and the cultural understanding of madness starts to align more with our current Western thought. The madmen were for example considered to be more like an animal than a person and they were treated that way as well, putting them on display as monkeys in a zoo. Furthermore, the concept of madness has also been considered as ''clouded by images of the Fall and the Will of God'' (xiv), as a product of unreason, and ultimately as a medical problem. Patrick Fuery, in Madness and Cinema, writes that ''cinema continually draws on the images and narratives of madness without a need to historicise, categorise, or fashion a name for them. Madness in cinema can be defined precisely as this inmixing of types across the full range of historical and cultural models'' (34). For Fuery, this is not necessarily a bad thing, because cinema is ''born in the age of psychoanalysis'' and especially good at mixing a variety of cultural forms together.
However, I have just shown how Cynthia Erb has argued that it is precisely this potential for spectacle that can lead to misunderstandings and stigma. The stigma obviously has severe consequences for the mentally ill. Julio Arboleda-Flórez considers the stigma and notes that ''[f]or the stigmatized, stigma is a feeling of being negatively differentiated owing to a particular condition or state. Stigma is related to negative stereotyping and prejudicial attitudes that in turn lead to discriminatory practices which deprive the stigmatized person from legally recognized entitlements'' (647). Film's obsession with mental illness has indeed been around since the beginning of cinema and Julio Arboleda-Flórez rightfully points out the negative effects on the mentally ill. However, this is hardly new information. I would like to demonstrate, in the next chapter, how a selection of contemporary Western drama films does not solely set up madness as a potential for spectacle and visual entertainment, but instead contributes to destigmatizing the insane by showing more humane and realistic portrayals of mentally ill characters.
Just as Arboleda-Flórez, there are more scholars in the field of cultural studies of mental illness that point to the underestimated influence that depictions of the mentally ill have on the public perception (Hyler, Gabbard, and Schneider 1044; Hyler 195; Eisenhauer 16; Beachum 5; Dinan 3; Wahl and Lefkowits 521). Timothy Dinan argues that it is ''sensational headlining'' that forms the basis for prejudice, fear in the public, and the promotion of stereotypes. It is exactly the label put on schizophrenia and other mental illnesses that changes the public opinion, making society less accepting. This leads to ''sufferers inhabit[ing] a different space in public perception from those patients hospitalised with physical conditions'' (3). Hyler, Gabbard, and Schneider suggest something similar when they write that ''media images insidiously work their way into the collective unconscious of
society and influence the way we all regard the world around us'' (1047). They also show how common stereotypes have appeared in film over and over again, making it difficult for the audience to think that they are anything less than accurate. I will elaborate on this in the second chapter. A recent article by Lauren Beachum notes that ''[t]he words used more than fifty years ago to describe people with mental illness, such as ''dangerous'', ''weak'', ''crazy'', ''worthless'', and ''insane'', are the same ones used today'' (2). All these authors thus show that not much has changed and how the stigma is still very present and pervasive in contemporary media and films.
In the field of film studies, scholars specifically point out that movies often contain inaccurate portrayals of mental illness (Granello, Pauley, and Carmichael 98; Granello and Pauley 162; Hyler, Gabbard, and Schneider 1044). Patricia Owen, examining the effectiveness of accurate and inaccurate film portrayals on college students, adds that ''popular movies contribute to misinformation about characteristics, causes, and treatments of mental illness'' (61). All things considered, there seems to be an obvious need for films that in some way positively influence the public with more accurate portrayals of the mentally ill. Analysing the plot and characters of five contemporary films, I will demonstrate that the first steps in a more nuanced direction have already been taken. More effort is being done to normalize and accurately portray mental illness, which not only contributes to minimizing misconceptions regarding mental illness but also regarding the practice of psychiatry itself. I would like to elaborate on specific inaccuracies and stereotypes in the next chapter, in which I will offer a brief history of mental illness and psychiatry in film. Patricia Owen suggests that the more accurate portrayals of people suffering from mental illness are viewed by the public, the more it may counter and correct prejudice and misconceptions (70). Wahl and Lefkowits point out that ''the public's views are pulled not just on a one time but on a continuing basis toward such negative views of mental illness'' (626). One accurate portrayal is thus obviously not enough to change the public opinion. There is certainly still a considerable amount of work that needs to be done to change the public's opinion altogether.
1.2 Film as a social world
Most research in the field is based on reception studies, focusing on the ''possible impact of mass media images on the public'' (Wahl and Lefkowits 521). As far as textual analysis goes, research focuses on examining how accurate the portrayals of mental illness in films are. However, such scholars overlook Foucault’s idea that madness is a linguistic discourse, always dependent on the culture in which it takes place. Most scholars are still very much
concerned with a certain kind of ''psychiatric truth'', but this is not as pivotal when looking at a sociocultural understanding of mental illness. Cinema can do so much more than merely depicting mental illness. Cinema allows madness to be seen and portrayed as a social world; ''not merely a vertiginous environment of delusion and torment, not merely a spectacle of monstrous, distorted faces and bodies. It traces the passages across the boundaries between sanity and insanity […]'' (Mitchell 12). This means that film has the ability to show its audience not only a depiction of insanity (whether accurate or inaccurate), not only a depiction of sanity but a depiction of how the two socially work together and redefine what insanity or sanity actually means. It is precisely the relation between mentally ill characters, sane characters, and their social world that I wish to aim my focus. This will specifically come to the fore in the third chapter.
This thesis intends to look at contemporary drama film as a means to engage, not only with the mentally ill but particularly with the social settings and institutions that are depicted, such as high school, mental hospitals, and families. Examining a topic that has always had a stigma attached to it by society, this research will not only aim to get a better sense of the current cultural ideas surrounding mental illness but also of the current state of the stigma. When examining the social world of mental illness in film, it is necessary to discuss two sociological concepts that have always been closely related to madness: alienation and otherness. For now, I will discuss a number of scholars who have written about these concepts.
Being mentally ill is often associated with feeling different, and abnormal. While the mentally ill are feeling estranged from their society, the 'normal' members of that society, in turn, separate themselves from the ill individuals, labelling them as 'Other'. Nicola Morant discusses the sense of otherness and sameness among British and French mental health professionals. He expresses that ''otherness arises from a sense of alienation and an inability to imagine what the experience of mental illness is like'' (7). By labelling the mentally ill as Other, the professionals, to a certain extent, distance themselves and their social group from the individual (9). However, the professionals can still feel sympathetic towards the ill, because they also experience a sense of sameness: ''themes of sameness provide a link between the self and the experiences of the mentally ill, drawing mental illness psychologically closer'' (9). This means that the professionals are aware of the fact that mental illness has the potential to exist in every single person and are able to accept the ill individual for who he or she is. So, mental health professionals are able to accept the Other because they experience a sense of sameness, but what about the general public? Morant does not provide
an answer, but I would like to suggest here that the public, in general, does not feel this sameness towards the mentally ill. What remains is only the feeling of otherness, that keeps the boundaries between Us and Them rigid. I would like to demonstrate how the films that I will analyse encourage this feeling of sameness by showing how the mentally ill individual might not be so different from Us than is generally thought. I will elaborate on this in the third chapter when I revisit the ideas of psychiatrist R.D. Laing.
In ''Extremes of Otherness'', Greer and Jewkes start their article by making a distinction between two kinds of otherness. What they call ''absolute otherness'' is characterized by exceptional examples of crime. These Others are defined by ''their utter detachment from the social, moral, and cultural universe of ordinary, decent people – their pure and unadulterated evil'' (21). Included are for example ''pedophilic murders'' and ''acts of terrorism.'' The categorization of ''stigmatized others'' on the other hand, is fluid, heavily influenced by media representations and may include travellers, immigrants, and single mothers. I argue that people with mental illness belong to the latter group. The insane might sometimes be feared as the absolute Other, but the mentally ill will more often be detested or looked down upon as the stigmatized Other. Greer and Jewkes observe that all forms of exclusion, labelling them Other, serve as to maintain an ''idealized self.'' The authors suggest that by expressing repulsion towards the Other, people try to deny ''the fact that those […] are not ''others.'' They are ''us'', and are of our making'' (29). The truth is that the mentally ill are not absolutely different. While the absolute others are separated from Us by fear, the stigmatized others are not evil. The mentally ill are only labelled as Other because they ''fail to conform to cultural and economic norms to attract the scrutiny and criticism of the media. Frequently, then, the truly powerless, rather than the truly evil, are demonized and stigmatized in the popular media'' (29). By analysing five contemporary films, I will thus also seek to show how the mentally ill are not evil and need not be feared so that we can loosen the boundaries between Us and Them.
Many scholars have written about the concept of alienation (Kohn 111; Wellman et al. 436; Seeman 783; Corlett 700; Twining 417), and more specifically social alienation (Ankony and Kelley 121; Schacht 47). A number of them have suggested a close connection between alienation and mental illness (Sommer and Hall 418; Nettler 670; Johnson 369). It is important here to consider alienation as a social process: ''alienation must be recognized as a relational concept involving an interaction process between the individual […] and the cultural conditions of fundamental social situations […]'' (Twining 422). Following a social-psychological point of view, Melvin Seeman identifies five different meanings of alienation:
''powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and self-estrangement'' (783). Powerlessness refers to the inability to control outcomes, while meaninglessness refers to the inability to predict outcomes. Normlessness refers to the idea that abnormal behaviour is necessary to achieve one's goals, and isolation means that one assigns ''low reward value to goals or beliefs that are typically highly valued in the given society'' (789). It is unfortunate that Seeman does not relate these types of alienation to specific social situations because now the definitions remain quite general. However, it does show how alienation is quite universal and how it could be present in any fully functioning individual. I would like to argue that the concept of alienation is thus not only reserved for the mentally ill member of society. Who has not at least once in his life felt a sense of powerlessness or isolation? Or self-estrangement, referring to ''the inability of the individual to find self-rewarding'' (790). I will explore this further in the following chapters.
For now, I want to focus on the concept of alienation that is related to mental illness. Gwynn Nettler, influenced by Emile Durkheim's conceptualization of 'anomie', defines an alienated person as ''one who has been estranged from, made unfriendly toward, his society and the culture it carries'' (672). This definition carries a sense of personal disturbance; the person is alienated in the sense that he or she is not fully able to function in a society. I believe this conceptualization to be the most suited for my research since it is similar to the way Foucault considers alienation, as being detached from something. For Foucault, this means that in madness a man is detached from himself and estranged from the world or society. When writing about the relation between madness, civilization, and sensibility, he expresses:
[M]adness was no longer recognized in what brings man closer to an immemorial fall or an indefinitely present animality; it was, on the contrary, situated in those distances man takes in regard to himself, to his world, to all that is offered by the immediacy of nature; madness became possible in that milieu where man's relations with his feelings, with time, with others, are altered; madness was possible because of everything which, in man's life and development, is a break with the immediate. Madness […] was of a new order, in which formed, in an obscure originating relationship, the ''alienation'' of the physicians and the ''alienation'' of the philosophers – two configurations in which man in any case corrupts his truth (208-209).
In the book Madness and Civilization, there seems to be a striking paradox concerning the relationship between the two words in its title. Civilization is generally thought of as
something that contributes to the rise of order, knowledge, and reason. Madness, associated with disorder and unreason, should then start to fade from that civilization. Foucault points to the opposite: madness, in terms of alienation, does not disappear from an advancing civilization at all but rather seems to become even more present. Madness starts to be considered as something that is being created by, instead of being held back by, civilization. The modern man is here understood as alienated from himself and alienated from the world, resulting in madness. Madness is thus, on the one hand, alienated from civilization, but, on the other hand, also the production of that same civilization.
1.3 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have made a distinction between madness and mental illness by pointing out Foucault's concept of madness as dependent on the society in which it exists. I explored the discourse on madness from a sociocultural perspective and related this to film while acknowledging stigma and prejudice. Film influences the public opinion by continuously feeding viewers inaccurate portrayals of mental illness.
One could argue that the film industry has an obligation to reduce negative depictions of mental illness and take the opportunity to educate the public (Pirkis et al. 524). Others would consider this not to be the responsibility of the entertainment industry (Hyler, Gabbard, and Schneider 1048). I would like to agree with Hyler, Gabbard, and Schneider, and suggest that artistic freedom in film should be celebrated. It is indeed not the primary motive of the film industry to educate. However, it is important for the film industry to be aware of their major influential position, especially concerning a subject as delicate and stigmatized as mental illness. This is not to suggest that the negative portrayals of mental illness are the product of artistic freedom. On the contrary, it seems that the negative portrayals are the result of a lack of creativity in films about mental health. The reason that these films overpower the positive portrayals, is that most filmmakers use the same comfortable format over and over, for example, madness as spectacle, because they have once been proven to be popular. Therefore, I would like to suggest that creative freedom goes hand in hand with positive portrayals of mental illness. Filmmakers can take creative risks and make an interesting and attractive narrative, while at the same time staying close to realistic portrayals of mental illness. To make this work, filmmakers should take responsibility and improve their knowledge on the mental disorders they are representing, for example through working together with mental health advocates (Beachum 29). I will aim to elaborate on this in the next chapters.
In the following chapters, I will also take a closer look at five contemporary drama films: The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2012), X+Y (Morgan Matthews, 2014), Charlie Bartlett (Jon Poll, 2007), It's Kind of a Funny Story (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, 2010), and Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001).
Chapter 2: A brief history of psychiatry and mental illness in film
In the previous chapter, I have emphasised that mental illness has been a very popular theme in cinema since the beginning of the medium. In this chapter, I would like to take a closer look at the historical development of mental illness in film. I aim to answer the question: In what way have psychiatry and mental illness in film historically developed, and how does that development relate more specifically to contemporary drama film about mentally ill teenagers?
If one looks at the history of cinema and compares it to the history of psychoanalysis, there are many parallels to be found between the two. The most obvious one would be that they both started during the same time period. Already at the start, psychology has been interested in film, since it has proved to be quite competent in reflecting the psychological states of its characters. Simultaneously, cinema has been interested in all things psychiatric, since it is a useful theme for compelling storytelling. In one article, Irving Schneider adds that both film and psychology ''started humbly, and in their long early development were viewed as dangerous, immoral, and capable of corrupting the citizenry'' (''Images of the Mind: Psychiatry in the Commercial Film'' 613). In the previous chapter, I have mentioned several scholars who all concluded that film concerns itself with mostly inaccurate depictions of mentally ill people, therefore influencing the masses by either consciously or unconsciously stigmatizing mental illness. I would argue that it is thus all throughout history that film has been misguiding the public, instead of only in its humble beginnings, and the same could be said about psychiatry and psychology.
At the same time that Thomas Edison, the Lumière brothers, and Georges Méliès were pioneering in the field of cinema, Sigmund Freud was publishing his first works and
becoming famous with his psychoanalysis. When Freud became more well-known in the United States, his ideas began to influence filmmakers. Georges Méliès and D.W. Griffith were already making a variety of short chase movies about madmen who were escaping from a mental hospital. Peter Byrne, writing about a variety of 'psycho-killers' in movies, mentions that it was D.W. Griffith who notably changed this evil view of mental illness to a less violent one. After Freud's first lecture series in the United States in 1909, Griffith made films in which ''violent lunacy could be cured'' and in which a mentally ill person ''is talked out of his 'insanity' by a convivial doctor'' (174). Freud had little interest for film, perhaps because of his anti-American prejudice, but since the development of his psychoanalysis was so similar to the development of cinema, some confrontation with the medium he was just not able to avoid. Bruce Sklarew, making a record of all Freud's encounters with cinema, addresses one encounter with a well-known film producer, Samuel Goldwyn, who wanted to explore the relationship between sex, love, and psychoanalysis on screen:
In 1925, the powerful Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn offered Freud a $100,000 fee to consult on the making of a film about famous love stories in history, beginning with Anthony and Cleopatra (Gay 1988). […] Freud, always keenly sensitive to the exploitation of psychoanalysis for sensationalist ends, rejected the offer, as reported in the New York Times: ''FREUD REBUFFS GOLDWYN: Viennese Psychoanalyst is Not Interested in Motion Picture Offer'' (January 24, 1925) (1244).
Although Freud set the tone for psychoanalysts to refuse the exploitation of their work for entertainment purposes, this has not stopped filmmakers to continue doing just that. Considering Freud's influence on D.W. Griffith, this begs the question: If Freud and others had not been so reluctant to engage with popular media, could they have influenced the cinema's depiction of mental illness for the better? Perhaps during the early years, while psychoanalysis was still a novelty. Sooner or later, though, filmmakers would have started to take their own creative liberties again, creating inaccurate portrayals for the sake of entertainment. This does, however, make an argument for mental health advocates and professionals working together with filmmakers, as I suggested in the previous chapter. These professionals should be wary of exploitation and proceed with caution, but, as psychotherapist Brett Kahr suggests, one must ''avoid letting one's judiciousness develop into a symptom of phobic proportions, thus denying proponents of psychoanalysis an opportunity to use the media effectively to promote the work for which we have trained over many decades''
(370-371). In this way, filmmakers can take creative risks and make an interesting and attractive narrative, while at the same time staying close to realistic portrayals of mental illness.
2.1 Psychiatry in film
For now, it is necessary to look at how the profession of psychiatry and psychotherapy has developed in film. After this, I would also like to discuss a couple of common stereotypes and examine how the representation of mental illness itself has developed. Considering psychiatry in movies, Michael Shortland writes that the earliest films, the ones around the 1900s, reveal that ''character and situation were often subordinated to plot, and plot put to the service of the final, climactic chase – the lunatic fleeing from a straitjacket with his mad doctor and attendants in hot pursuit'' (422). These were thus the chase movies that Georges Méliès and D.W. Griffith were making, about madmen who were escaping from mental hospitals. A little later, during the earliest talking pictures, more substantial psychiatric characters began to emerge, and through the thirties, the psychiatrist as a character became more and more salient. In a number of movies from the thirties, the ''psychiatrist appears as the typical, and helpless, man-about-town adrift in a world he cannot himself understand. […] In others, he assumes a more menacing guise. […] And in still others, the psychiatrist appears to be wise, logical, and powerful'' (422). In this description, three stereotypes can be found, of which only one could be considered to be a positive portrayal.
Irving Schneider distinguishes three stereotype movie psychiatrists that are very similar to Shortland's descriptions, and ''differ in theory, method, and patients treated'' (''The Theory and Practice of Movie Psychiatry'' 997). The one who is foolish and helpless, Schneider calls ''Dr. Dippy'' (996), who is characterized by being comical and often crazier than his own patients. The way the doctor treats his patients is often bizarre and ineffective but is neither harmful to the patient. Another stereotype Schneider names is ''Dr. Evil'' (998). This one is mostly used in the horror genre and is characterized by either doing ''evil deeds'' or using ''his powers for personal profit.'' The key element is that Dr. Evil uses the tools of psychiatry as a means to control or manipulate his patients. The third psychiatrist first appeared during the late 1930s and is called ''Dr. Wonderful'' (997). This character is the most positive and somehow accurate of all three. He is ''warm, humane, modest, and caring'' (997) and is the most competent in his approach. It is this stereotype that would have the most positive effect on the public's attitude towards psychiatric treatment. The only problem with this characterization is that Dr. Wonderful is often portrayed as being so competent that, nearing the climax of the film, he finds more often than not an ''instantaneous cure'' (997).
This is problematic because it is important for the public to understand that mental illness is not something to be cured but rather something that one needs to learn how to live with. In the next chapter, I will discuss this in more detail in relation to R.D. Laing's conception of mental illness.
Here, I would like to argue that the five contemporary films from my corpus all depict a new version of the Dr. Wonderful stereotype to work towards a more humane and accurate portrayal of illness and treatment, while also making clear that mental illness is not just cured but instead needs to be lived with under the right guidance. In both The Perks of Being a
Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2012) and Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) the
psychiatrists that treat the protagonists, respectively Dr. Burton (Joan Cusack) and Dr. Thurman (Katharine Ross), are warm, soft spoken, not concerned with time, and seem to genuinely want to help their patients. X+Y (Morgan Matthews, 2014) briefly shows a similar psychiatrist (Clare Burt), who even sits under the table with his young autistic patient to make him feel more comfortable. It's Kind of a Funny Story (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, 2010) depicts a psychiatrist, Dr. Minerva (Viola Davis), that is very practical and works by the clock, not having much time for the protagonist when they talk in the hallway. However, the psychiatrist is skilful and, during appointments, she is soft-spoken, warm, and truly listening to her patient. Charlie Bartlett (Jon Poll, 2007) is the only film that actually shows a comical psychiatrist called Dr. Weathers (Stephen Young) who is very much in line with a Dr. Dippy type. The audience is given a very cartoonish version of a psychiatrist that fails to be empathetic, looks for sexual meaning in everything, and prescribes medication recklessly. However, it is important to note that the film goes out of its way to emphasize that this depiction of a psychiatrist should not be taken seriously. Charlie Bartlett thus offers a self-appointed Dr. Wonderful as well, in the form of its protagonist. In the third chapter, I will discuss this in more detail in relation to R.D. Laing's ideas on what the role of a psychiatrist should be.
These three stereotypes emerged during the thirties and worked their way through film history. There is, however, more to be said about psychiatry in movies. After the Second World War, psychiatry became a more respected and sophisticated profession, which led to an increase in movies about mental illness. The portrayals, however, were still hugely inaccurate. In Stephen Safran's article on the first century of disability portrayal, the author connects this period to the film noir genre. He writes that it ''represented an era during which the difficulties of life were artistically communicated through the psychological condition. […] film noir screenwriters took artistic license in their sensationalized storylines, often leading to
erroneous depictions'' (470). An example of this is Alfred Hitchcock's film noir film
Spellbound (1945). This film furthered the idealized view of a psychiatrist as a solver of
mysteries and ''glamourized psychiatry'' (Shortland 422). Irving Schneider adds that Ingrid Bergman's character became ''illustrative of how women psychiatrists have been presented in film. [They tend to be] more emotional than professional'' (''Images of the Mind: Psychiatry in the Commercial Film'' 616).
Later, another one of Hitchcock's classics, Psycho (1960), showed an accurate depiction of an intelligent psychiatrist that rationally explained the events of the film and the actions of its mentally ill protagonist. Shortland uses this depiction of a psychiatrist and compares it to Dressed to Kill (Brian de Palma, 1980), a movie heavily influenced by Psycho, to explain how filmmakers during the seventies and eighties have ''adopted a far more critical, even antagonistic, stance'' (423). In this era, psychiatrists became, again, either repressive, as in the famous One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (Miloš Forman, 1975), or violent and dangerous, as in Dressed to Kill.
Overall, this shows how psychiatry has not had a great track record regarding its portrayal in film. The authors I have discussed, published their works during the seventies and eighties, so no further research has been done regarding the contemporary representations. I have thus argued above that contemporary films have taken a few steps in a more nuanced direction. The films in my corpus have done this by showing more humane depictions of psychiatrists that resemble the Dr. Wonderful stereotype without pretending the mentally ill patient is cured at the end of the film. Also, Daniel Romer and Mary Bock have recently argued that there is a need to ''combat both stigma associated with mental illness and the perception that treatment [is often] ineffective'' (743). While the patients in the films of my corpus are not immediately cured, the treatment is neither ineffective. The Perks of Being a
Wallflower is the best example of this. Its teenage protagonist, Charlie (Logan Lerman), is
extremely alienated from the people around him. He knows that he is different and feels as if he doesn't belong anywhere. Charlie's alienation in the film stems from his depression and inability to cope with death and trauma. He is not able to recognize and understand this trauma, because he has repressed it. He has a couple of scattered flashbacks but only when Charlie is submitted in a mental hospital he recognizes that his trauma stems from past sexual abuse. It is the psychiatric treatment that helps him uncover this. The message is not that Charlie is cured once for all; it is still abuse that he has suffered and he has to live with the memories every day. However, it was ultimately the psychiatrist that helped him confront his trauma so that he can make sense of it and cope with it.
2.2 Mental illness in film
In this thesis, I do not aim to offer an in-depth history of mental illness in film so I would like to call upon a quote by Otto Wahl, who, in Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness, attempts to answer the question why there are so many inaccuracies and misconceptions. At one point, he notes:
The images of mental illness that appear in today's mass media reflect conceptualizations and representations of people with mental illnesses that have been around for centuries. The creative professionals of today's media are, in some ways, just carrying on traditional depictions of the past. Many of today's images are repetitions or residuals of long-standing popular beliefs (114).
This is a similar argument to what I concluded in the previous chapter. Negative portrayals of mental illness are not the product of artistic freedom. On the contrary, negative portrayals are the result of a lack of creativity (and, accordingly, critical nuances) in films about mental health and are perhaps not to be defined in a specific period. Filmmakers use the same comfortable format over and over because they have proven to be popular.
For now, it is essential to look at a couple of common stereotypes, regarding the mentally ill person, that have been prominent in the history of film. In ''Homicidal Maniacs and Narcissistic Parasites: Stigmatization of Mentally Ill Persons in the Movies'', Hyler, Gabbard, and Schneider distinguish six stereotypes in the image of the patients with mental disorders. The first one is the ''rebellious free spirit'' (1044), which is often characterized by a person escaping an institution and going on an adventure. The problem with this stereotype is that it suggests mental illness does not exist and that a person can be cured with only a little freedom. The second is the ''homicidal maniac'' (1045), which suggests that mental illness is always intertwined with violence. This is perhaps the most persistent misconception that is present throughout all media representations of mental illness. In the ''female as seductress'' stereotype, the female patient is ''not just oversexed; their sexuality is destructive to men'' (1045). The forth stereotype, the authors call the ''enlightened member of society'' (1046) and is a simplified characterization of the ideas of psychiatrist R.D. Laing. These enlightened members show deviant behaviour because they have rejected society's repressive norms. Again, the problem with this stereotype is that it suggests that psychiatry is useless, which is not beneficial for mentally ill people who do need serious help. The last two stereotypes are
the ''narcissistic parasite'' (1046), a self-involved patient that only seeks attention, and the ''zoo specimen, […] a dehumanized specimen for scientific observation'' (1047).
Now, I would like to attempt to nullify, or at least take distance from, these stereotypes in relation to my corpus of five films to show that the contemporary films take a step in the right direction by choosing artistic freedom and depicting more realistic mentally ill people. All protagonists in my corpus are male, so the ''female as seductress'' is already invalid. The ''rebellious free spirit'', the ''narcissistic parasite'', and the ''zoo specimen'' are unimportant here as well, since these descriptions are not in line with the stories of the five protagonists. They are realistically and humanely portrayed and none of them is a ''homicidal maniac.'' Four films make an effort to portray characters that are clearly not violent or dangerous. However, while Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is not a homicidal maniac, there could something be said about the relationship between illness and violence when looking at Donnie Darko. Donnie is a character that is quite morally ambiguous. The giant bunny rabbit, a hallucination, orders him to commit crimes, like setting a school on fire, flooding the school, and vandalizing the school mascot. Donnie can, therefore, be considered as someone who is dangerous as a result of his schizophrenic hallucinations. Yet, other than with the ''homicidal maniac'' stereotype, the viewer is not distanced from these hallucinations that result in violence but is allowed to get an inside look into the psyche of this teenage boy. In this way, the viewer can go along with the narrative and actually understand why Donnie acts the way he does. Here, we have a mentally ill character that can be considered dangerous, but he is not violent merely for spectacle. Instead, we are allowed to understand where these abnormal ideas come from and why Donnie acts upon them. A feeling of otherness towards the schizophrenic mostly arises because of the ''inability to imagine what the experience of mental illness is like'' (Morant 7). Experiencing the story through Donnie's subjectivity, the audience is now able to sympathize with the mentally ill and encounter a sense of sameness. When the viewer goes along with the narrative, he or she does not have to dismiss Donnie as different or Other but can instead accept him as being the same.
All five films render their characters in a way that their mental illness offers them new insights that sane people, in comparison, do not have easy access to. In X+Y, Nathan's (Asa Butterfield) autism and his obsession with patterns allow him to be incredibly talented regarding mathematics for example. In It's Kind of a Funny Story, Craig Gilner (Keir Gilchrist) learns new things about his true self, but this is more a result of his contact with other mentally ill patients than a result of his own depression. It is again Donnie Darko that is the only real candidate for the ''enlightened member of society'' stereotype, in the sense that he
behaves defiantly because he has ''rejected society's constricting conventions'' (1046). Other than this stereotype, however, the film does not express the message that Donnie's schizophrenia does not exist. Instead, Donnie Darko takes Donnie's illness seriously and uses it as a means to engage in a social critique. Writing about mental distress in contemporary media, Stephen Harper comments that Donnie is a metaphoric beacon ''of sanity in the oppressive, indeed 'crazy' world [he] inhabit[s]'' (171). Donnie's schizophrenia is then a product of, and reaction to, a mad, repressive world. In this way, the film debunks the stereotype and slips into an anti-psychiatric approach of looking at mental illness. I will elaborate on this in the third chapter.
2.3 Conclusion
In comparison to the twentieth century, there are significantly more contemporary films being made about teenagers with mental illness. I would like to argue that this trend is the result of several scholars researching the fact that most mental illnesses develop at a young age. For example, Romer and Bock argue that ''adolescence and young adulthood is the age when many mental disorders first emerge'' (743). Similarly, Richard Friedman notes:
We know from the National Comorbidity Survey that half of all serious adult psychiatric illnesses – including major depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse - start by 14 years of age […]. Yet the majority of mental illness in young people goes unrecognized and untreated, leaving them vulnerable to emotional, social, and academic impairments during a critical phase of their lives (2717).
Most people, however, don't seek help until adulthood if they even seek help that is. High school is a social environment in which a lot of teenagers experience feelings of anxiety, peer pressure, the desire to fit in, and alienation. The contemporary drama films from my corpus make an effort to finally acknowledge this in popular audio-visual media. The films deal with protagonists that want to be liked, want to fit in, and, partly as a result of their illness, feel isolated, embarrassed or misunderstood. Peers, next to parents, are the most important socializing agents for adolescents (Lopez 272). Making films about peers that are mentally ill and showing the effectiveness of their treatment can thus be essential in encouraging adolescents to seek help.
In this chapter, I have made a comparison between psychoanalysis and cinema and found that they are in many ways similar. Freud set the tone for psychoanalysts and mental
health professionals to refuse the exploitation of their work for entertainment purposes, but this has not stopped filmmakers to do exactly that. I have briefly discussed the historical development of the role of the psychiatrist in film and have also pointed to the most common stereotypes regarding mentally ill characters. I aimed to answer the question: In what way have psychiatry and mental illness in film historically developed, and how does that development relate to contemporary drama film about mentally ill teenagers?
This chapter has demonstrated that the stereotypes film history has produced have been very negative and inaccurate depictions of mental illness and psychiatry. This has seriously damaged public opinion, leading to stigma. This chapter has also insisted on the fact that these stereotypes do not exist in contemporary drama films about mentally ill teenagers. Instead, these films, as it will be further argued, make an effort to accurately portray both humane psychiatrists and mentally ill teenagers. However, these films also recognize that there is a bigger problem at stake. We need not only ask the question of how to reduce the stigma put on mental illness but also consider the insane state of our Western society. The next chapter will elaborate on this by revisiting the works of psychiatrist R.D. Laing and his ideas on an insane world.
Chapter 3: Being sane in an insane world: R.D. Laing revisited
In this chapter, I will introduce the anti-psychiatry movement that emerged in the 1960s. I will examine in depth the work of R.D. Laing and relate it to a discussion of my corpus of five contemporary drama films. This chapter seeks to explore the relevance of Laing in the twenty-first century Western society. I will aim to answer the question: How does my corpus of five contemporary feature films revisit R.D. Laing's ideas on an 'insane' world, enable to reconsider the notion of mental illness, and reflect upon the stigma that has been placed on mental illness?
In the first chapter, I have discussed Foucault's striking paradox between madness and civilization. As our civilization is progressing, madness, as the epitome of chaos and unreason, is expected to disappear. Foucault points to the opposite: Madness does not fade from our civilization but becomes even more present. So, madness starts to be considered as something that is being created by, instead of being held back by, civilization. The modern man becomes understood as alienated from himself and from the world, resulting in madness. On the one hand, madness is thus alienated from civilization, but, on the other hand, madness is also the product of that same civilization. Foucault's paradox is very much aligned with what psychiatrist R.D. Laing calls the 'insane' society.
I would like to argue that researching mental illness is more than just a matter of reducing the stigma. Even if the boundaries between normal and abnormal are blurring, they are not yet on their way to disappearing. In The Divided Self (1960), Laing emphasized that ''our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities, that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities'' (12). What has now become normal is part of the pressures of a terminally ill society: ''Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal'' (The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise 10). While a number of films slowly start blur the boundaries between Us and Them and communicate more humane and realistic portrayals of people with mental illness, there seems to be a bigger problem at stake. We need not only ask the question of how to reduce the stigma put on mental illness, but also consider, from a broader social and cultural perspective, the mentally ill state of our Western society.
3.1 Conforming to a world gone mad
Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) is a film about the Other versus society, in which the
audience identifies with the Other. The protagonist, Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), is the outcast who lives in a suburban utopia that seems to be perfect on the surface, but nothing could be further from the truth. What is striking about the film is that it very consciously shows a society establishing and dealing with outsiders. In ''The Monster Within: Alienation and Social Conformity in The Elephant Man'', Biderman and Tabeka comment on social order as an essential element in our existence: ''[t]he desire for social conformity requires us to raise a flag in unity and to cast aside those who undermine (or fall short) of this unity'' (212). This is exactly what the community in Donnie Darko is doing, and, in the context of madness, it is the so-called sane people that are establishing what is normal and what is not, what is popular and what is not, distancing themselves from the Others. The viewers would naturally experience the sane characters as Us and the outcasted characters, including the insane protagonist, as Them. However, the film makes an effort to not let its viewers accept this so easily, representing the outcasts as enlightened as opposed to the 'normal' members.
In truth, Donnie is very estranged from his society and the culture it carries. Instead of posing this as a failure from Donnie, the film seems to ask; is it really necessary to try and conform to this normative idiocy? Thinking about conformity, Laing seems to ask a very
similar question when he writes: ''Life requires adaptability. […] Adaption to what? To society? To a world gone mad? [...] To induce a false consciousness of security [...]: to create, in short, one-dimensional man: to promote respect, conformity, obedience: to con children out of play: to induce a fear of failure: to promote a respect for work'' (55). Just like Laing wants to speak up about a mad world in his work, Donnie wants to speak up about his concerns as well, but it becomes evident that the voice of the Other is not being heard. The whole community is for example obsessed with the motivational speaker, Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze), and his superficial 'lifeline program'. A program that pretends to have all the answers for life but ultimately seems to offers nothing more than generalities. A program that represents Laing's idea of society, by creating a false consciousness in which every human action is divided into either love or fear. Nevertheless, the community is all too eager to swallow it up. It represents the normative standard, taught on television and in schools.
When Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant), a gym teacher, teaches the class about the program, it results in Donnie lashing out: ''[...] you're not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account here, like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these two categories and then deny everything else!'' The school reacts to this by suspending Donnie from after-school activities. Voicing similar concerns to Cunningham when he visits the school, again, Donnie gets removed from the microphone, not being heard. Interestingly, the parents side with Cunningham, while the students clap for Donnie, indicating how the younger minds are still willing to listen to alternative voices. Nevertheless, the power is with the institutions, enabling the school staff to silence everyone who does not conform to the standard and therefore endanger the social order of normality. Another example of this silencing is when Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore), an unconventional English teacher, tries to convince the school principal, expressing: ''I don't think you have a clue about what it's like to communicate with these kids. We are losing them to apathy, to this prescribed nonsense… They're slipping away.'' The principal, unfortunately, does not want to listen to her and reacts by firing her from her job as an English teacher.
3.2 Foucault, Laing, and the anti-psychiatry movement
By actively rethinking the rigid Us and Them structure, Donnie Darko takes on an anti-psychiatry approach for thinking about mental illness. In this section, I will thus briefly discuss what this approach implicates. The anti-psychiatry movement emerged in the 1960s and had Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing as one of its most important faces. Writing about the life and works of British psychiatrist David Cooper, Adrian Chapman notes that Cooper was
