Donaldson addressed the portrayal of madness in comic books. One of the examples that struck out the most to me was the Batman comics’ Joker and Harley Quinn. I think this was a great parallel because these two characters are so popular in our culture. Arkham Asylum was originally Arkham Hospital in the 80’s rendition of Batman. The Hospital looked normal, like any other hospital. However, in the later comics, the hospital developed into a darker portrayal, Arkham Asylum. The Asylum is very gothic and dark; it portrays the madness inside, feeding into the idea that criminals are all insane. Popular culture uses movies/music/art to process thoughts/feelings/events–This is very problematic because the growing stigma of mass shooters coming from backgrounds of mental health issues is thriving from these media representations of mental illness.
Schizophrenia is a misunderstood illness that was often misdiagnosed as Bipolar disorder in the late 1900s. Donaldson enforces the idea of “Nothing about us, without us,” and stressed that media depictions of schizophrenia are often from people without the illness. Which leads to the question—How can you represent something accurately if you do not truly understand this? The answer is simple, profit does not need a “how”. The consequences are dire for people with mental health illness, because they are stuck between two hard options/risks: keeping the illness a secret to avoid stigma but risk being misunderstood for illness-related complications, or be open about their condition in an effort to be more understood and free but risk being misunderstood for every unpleasant action they do/don’t do being intensely judged/analyzed based off of their illness. It’s a gamble.
The problem cannot just be attributed to these bad portrayals in the media though. Media is something people can choose to indulge in and the opinions they form on real-life situations from the show is out of anyone’s control. Changing media and a person’s art will only cause controversy. What could be beneficial is changing the education system. Why is it that only college students are required to take Psychology? You would think only requiring “educated” people to learn psychology would be a bit problematic. Everyone needs to learn to understand their fellow human being. Psychology, Sociology, and the like should all be required in K-12 education. Science and some math really serve no purpose for most people’s long term career paths, especially in blue collar jobs. With the way math is taught, it is only catered to math that is not functional on an everyday/every person basis. With this in mind, wouldn’t it be monumental to introduce social sciences to the public? The average person could learn far more about human behavior and decency from these classes than the gamble of “following someone’s example.”
Education is not accessible to everyone, but pop culture is. When Suicide Squad came out, I was disturbed by how many teenagers were romanticizing Harley Quinn’s relationship with Joker. Ride or die devotion is idealized, even if the partner is abusive, what matters is sticking through the rough spots. The problem is Harley does not stick up for herself and challenge the Joker’s bad treatment in this movie, she ultimately goes along with whatever he says because of her love for him. Having a partner in crime is an equal exchange, not a one-sided relationship of devoted obedience and tolerance of questionable treatment. Joker never attempts to understand Harley; he only cares about her understanding him and forces her to become mad to do so. Once she is devoted, he takes it a step further and presses her to dive into a basin of chemicals to physically mutilate her skin to being pale to prover her loyalty. He does nothing to meet her as an individual separate from him. The Joker manipulates Harley into absolute loyalty for the sole purpose of self-gratification and a more effective tool for his bidding. Everything is a one-sided test of loyalty, ensuring his tool is effective. Despite all of this, popular culture loves this pairing and I can’t help but wonder how this will affect their idea of a good relationship/partner and only romanticize mental health issues being untreated and used as a tool for abuse.
K-12 education needs to be better, so people can be aware of something being wrong/inaccurate because ultimately the stigma has more risk to fueling more problems than people with mental health issues themselves. Media is consumed by all classes and will form stigma about mental health issues if there is no other context/exposure to the topic in a person’s mind. Keeping knowledge to the people that can afford it only deepens the divide between the working class and white collar/educated workers, which only fuels more tension and more problems.
