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Analyzing The Portrayal of Mental Illness in The Media
Introduction
In order to investigate mental illness in the media as a whole, we had to investigate each sub category as well. Eating disorders, being one of these mentioned topics, are very common. Sources, such as one from Emily Fox-Kales, places emphasis on the growing false portrayal of eating disorders in film media (Fox-Kales, 2 ). She also sheds light on the issues of bulimia, Hollywood film making, and celebrity advice (Fox-Kales, 13). With this in mind, we are able to relate this topic to widely known celebrities to further establish the prevalence and importance of this topic. Similarly to Fox-Kales, Tina Margolis (and others) work to establish the claim that Hollywood producers tend to avoid including eating disorders in movies because it signifies infertility and death (Margolis, Rones, Algaze, 1). This is a different perspective that also supports the claim that mental illness is being falsely portrayed in the media, specifically films. Information like this is important as it examines a subtopic within our final research question: What are the effects of depicting mental illness in popular film media? Similarly, anxiety is also a commonly portrayed mental illness in films. More specifically, an article by Karima Embun Utama, provides examples of how anxiety is currently being portrayed in popular films (Utama, 3). This relates to our survey as it provides traits associated with this mental illness and how movie producers/directors are illustrating it. This information allows us to identify the different symptoms associated with anxiety and how producers depict them differently. This helps us analyze even further, if mental illness is accurately being portrayed in the media. Furthermore, the article by Pekka Sulkunen, discusses the different visualizations of addiction in films (Sulkunen, 2 ). This topic is important since addiction is one of the leading effects associated with mental illness. With specific examples of these depictions, we can safely say that films commonly depict mental illness. Therefore, this initial inquiry led us to uncover the effects of these depictions. This helps us provide survey participants with some of the outcomes that result from these illnesses. All of these subtopics allow for the further comprehension of the main topic: the effects of depictions of mental illnesses in films. This topic is ultimately super relevant in today’s society. Mental illness is beginning to rise above many other topics in the media as more and more people are coming out about their experiences with these illnesses.
Methods
Before we began to recruit survey participants and gather results, we researched other studies before ultimately creating our methodology. With this background information we are then able to apply new knowledge of the topic to our survey in order to generate the most useful results. Next, to gather information about the portrayal of mental illness in popular American media, our group relied on respondents to submit answers online, through the Qualtrics survey platform. Our survey consisted of 24 questions, including demographics. Basic demographic questions included inquiries about race, age, gender, education, etc. Although these questions were asked, participants were not required to answer all of the questions. If participants failed to meet one of the survey requirements, they were redirected to the end of the survey. Therefore, the survey was estimated to take around 5-10 minutes. According to the image on the right, we created a flier in order to recruit survey participants. The flyer contains important information pertaining to, not only the survey, but also our group itself. It mentions many important points such as, IRB approval, participant requirements, and the main goal of the survey. Since we included this information, all participants were clearly aware of the risks and/or topics associated with the study. Similarly to this, those who met the demographic requirements were then required to give consent through Qualtrics if wanting to proceed with the study. Our Qualtrics survey link was posted directly to D2L, as well as our personal social media accounts. Specifically, we posted the survey link on our snapchat stories in order to acquire a broad range of participants. In doing so, we obtained approximately 70 responses. The survey was limited to students attending school in Georgia. While this helped us to understand the outlook of our peers on how mental illness is portrayed in film and social media, our research was limited to that of our peers instead of a broader audience which may have given us more insight. Furthermore, the survey was open for one week, giving respondents ample time to complete the survey. Once the survey was closed, we gathered the data and placed certain responses into pie charts in order to clearly create convincing conclusions. According to the responses obtained, most of the respondents agreed that mental illness is not accurately portrayed in the media and can have negative effects on the individual. Even further discussed in the results, most media consumers criticize the film industry for their false portrayal of these mental illnesses. They ultimately blame this industry for their negative views on mental illness.
Image: Flier used to recruit survey participants
Figure 1.1: Pie chart for responses from question 19 on survey
Results
Through the results of our survey, we saw that most respondents agreed to have seen at least 5-15 movies that include different depictions of mental illness. Therefore, we can infer that the average movie-goer is being constantly exposed to movies with harmful depictions. We know these portrayals are harmful based on the responses in later questions. As you can see in Figure 1.1, the depictions of mental illness in the media do not correspond with real life mental illness. There is a big difference between the yes and no answers shown above as yes is only 11.5% and no is 42.3%. This tells us from our survey most people believe it is depicted incorrectly. Although some participants were "unsure" or responded "maybe" to the mentioned question, the majority of the respondents overall criticized the film industry for including false depictions of mental illness. Furthermore, along with these results, many participants also agreed on question 17, to have been personally affected by these depictions. Although not expanded upon, we can infer that most media consumers have some experience with mental illness; Therefore, it is likely that these people are being affected by these portrayals one way or another.
Figure 1.2: Pie chart for responses from question 24 on survey
As for another perspective in figure 1.2 you can actively see how the incorrect depictions affect viewers. There is a clear division between answers pertaining to the mentioned question. With positive being at 25.9% and negative being at 55.6%, this shows us that mental illness being shown incorrectly is affecting viewers in a negative way. Despite the "unsure" responses, we can clearly infer that the false portrayal of mental illness in the media has negative effects on most of its viewers. Furthermore, in order to specifically identify which emotions in which they contribute to mental illness are most commonly portrayed in films, our survey requests participants to name emotions that remind them of a mental illness. The results show that most of the negative emotions are being associated with mental illnesses in film. Some of the emotions include, sadness, anger, anxious, violence, etc. Therefore, these negative emotions are the root cause of negative views on mental illness in society.
Discussion
Our Study shows that overall people are affected when they see mental illness being portrayed in films.Our study also shows us that most people do not believe that mental illness is being portrayed realistically in films (Figure 1.1). 42.3% of our participants stated that. These films have a negative impact on its viewers and the way they view mental illnesses Most respondents recorded to have seen at least 5 or more films that portray mental illness. Therefore we can confidently say that society today is being constantly exposed to these false portrayals. Also many of the survey participants also agreed to have been negatively affected by mental illness in films (Figure 1.2).Although not expanded upon or explicitly stated, we can infer that the higher the exposure and false portrayal, the higher the risk of these films being detrimental to its viewers mental health. We believe this to be true since 55.6% of the respondents also recorded to have thought of these false depictions as having a negative impact on overall views of mental illness (Figure 1.2). The results we found also match some other studies.
One source suggests that mental illness, eating disorders are not portrayed realistically in films. Many movies are choosing not to include the reality of eating disorders because they feel it signifies "infertility and death"(Margolis, 165). This shows that the directors of movies have a big impact on what we see. They picked their views on different topics. They could see having mental illnesses in movies as showing what could happen if you go down the same path as some of the actors in these movies.With this in mind, film media needs to take into account what is most beneficial for their consumers' livelihood, rather than what’s most beneficial for their company. In another source that my group found, they talked about how mental illness can be shown realistically in movies. In an article by Elizabeth Hirschman, "Recovering addicts' responded to the cinematic portrayal of drug and alcohol addiction", she surveyed recovering addicts about movies with addiction. One of the questions that she asked was if they feel like addiction is being portrayed realistically in the movies. " It was very close to my drug problem and alcoholism, 'cause that was the way I acted in treatment" , one person said (Hirschman, 101). This shows that if a movie is realistic about mental illness depends on the movie and the person watching it.
Conclusion
Despite the helpful findings from our study, there are a few limitations that need to be considered. To start, we only studied 70+ responses. Therefore, if we had a larger pool of participants, then we could ultimately suggest a clearer conclusion. With a larger and more random sample size, we could study other aspects of the population. This could include things such as a younger age requirement, or even not require participants to be currently enrolled in school in Georgia. We could then understand if the current findings are similar to those associated with other groups of the population. Along with this, we included a lot of answer choices when it came to each question. For example, we included possible answer choices, such as, "yes," "unsure," "maybe," and "no". Therefore, some participants chose "maybe," and others chose the option of "unsure." These answer choices basically mean the same thing, and split the results up even more. This made it more difficult to have strongly populated results. For example, since there were so many answer choices, results were somewhat scattered, making it harder to create a clear conclusion. Furthermore, research could definitely continue in this field of study with these limitations in mind. Since we studied mental illness as a broad issue in film media, future researchers could dive deeper into this topic. This field of study could greatly benefit from research that studies more specific types of mental illness and their portrayal in the media. For example, researchers could study specifically the portrayal of eating disorders, anxiety, schizophrenia and/or depression. To go even further, researchers could continue by studying specific movies and their effects on consumers. This would make results more specific and more clear and credible. Furthermore, future researchers could also dive into the world of social media as a whole, rather than just the film industry. This could allow for the further comprehension of the portrayal of mental illness in the media on a broader spectrum. As seen in our survey results, many respondents agreed to have seen the portrayal of mental illness mostly on platforms such as instagram and tik tok. Therefore, researchers could look at depictions through these platforms and their different effects on an array of different people such as, influencers or average every-day people. By doing this, researchers can identify the most common mental illnesses that are being portrayed in the overall media and the effects they have on their consumers.
Works Cited
Fox-Kales, Emily. Body Shots: Hollywood and the Culture of Eating Disorders. State University of New York Press, 2011. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edshlc&AN=edshlc.012748087.0&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Utama, Karima Embun. The main character Anxiety in Black Swan (2010) and Whiplash (2014) movies. Diss. UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, 2020.
Sulkunen, Pekka. “Images of Addiction: Representations of Addictions in Films.” Addiction Research & Theory, vol. 15, no. 6, Dec. 2007, pp. 543–59. EBSCOhost, doi.org/10.1080/16066350701651255. Accessed 4 Feb. 2022
Hirschman, Elizabeth C., and Joyce A. McGriff. “Recovering Addicts’ Responses to the Cinematic Portrayal of Drug and Alcohol Addiction.” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, vol. 14, no. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 95–107. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=aqh&AN=9506190159&site=eds-live&scope=site. Accessed 14 Mar. 2022.
Margolis Tina, Rones Julie, Algaze Ariela. “Chapter 9: Mortality Salience, Terror Management, and HollyWood Film: Theorizing on the Absence of Anorexia as a Subject in US Mainstream Movies." Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 26, 2018, p165-182, 18p. 10.1108/S1529-212620180000026011. Accessed 31 Jan. 2022.
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