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The Horrors of Cinema


Bhavya Dixit

Warning: Spoilers.

Cinema has been described as the most influential form of media, responsible for communicating information on a large scale. While trying to communicate certain kinds of information, the conveyances gets clouded by stigmas. Stigma is defined as “a sign of disgrace or discredit, which sets a person apart from others”. It is a serious problem faced by those experiencing mental health issues. Cinema often aids stigmatization towards this population. Horror specifically, more than any other genre, has been directly implicated in this regard. People with mental illnesses are portrayed in an extremely negative light that is not representative of reality. There are a few films that do justice when portraying mental health, but the majority of 21st Century films paint an unfair picture. (Goodwin, 2013) We gather from the research conducted by Goodwin that out of the 55 movies analysed, horror as a genre is repeatedly linking psychosis with dangerous behaviours. This blog will take the movie Black Swan as an example to analyse the kind of portrayal of mental health concerns. It will briefly compare the movie with another production; Gothika to contrast the two.

The plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet. To secure her role as the white swan in the production, Nina (Natalie Portman) gets into character which eventually leads to her own downfall. The film shows us how Nina gets so mentally and emotionally engrossed in her character that her mental health is in shambles. Lily, her rival in the movie constantly poses a threat to her position or so she assumes. She starts suffering from anorexia as is seen when she stares at a grapefruit and turns away the slice of cake her mother gives her in order to celebrate her getting the role, she is also bulimic as she keeps running to the washroom to throw up. The movie shows Nina in a series of scenes that keep shifting between reality and Nina’s delusions. She constantly hallucinates, hears voices. She even visualizes herself developing webbed feet and feathers and turns into the swan. She shares an unhealthy relationship with her controlling mother who was a former-ballerina-turned-stage-mom is shares an. They often explode into fights and violence. Nina, succumbing to all the stressors and lack of diagnosis is often shown compulsively harming herself to become the Black Swan she is trying so desperately to perfect. (Black Swan, 2010) Black Swan paints a non-grotesque, almost vulnerable picture of Nina that does not averse the audience to her and instead draws sympathy. It shows how Nina’s schizophrenia which could have been genetically inherited affects her daily functioning and how its comorbidity with eating disorders affects the character. The scene where Nina kills herself thinking she is murdering her nemesis Lily is where her schizophrenia comes into play full-blown.

On the other hand, is Gothika, that portrays the mental health difficulties faced by Halle Berry’s character who plays a psychiatrist in a film that flips to accuse her character of murder. The difficulties are a metaphor for women empowerment which encourage her portrayal as a hope for sanity in an oppressed world. However, by intertwining psychosis with supernatural depictions the film is not stigmatizing to a large extent but, such depictions trivialize the experiences of those with actual mental health problems. Their extremely real issues are painted in a way that projects them as supernatural issues. This relates to the faulty viewpoint of mental health which is obsolete now and should not be used as a background when depicting mental health concerns. (Gothika, 2003)

The way media can create stigma it also has the power to positively influence perceptions in challenging stereotypes and stigmas concerning mental health. Therefore, it is extremely important for the mental health services to work with media in order to keep the depictions as sensitive and real as possible. Mental health advocacy groups should be actively involved to call out productions that create false beliefs just to add to the element of horror. Further, to tackle problems from the root, children’s films that deal should be targeted as well to avoid mistaken adult beliefs.

References
  1. Black Swan. (2010). [Motion picture]. USA: Fox Searchlight Pictures, Cross Creek Pictures, Protozoa Pictures, Phoenix Pictures, Dune Entertainment
  2. Goodwin, John. (2013). The Horror of Stigma: Psychosis and Mental Health Care Environments in Twenty-First-Century Horror Film (Part II). Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. 50. 10.1111/ppc.12044.
  3. Kassovitz, M. (2003). Gothika [Motion picture]. USA: Columbia Pictures Corporation, Warner Bros. Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment.



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