I'm an adoptee, I would appreciate a similar video about how adopted people, orphans, and foster children are portrayed in media, especially horror. Many films are based off of "adopted child syndrome" and harmfully portray us as inherently evil because of our origins. They paint us as dangerous but in reality we are far more likely to be harmed or killed by our adopters, but no one wants to talk about it.
This really struck home for me. I remember when I wanted to be a pilot, only to be told I couldn't because I had a history of mental illness so had to jump through all these hoops to prove I was "safe" despite not having any symptoms for years. What REALLY stung wasn't the institutionalized discrimination, it was what the doctor told me: "Well, remember that pilot with depression who crashed his plane with passengers on board? Can't have that!" To be told that I couldn't do this thing because I could potentially perform a murder-suicide was one of the most dehumanizing, most traumatic, most stressful moments of my entire life. The WORST part about it was I couldn't get angry about it, I couldn't scream about how morally wrong and bankrupt that attitude was... because if I did I'd just be proving her right. So in that moment, where I was less than human, I had to be better than human if I wanted a chance to be recognized as equal. I never got to pursue that path, because I couldn't afford the testing and doctors I'd need to prove to the FAA that I was fine, but it still hurts to this day.
I am sorry. My husband was encouraged to leave me by his friends because I was too mentally ill. I had a traumatic childhood and there was a legacy of abuse in my family. It stabbed me in the deepest parts of my heart. To think a future psychologist would believe I don't deserve love or a relationship because I have a mental health issue.
-I’m so sorry that this happened to you. This is the reason so many people with a history of mental health issues end up unemployed and even homeless; then our society has the temerity to demonize folks such as yourself for being “lazy leaches on the system.” It’s infuriating, and the epitome of injustice. Coming to the conclusion that those with mental illness are somehow responsible for their condition is the height of intellectual sloth.
@@Phreemunny ex👏🏻act👏🏻ly👏🏻 so well said. I'm 26 with BPD and intense depression and haven't been able to hold a job longer than 4 months and my parents swear what I need is another job when what I really need is support, not being brushed aside as 'lazy' or 'immature'. I wish there were greater understandings in the work place for mentally ill people. Like how are we even supposed to survive and be 'members of society' when society doesn't want to help or care until it's too late? anyways, holler at my fellow strugglers. 🖤
Also I absolutely feel you op, the Navy told me no outright for my disorder bc I'm diagnosed but even though I cried after I left, two years later I'm kind of glad bc I don't think I could have handled boot camp lol
When I heard "they're not written to be killers who happen to be mentally ill, they're written to be killers because they're mentally ill" I just thought of a serial killer who suffers from depression. They want to kill, but planning and carrying out multiple murders is so meticulous and draining, it's hard to get up and actually DO IT sometimes, even though it's something they love doing. They seek psychiatric help, and with the help of proper medication, they're able to start killing again.
When I was younger, I was undiagnosed. I was terrified of telling anyone anything. I was sure if I told anyone what happened in my head I would get locked up forever, that I would be feared by others. I was certain I would lose myp hysical freedom and be medicated out of my mind. I thought I was lose control completely and I was terrified of what I might do. I'm thinking now that this fear might have been perpetuated by this kind of media.
I had the exact same experience, being afraid I'd be put in a mental hospital and abandoned by my family because they thought I was dangerous. I have dissociative identity disorder but when I started showing psychotic symptoms I was taken to the doctor, but, afraid of what might happen to me and my alters, I never talked about them, they never came out to speak with the doctor. We were all afraid if we told the doctor what we were really experiencing everything would go horribly wrong. It led to me being diagnosed only with schizoaffective, so that whenever I brought it up to a doctor or therapist thereafter it was completely ignored and chalked up to delusions, and never treated for. My alters received no mental health treatment whatsoever for five years because of that decision, which had been precipitated by these movies. And the worst part of it is, when I told my mother about being dissociative, she was victim to this misinformation too, she was afraid of me, she was worried one of my alters would be violent and try to kill people. I told her, "this is like introducing you to a polo team I'm a part of. If I was introducing you to them, would you ask me which ones are violent? Which ones might try to kill you?" It was so difficult to break out of that stigma with her, and it's still an ongoing process, she's still afraid and uncomfortable when I introduce her to a new one, which is terrible because my alters have needs too, they need care and affection and love and company just as much as I do, and when they're feeling down, we're all feeling down. These movies and tv have made my life a living nightmare, I have to hide, my alters have had to hide from the world for 5 years, only now are they starting to come out around family. Can you imagine being cooped up in a mind, unable to talk to anyone, unable to show anyone you even exist, for five years? And when will they ever be able to exist in society? When will they be able to introduce themselves to people without those people running for the hills? As it stands, it seems like that will never happen, that these harmless people in my head will live in hiding, in the mentally ill closet, for the rest of their lives
My biggest problem is that mental health is always so exaggerated, even in positive portrayals. It makes it harder for people to comprehend more subtle/complex issues, and especially harder to recognize that someone who's high-functioning might still need help.
This also kind of plays into the idea that "normal" people are unable to commit crimes, bad actions, violations etc. So we have to first create "monsters" out of people suffering from mental illness, that are already generally misunderstood and alienated, in order to create a simple and comfortable comprehension of the world divided into bad and good people. This way, in real life, we can keep drawing moral "lines" and distance ourselves from that which is "bad" to assert our own goodness.
i can't applaud this enough. i am neurodivergent with several comorbidities and have definitely felt like a monster most of my life. it wasn't until my twenties was i able to have any access to mental health care, but sadly i never found a good trauma specialist. it's only thru stuff like this & my own mental health research am i able to "function" sort of "normally." i turned thirty this year, never thought i would make it here. thank you for this, and your channel!
Thanks you so much for this. As a mentally ill person, I struggle daily with stigma and the exhausting need to simulate "normalcy". Not to mention being a woman makes it so easy to dismiss my suffering as being "hysterical".
I'm a paramedic. To me it's seemed like over the years when some one with an illness starts to freak out they mostly want to hurt them selves. Other than the high stress moments they are some of the sweetest people on the planet. And during high stress times they mostly want to hurt themselves. Even the schizophrenic people who have SI and HI the person becomes afraid of the voice telling them to go do something and they reach out for help to get stability. People with mental illness aren't a monster or menace to society. They're sweethearts.
We need a movie where the premise is “Doctors and victims BLAME mental illness, but turns out that the ax-murderer is perfectly healthy and just relying on presumed stereotypes because they’re an asshole” for once
I also want the movie where the protagonist is the only one who sees the big bad, and has to at some point shout 'I am not crazy!' to then actually be mentally ill.
A dear friend (well, friends) of mine, when they were diagnosed with DID, literally cried into my chest about being a “movie monster”. I had to talk them through /all of that bullshit/. People seeing them like horror movies did, and how their condition had been portrayed to them in those films, was a not-insignificant part of their trauma and pain. Split had come out fairly recently, too, so that didn’t help at all. Portrayals of mental illness in horror matter, can do - have done - a lot of damage.
Great breakdown of this issue! As someone who struggles with mental illness who is also a psychological professional, I often wince at portrayals of "craziness" on TV and in movies. Norman Bates is not your neighbor, he's fiction, and real life sufferers need help, not further stigma.
Fantastic video! Another trend I've noticed in a lot of recent horror is the "PTSD and unresolved grief was the real monster all along" angle, which has frequently shown better insight into my personal trauma and grief than genuinely ANY of the mental health professionals I've spoken with. Like I'm pretty close to sending my psych a playlist of horror films that get it better than the DSM.
I recently wrote a stageplay in which the main character suffers a cyberpunk metaphor for my own psychotic illness. What's interesting is that, despite the fact that the protagonist is emotionally and physically abused by his own partner, physically assaulted by possibly non-imaginary monsters, and ends the play permanently physically disabled, while throughout the play hurting only himself if anyone- every single person I've had take a look at the script told me that the most striking part of the show was how "dangerous" and "scary" the main character felt.
When Leon said to imagine a “maniac” I imagined a mass shooter. Come to find out that that’s a derogatory word for the mental illness I myself suffer from. Deeply Internalized stigma.... I really appreciate this video and the comment section 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Language usage changes over time. The terms idiot, cretin and imbecile are all medical terms for people with learning disabilities, (they refer to people with particular IQ levels). Most people have no idea that when they use these expressions they are actually being derogatory to vulnerable people with disabilities
I have a panic disorder and general anxiety, and I've had the "they're going to get you, shaved head rubber room fear all of my life even before I was diagnosed. This is partly a result of my 19th century studies, but it will never leave me
I LOVE the Halloween films so much and Michael Myers is one of my fave characters, but I hate how he's a "oooo mental illness scary" trope. I love scary movies and slashers, I just hate how ableist it is and it hurts seeing mental illnesses get stigmatized this way. And I don't even have the more stigmatized ones like psychosis, DID, ASPD, shizoprhenia, BPD, psychosis, etc., I'm just autistic and have anxiety, so I can't imagine how much it's harder for people who have the ones above. I hope the horror genre gets better about this, it's a shame how much mental health gets demonized by society and horror doesn't help that at all :/
Even though it isn't classed as a horror movie I am surprised you didn't talk about Joker. That character as well as almost all of Batman's rivals have been portrayed as mentally ill and uncurable. Few of his rivals are supernatural or of a different universe. Most come from trauma as well as Batman himself.
Isn't the Joker a sociopath? Technically, Batman kind of is too, which says more about our "black hat white hat" mentality twords horror, and media in general.
@@Samusalf except Joker is a standalone film. They literally don't have a canon joker origin so they don't have to worry about that. They even went as far as to make three Jokers in one universe(as well as only one of them having abused Harley. I'm not sure if she's ever interacted with all three though.)
This is why I prefer the Heath Ledger version. He's not "crazy" or psychopthic. He is a nihilistic terrorist who desperately wants the world to not make sense so he can feel justified in his worldview
@@DravenG96 Arkham Asylum comic suggested "supersanity" - fictional disorder making his brain constantly reworking his personality over and over. Also some comics hypotised that Joker, just like Deadpool, knows that he is fictional, so he doing all this atrocities to attract more and more readers, to make the Batman comics (and him inside them) last forever. I personally think more about all other Batman Rogues, witch have beed invented mostly in 40s to 60s, where mental illness were even more stigmatised (as everything else). As someone who creates Bat - fancontent sometimes working with those characters is extremally akward. Two Face and Ventriliqust are false depictions of DID, Riddler and Clayface are characterised as NPDs just to make them bratty assholes, Mr. Freeze kills people out of mix of ASPD and nihilistic depression, and schizophrenic Mad Hatter is often shown as women and even child sexual predator. This is hard to work over those characteristic and make them deeper and more proper :/
As someone that has been involuntarily committed multiple times, in multiple places, and seeing all the levels of security they have to prevent elopement, I want to know how everyone keeps managing to escape all the time.
I'm sorry but you're use of the word elope has me thinking of a Pina Colada type situation in an inpatient facility and now I can't get the image out of my head.
There seems to be a wish that true evil is the other. I´d say in reality the horrible truth is that you can be an absolute normal person and the most evil bastard in the history of mankind.
I work in the Mental Health Field and I had to drop everything to watch this one. This is a subject a lot of my coworkers and I have discussed in the past. I really appreciate your videos and often share them with friends and family.
*sighs* Between the (sometimes literal) demonization of psychotic and empathy disorders in horror thrillers, the romanticization of depression, addiction, PTSD, OCD etc. in gritty action dramas, the fetishization of depression, anxiety and symptoms/traits associated with ADHD, autism and bipolar disorder (see: the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope), and the shocking number of video games that seem to think "Should you kill this mentally ill character?" is a deep moral dilemma, us neurodivergent folks just can't catch a break in media, can we?
I can excuse the epilogue on Psycho for the fact that audience weren't nearly as savvy as they are now. They weren't inundated with horror and true crime like we are now. So they truly probably had no idea wtf was going in this beautifully batshit movie. Now a days creators trust their audience more to understand what they are watching. Also they know there are dozens of "explained" vids on YT for them to get extra exposition.
Love your work. I teach an intro to film class at a Philly public high school. I've used some of your essays in the past. Definitely going to use this one when we get to Psycho this year. I always include a note about the movies poor handling of mental illness/gender politics, despite it being a well made movie and point out how it can be both at the same time.
As a longtime sufferer of PTSD and clinical anxiety/depression I thank you. I have been the victim of ignorance and fear, mostly by way of my own family. Public services and the public in general have shown me far more sympathy and kindness than my own flesh and blood. Progress is slow; but it is happening.
aspie here- with the right cues i can pick up on emotion and adopt it. but i come off as cold because idk how to react in a way that NT people will accept. so, basically, half of the problems for neurodivergent and mentally ill people come from how we’re treated.
@@phastinemoon not to be picky, but this is wrong and i see it a lot. Empathy has two components, cognitive and emotional. ASD (autism) is associated with deficits in the former, ASPD (antisocial personality disorder, the *actual medical term*) is associated with deficits in the latter. Struggling with any component of empathy is not morally wrong and doesnt make someone a bad person, and empathy is not a moral virtue. Its a skill people have no control over , and theres no shame in not being good at any part of empathy. Signed, a social processing researcher undergoing testing for ASD
whenever i mention that we should try to understand the mentally ill, specifically the rare violent ones, people get mad at me claiming i'm trying to empathize with them. that's not what i'm doing but so what if i am? people would rather put mentally ill people into an "other" category and dehumanize them, than actually try to understand them so they can help them or prevent future violence. it seems like an ego thing to me, people don't want to believe that they have anything in common with mentally ill people, or that their brains have the ability to develop in the same way
Greif halucinations are a common occurence, 80% of people suffering from grief will hit this point. EVERYONE goes through greif, and yet never speak of the not so fun tricks their mind is playing on them. Even when a form of ill mental health is normal, it's rarely spoken of. THAT should tell you something about the stigmas surrounding mental illness.
Wow, another excellent presentation. This puts in to words how I felt about Bird Box, where the mentally ill are portrayed as even more ill and wildly dangerous as a result of the events in the film. Left me w a bad taste in my mouth. Thanks for the video!!
😍 Thank you for criticizing Loomis, I've found it so hard to talk about the bigotry in his characterization because he's so widely beloved as a character.
I'm bipolar with mild psychotic symptoms. Growing up, the only pop culture figures I ever knew of who were like me were either a) serial killers in thrillers and cop operas, or b) celebrities who died by suicide. Very good for self-esteem (: Anyway, thanks for the reminder that I need to watch The Babadook.
I have cPTSD. I begged my dad to please let me get therapy for years after I was abused by my ex and watch him attempt suicide in an attempt to manipulate me. He said no. Which means the cPTSD got worse and worse. Steady decline over 7 years. I finally got my own health insurance last year. I got therapy. It’s been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. No, disorders never totally go away. But we aren’t monsters. I have ADHD as well and I was more susceptible to be traumatized. Then it got compounded with each trauma. I have never committed a violent crime. I’m actually terrified of having a flash back and doing just that. I have the ability though to develop better coping mechanisms, and honestly opening up about it and sharing with my loved ones about my triggers and coping mechanisms. I just want to be treated like a normal person but also with understanding and respect. Also-I’m so sick of media thinking people with traumas being over dramatic and misrepresenting what a damn flashback looks like. Or thst with flashbacks, expect someone to start hurting people physically. 🙄
Wow. Psycho always had the most impact on me as far as sparking curiosity about the nature of human behavior and mental health. This last decade imo has really highlighted the harmful and dysfunctional perceptions perpetrated by media. Hopefully a real turning point is in fact underway for us all.
Rob Zombie's Halloween II is worth watching and an underappreciated gem for exactly this reason in my opinion. Much like the 2018 reboot, it depicts the Laurie Strode suffering from PTSD, but makes it the central focus of the film and depicts it in a more candid, poignant manner.
I had a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized because I was a harm too myself and I want to highlight the hard working, patient, caring mental health workers and counselors that helped guide me back to a healthy state of mind and I learned to accept my illness, take my meds and love myself. Thank you to the nurses, doctors, counselors and experts in the mental health field; they’re under-staffed and not nearly thanked enough.
This. I feel so grateful to live in a country with a somewhat decent healthcare system (Australia) that has 100% saved my life, but my heart goes out to those suffering from mental health problems that do not have access to the same help that we had. Healthcare is a human right
Mate I have to say I very much appreciate your work. I get more excited when I see you have released a video than any other creator I follow. Thank you
i'm diagnosed with DID and a psychotic disorder and love the horror genre, but it'd mean a lot to me and certainly everyone else with mental illness if people watched horror movies featuring mentally ill antagonists with a critical eye.
I wish more people understood the very real state discrimination that can come from stigma. For example, welfare cards that can only be used at certain stores because 'all poor people are mentally ill drug addicts' completely ignoring the actual causes of that correlation or the fact that not just poor people are mentally ill and/or substance dependent.
What odd timing. I was just thinking yesterday about *why* the song _They're Coming to Take Me Away_ was on my childhood Halloween CD? Why have mental health conditions always been equated with horror?
Lifetime movies are some of the worst offenders when it comes to mental illness and antagonists. So many of them end with the antagonist in a mental hospital or something to that effect and it's infuriating.
The true horror is within the ill person. I have bpd, depression, anxiety. Im told i overreact to small things that no one else cares about. I feel emotions and anxieties so strongly that i become physically ill. People who deal with me think they're the ones truly suffering. The only person I know truly suffering is my boyfriend of 14 years. He truly wants to help me and doesn't like seeing me in distress. I actively try to not be a burden to him or hide away from him so he can deal with more important things. My parents and family only care about how they feel or how it makes them look.
Gosh! The horror movies have propagated misinformation and stigmatized mental illness for too long and has done so much damage!! Great video as always.
Psychopathy isn't really a psychology term at all. Anti-social personality disorder exists, but sociopathy and psychopathy are just arbitrary terms that the uninformed population uses to "other" those with APD and Schizoid Personality Disorder.
Hey Leon, I just want to let you know in case you have eventual bad days that through your videos I honestly think you are a great guy, a really nice person and someone I wish I could have as a friend. Great content btw :)
I'm currently thinking about Leatherface and how the fact that he's developmentally disabled is one of the things that makes him sympathetic. And how horror villains often become so popular that they become the protagonist of the franchise they're in. And how that relates to those characters being reclaimed by the marginalized communities they were intended to villainize. Jason Voorhees, Bubba Sawyer, and Michael Myers are all nonverbal neurodivergent serial killers, and they're also some of the most iconic characters of all time. People love them. People draw cute fanart of Jason being a camp counselor and Bubba having his makeup done by Sally and Michael Myers wearing cat ears and a Hooters uniform. There's something liberating about embracing the monster within.
I feel like the reason actually dangerous mentally ill people are portrayed such is they make for more dramatic material, but it is entirely fair to detail how their depiction shapes the perceptions of the public regarding those who suffer mental illness, especially in light of how few depictions of more mundane forms of mental illness there are in popular media.
Before I realized anything was up with me mental health wise, I thought I was a monster deep down and that the serial killers and other "psychos" I saw so much in the horror media I consumed were a reflection of my own self, as many of the things they would mention about themselves were similar to symptoms I experienced with my types of mental illness, such as pure-O OCD. I hated myself for years and was terrified to tell anyone any of the problems I was going through until I randomly found out about the type of OCD I experience and it just hit me that I wasn't the freaking antichrist. I didn't even put together that these tropes in horror that I've seen so often might have caused this, and honestly wish more people would realize this. The isolation and self loathing you can experience when you understand the symptoms that the monsters on screen are exhibiting is enough to lead to depression or even worse things..
7:57 this is very truee. So many people like to explain criminality as something genetic, specially in cases were antisocial behaviors are seen in family members. That argument does a lot to discredit the posibilities that other psychosocial elements could come into play in the development of violent or antisocial individuals.
The Babadook was such a great movie! Really enjoyed the horror and finely packaged subtext and the protagonist felt like a truly relateable person. Awesome!
9:10 A bit of nitpick, but you got that backwards. Loomis kept calling Myers "it". To which Marion asked: " dont you think we can refer to "it" as "him".
Still a great video though. 💯 Really opened my eyes to how mental illness is portrayed in horror. Like it's almost always the excuse for the why the killer kills and definitely spreads misconceptions and stigmas about it.
I feel like this video was made specifically for me. I am so hugely into this topic about mental disabilities representation in horror. So excited to watch.
Great analysis! I love the more contemporary horror genre, when they explore mental illness instead of blaming the horror on the mentally ill, as a welcomed catharsis. As someone who suffers from mental illness if helps me to process and express what it's like to suffer from mental illness.
Okay, so I have BPD (borderline personality disorder) and I gotta say - the amount of 'crazy obsessive bitch' tropes such as Fatal Attraction, Poison Ivy, The Crush, the Roommate, Single White Female, ect is... Fucked. And annoying. And hurtful. And just... Dumb. Demonizing mentally ill people and blowing their illnesses up to seem 'scary' is such a shitty feeling, and also, such lazy writing. "What if we made him cRaZy!!?! That's never been done before, right?!?" But even I'm subject to catch myself thinking, "well °of course° they're mentally ill if they're killing/stalking/kidnapping/torturing people - I wonder what their diagnosis is?" as if that's fair at all to assume, and I °do° suffer from mental illness lol. dumb brain go brrrrrrrrrrrrm. But I don't think anyone gets as much shit as schizophrenics and people with DID. My brother is schizophrenic, and it's frustrating to see how they're so horribly demonized as these 'balls to walls-nutso-psychos' that are all 'blood lust and unhinged' when schizophrenia isn't like that °AT ALL.° It's mostly just him spacing out occasionally, chatting with himself and laughing out of nowhere. He's still a lot like neuro-typical people with hobbies and passions and a job and a family... He just reacts and processes differently. His paranoid episodes can be scary, sure - but not scary like any of us fear for °our° safety... Just his. But he's medicated and relaxed, and I'm happy to see him comfortable. These stereotypes are so offensive and harmful that even though we're in the the best year (so far) to be mostly open about mental illnesses, a hugeeee majority of people don't want to talk about their mental disorders because people will instantly pair us with someone like Norman Bates from Psycho, Alex from Fatal Attraction, the guy from Split (idk his character's name - only saw it once and hated it), or Mrs. Voorhees from Friday the 13th while almost every single person on the internet is convinced they have depression and anxiety, which is basically the common cold of mental health and still rather trendy. Smh. I know times are hard and I don't want to seem like I'm discrediting feelings or gate keeping mental illness but like, there's definitely a huge difference between being °depressed° and having •depression•. Anyways. (Please do not claim mental illness without a proper diagnosis, please, guys. Seek professional opinions if you think you may have a mental disorder - don't internet diagnose. You're doing more harm to yourself by not seeking real help. Thank you. ❤) While I do think that having mentally ill characters in horror (or any genre of film) is important for representation, can we ••please•• stop writing them in as the psychotic villains? As you said, mentally ill people are far more likely to be victims than aggressors. (Although I obviously don't want to see neuro-divergent people getting murdered, but rather the hero/heroine, ty) A person doesn't need to be schizophrenic, have multiple personalities, or any other type of personality disorder to be 'evil' - most of the cruel people and abusers I've known personally were far more neuro-typical than mentally ill. Anger and lack of empathy aren't always sociopathic traits; sometimes 'evil' is far more normal seeming than people want to believe. Loved this video, love this channel. Binging all your videos rn lmao
THE RING can be interpreted as a reaction to horror that sympathizes with mental illness. There's that hard plot pivot where the protagonist realizes what seemed like a breakthrough - releasing a misunderstood, abused girl from trauma - in fact unleashed deliberate evil on the world. It's just a mean-spirited, dumb twist compared to sympathetic horror like the Babadook which is fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far more enlightening.
I really want to see a horror movie that deals with how rare cases of mentally ill people committing violence can impact non violent mentally ill people. Because there are a lot of serial killers and mass murderers who are mentally ill, but they represent only a minute fraction of mentally ill people, and a minute fraction of murderers. In terms of psychology, Norman Bates isn't even that unrealistic. In fact he's based on real life murderer Ed Gein, who was declared not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life living peacefully and happily in an in-patient mental health facility. I think too often people think the main problem with mental illness in horror is a lack of realism, but horror doesn't have to be unrealistic to be stigmatizing. It's interesting comparing stuff like Psycho to a show like Mindhunter, which manages to make it clear that mental illness and violence are not synonymous. The protagonist himself is mentally ill, and another character has a child who is really clearly autistic. There's also a scene where two characters get chewed out for focusing too much on a serial killer's crossdressing while interviewing him instead of focusing on the whole murder thing. It's a complicated topic with a lot of nuance, and it's very interesting to discuss.
I think the show Hannibal deals with mental illness really well. The episode Buffet Froid is weirdly moving for me. There's something about how the protagonist desperately wants to reach out to the killer of the episode and assure her that's she isn't a lost cause is just beautiful tbh
The thing I liked about the show Perception was that it was a time drama where people with mental illness/disorders weren't portrayed as monsters like other shows. I have no idea the level of accuracy in said portrayals but I think the intent was good.
I'm an adoptee, I would appreciate a similar video about how adopted people, orphans, and foster children are portrayed in media, especially horror. Many films are based off of "adopted child syndrome" and harmfully portray us as inherently evil because of our origins. They paint us as dangerous but in reality we are far more likely to be harmed or killed by our adopters, but no one wants to talk about it.
This really struck home for me. I remember when I wanted to be a pilot, only to be told I couldn't because I had a history of mental illness so had to jump through all these hoops to prove I was "safe" despite not having any symptoms for years. What REALLY stung wasn't the institutionalized discrimination, it was what the doctor told me:
"Well, remember that pilot with depression who crashed his plane with passengers on board? Can't have that!"
To be told that I couldn't do this thing because I could potentially perform a murder-suicide was one of the most dehumanizing, most traumatic, most stressful moments of my entire life. The WORST part about it was I couldn't get angry about it, I couldn't scream about how morally wrong and bankrupt that attitude was... because if I did I'd just be proving her right. So in that moment, where I was less than human, I had to be better than human if I wanted a chance to be recognized as equal.
I never got to pursue that path, because I couldn't afford the testing and doctors I'd need to prove to the FAA that I was fine, but it still hurts to this day.
Wow. That was really well said. Thank you for sharing. I truly feel you.
I am sorry. My husband was encouraged to leave me by his friends because I was too mentally ill.
I had a traumatic childhood and there was a legacy of abuse in my family.
It stabbed me in the deepest parts of my heart. To think a future psychologist would believe I don't deserve love or a relationship because I have a mental health issue.
-I’m so sorry that this happened to you. This is the reason so many people with a history of mental health issues end up unemployed and even homeless; then our society has the temerity to demonize folks such as yourself for being “lazy leaches on the system.” It’s infuriating, and the epitome of injustice. Coming to the conclusion that those with mental illness are somehow responsible for their condition is the height of intellectual sloth.
@@Phreemunny ex👏🏻act👏🏻ly👏🏻 so well said.
I'm 26 with BPD and intense depression and haven't been able to hold a job longer than 4 months and my parents swear what I need is another job when what I really need is support, not being brushed aside as 'lazy' or 'immature'. I wish there were greater understandings in the work place for mentally ill people. Like how are we even supposed to survive and be 'members of society' when society doesn't want to help or care until it's too late?
anyways, holler at my fellow strugglers. 🖤
Also I absolutely feel you op, the Navy told me no outright for my disorder bc I'm diagnosed but even though I cried after I left, two years later I'm kind of glad bc I don't think I could have handled boot camp lol
When I heard "they're not written to be killers who happen to be mentally ill, they're written to be killers because they're mentally ill" I just thought of a serial killer who suffers from depression. They want to kill, but planning and carrying out multiple murders is so meticulous and draining, it's hard to get up and actually DO IT sometimes, even though it's something they love doing. They seek psychiatric help, and with the help of proper medication, they're able to start killing again.
this would make an excelent dark comedy and if you ever make ill watch it!
That’s so fucking funny omggg
When I was younger, I was undiagnosed. I was terrified of telling anyone anything. I was sure if I told anyone what happened in my head I would get locked up forever, that I would be feared by others. I was certain I would lose myp hysical freedom and be medicated out of my mind. I thought I was lose control completely and I was terrified of what I might do. I'm thinking now that this fear might have been perpetuated by this kind of media.
I fully relate to your experience, as a schizoaffective.
agree
I had the exact same experience, being afraid I'd be put in a mental hospital and abandoned by my family because they thought I was dangerous. I have dissociative identity disorder but when I started showing psychotic symptoms I was taken to the doctor, but, afraid of what might happen to me and my alters, I never talked about them, they never came out to speak with the doctor. We were all afraid if we told the doctor what we were really experiencing everything would go horribly wrong. It led to me being diagnosed only with schizoaffective, so that whenever I brought it up to a doctor or therapist thereafter it was completely ignored and chalked up to delusions, and never treated for. My alters received no mental health treatment whatsoever for five years because of that decision, which had been precipitated by these movies.
And the worst part of it is, when I told my mother about being dissociative, she was victim to this misinformation too, she was afraid of me, she was worried one of my alters would be violent and try to kill people. I told her, "this is like introducing you to a polo team I'm a part of. If I was introducing you to them, would you ask me which ones are violent? Which ones might try to kill you?" It was so difficult to break out of that stigma with her, and it's still an ongoing process, she's still afraid and uncomfortable when I introduce her to a new one, which is terrible because my alters have needs too, they need care and affection and love and company just as much as I do, and when they're feeling down, we're all feeling down.
These movies and tv have made my life a living nightmare, I have to hide, my alters have had to hide from the world for 5 years, only now are they starting to come out around family. Can you imagine being cooped up in a mind, unable to talk to anyone, unable to show anyone you even exist, for five years? And when will they ever be able to exist in society? When will they be able to introduce themselves to people without those people running for the hills?
As it stands, it seems like that will never happen, that these harmless people in my head will live in hiding, in the mentally ill closet, for the rest of their lives
Scary how relatable this is
same
My biggest problem is that mental health is always so exaggerated, even in positive portrayals. It makes it harder for people to comprehend more subtle/complex issues, and especially harder to recognize that someone who's high-functioning might still need help.
This also kind of plays into the idea that "normal" people are unable to commit crimes, bad actions, violations etc. So we have to first create "monsters" out of people suffering from mental illness, that are already generally misunderstood and alienated, in order to create a simple and comfortable comprehension of the world divided into bad and good people. This way, in real life, we can keep drawing moral "lines" and distance ourselves from that which is "bad" to assert our own goodness.
The most surprising part of this video to me is that there are sequels to Psycho
As soon as I read this comment I was like "oh no, how are they gonna fuck it up more"
@@unixmoon4842 the 2nd one is actually pretty good, but the rest are simply basic watered down slashers
i can't applaud this enough. i am neurodivergent with several comorbidities and have definitely felt like a monster most of my life. it wasn't until my twenties was i able to have any access to mental health care, but sadly i never found a good trauma specialist. it's only thru stuff like this & my own mental health research am i able to "function" sort of "normally." i turned thirty this year, never thought i would make it here. thank you for this, and your channel!
I'm glad you're still around, friend. Congratulations on turning 30
Yeah good job!
Absolutely! You are vital and your voice is heard!
Thanks you so much for this. As a mentally ill person, I struggle daily with stigma and the exhausting need to simulate "normalcy". Not to mention being a woman makes it so easy to dismiss my suffering as being "hysterical".
I'm a paramedic. To me it's seemed like over the years when some one with an illness starts to freak out they mostly want to hurt them selves. Other than the high stress moments they are some of the sweetest people on the planet. And during high stress times they mostly want to hurt themselves. Even the schizophrenic people who have SI and HI the person becomes afraid of the voice telling them to go do something and they reach out for help to get stability. People with mental illness aren't a monster or menace to society. They're sweethearts.
We need a movie where the premise is “Doctors and victims BLAME mental illness, but turns out that the ax-murderer is perfectly healthy and just relying on presumed stereotypes because they’re an asshole” for once
I also want the movie where the protagonist is the only one who sees the big bad, and has to at some point shout 'I am not crazy!' to then actually be mentally ill.
I thought Hannibal did this well, haha, nothing was WRONG with Hannibal. He was just an asshole haha
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is almost what you’re looking for.
@@Windigowithsalad that isnt really mental illness as much as it is classism I guess is the best word
@Crocoshark Well being legally insane isn't really the same thing as having mental illness.
A dear friend (well, friends) of mine, when they were diagnosed with DID, literally cried into my chest about being a “movie monster”. I had to talk them through /all of that bullshit/. People seeing them like horror movies did, and how their condition had been portrayed to them in those films, was a not-insignificant part of their trauma and pain. Split had come out fairly recently, too, so that didn’t help at all. Portrayals of mental illness in horror matter, can do - have done - a lot of damage.
Great breakdown of this issue! As someone who struggles with mental illness who is also a psychological professional, I often wince at portrayals of "craziness" on TV and in movies. Norman Bates is not your neighbor, he's fiction, and real life sufferers need help, not further stigma.
Fantastic video! Another trend I've noticed in a lot of recent horror is the "PTSD and unresolved grief was the real monster all along" angle, which has frequently shown better insight into my personal trauma and grief than genuinely ANY of the mental health professionals I've spoken with. Like I'm pretty close to sending my psych a playlist of horror films that get it better than the DSM.
I recently wrote a stageplay in which the main character suffers a cyberpunk metaphor for my own psychotic illness. What's interesting is that, despite the fact that the protagonist is emotionally and physically abused by his own partner, physically assaulted by possibly non-imaginary monsters, and ends the play permanently physically disabled, while throughout the play hurting only himself if anyone- every single person I've had take a look at the script told me that the most striking part of the show was how "dangerous" and "scary" the main character felt.
When Leon said to imagine a “maniac” I imagined a mass shooter. Come to find out that that’s a derogatory word for the mental illness I myself suffer from. Deeply Internalized stigma.... I really appreciate this video and the comment section 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Language usage changes over time. The terms idiot, cretin and imbecile are all medical terms for people with learning disabilities, (they refer to people with particular IQ levels). Most people have no idea that when they use these expressions they are actually being derogatory to vulnerable people with disabilities
I have a panic disorder and general anxiety, and I've had the "they're going to get you, shaved head rubber room fear all of my life even before I was diagnosed. This is partly a result of my 19th century studies, but it will never leave me
I LOVE the Halloween films so much and Michael Myers is one of my fave characters, but I hate how he's a "oooo mental illness scary" trope. I love scary movies and slashers, I just hate how ableist it is and it hurts seeing mental illnesses get stigmatized this way. And I don't even have the more stigmatized ones like psychosis, DID, ASPD, shizoprhenia, BPD, psychosis, etc., I'm just autistic and have anxiety, so I can't imagine how much it's harder for people who have the ones above. I hope the horror genre gets better about this, it's a shame how much mental health gets demonized by society and horror doesn't help that at all :/
Honestly, Michael doesn’t have a mental illness. The movies make it very clear he’s demonic.
Even though it isn't classed as a horror movie I am surprised you didn't talk about Joker. That character as well as almost all of Batman's rivals have been portrayed as mentally ill and uncurable. Few of his rivals are supernatural or of a different universe. Most come from trauma as well as Batman himself.
Isn't the Joker a sociopath? Technically, Batman kind of is too, which says more about our "black hat white hat" mentality twords horror, and media in general.
@@Samusalf except Joker is a standalone film. They literally don't have a canon joker origin so they don't have to worry about that. They even went as far as to make three Jokers in one universe(as well as only one of them having abused Harley. I'm not sure if she's ever interacted with all three though.)
This is why I prefer the Heath Ledger version. He's not "crazy" or psychopthic. He is a nihilistic terrorist who desperately wants the world to not make sense so he can feel justified in his worldview
I mean it’s debatable whether or not Joker is actually mentally ill depending on the version.
@@DravenG96 Arkham Asylum comic suggested "supersanity" - fictional disorder making his brain constantly reworking his personality over and over. Also some comics hypotised that Joker, just like Deadpool, knows that he is fictional, so he doing all this atrocities to attract more and more readers, to make the Batman comics (and him inside them) last forever.
I personally think more about all other Batman Rogues, witch have beed invented mostly in 40s to 60s, where mental illness were even more stigmatised (as everything else). As someone who creates Bat - fancontent sometimes working with those characters is extremally akward. Two Face and Ventriliqust are false depictions of DID, Riddler and Clayface are characterised as NPDs just to make them bratty assholes, Mr. Freeze kills people out of mix of ASPD and nihilistic depression, and schizophrenic Mad Hatter is often shown as women and even child sexual predator. This is hard to work over those characteristic and make them deeper and more proper :/
Today I learned that Psycho 2, 3 and 4 exist.
That seems to be a common thing in these comments. :)
As someone that has been involuntarily committed multiple times, in multiple places, and seeing all the levels of security they have to prevent elopement, I want to know how everyone keeps managing to escape all the time.
I'm sorry but you're use of the word elope has me thinking of a Pina Colada type situation in an inpatient facility and now I can't get the image out of my head.
Also, like, if people want to escape from these places so bad then maybe there's something wrong with those places...
There seems to be a wish that true evil is the other. I´d say in reality the horrible truth is that you can be an absolute normal person and the most evil bastard in the history of mankind.
This what I have been trying to explain to my film teacher thanks
I work in the Mental Health Field and I had to drop everything to watch this one. This is a subject a lot of my coworkers and I have discussed in the past. I really appreciate your videos and often share them with friends and family.
F*** yes! Coffee is brewed and a new Renegade Cut pops into my feed. A brief respite from the world around us all.
Feeling the same!
Yes, reason and good sense are soooooo welcome
Yet a somber reminder of just how badly society treats the mentally ill. Stigma and fear.
*sighs* Between the (sometimes literal) demonization of psychotic and empathy disorders in horror thrillers, the romanticization of depression, addiction, PTSD, OCD etc. in gritty action dramas, the fetishization of depression, anxiety and symptoms/traits associated with ADHD, autism and bipolar disorder (see: the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope), and the shocking number of video games that seem to think "Should you kill this mentally ill character?" is a deep moral dilemma, us neurodivergent folks just can't catch a break in media, can we?
I can excuse the epilogue on Psycho for the fact that audience weren't nearly as savvy as they are now. They weren't inundated with horror and true crime like we are now. So they truly probably had no idea wtf was going in this beautifully batshit movie. Now a days creators trust their audience more to understand what they are watching. Also they know there are dozens of "explained" vids on YT for them to get extra exposition.
" [B]eautifully batshit." Isn't that another derogatory synonym for mental illness?
Love your work. I teach an intro to film class at a Philly public high school. I've used some of your essays in the past. Definitely going to use this one when we get to Psycho this year. I always include a note about the movies poor handling of mental illness/gender politics, despite it being a well made movie and point out how it can be both at the same time.
I... had literally no idea there were FOUR Psychos.
Plus the remake and the precuel series. That franchise never seems to end
Thanks for this. These myths are so pervasive it's good to see such a succinct video getting into these issues.
Portraying the mentally ill as perpetrators of crime is a prime example of victim blaming.
As a longtime sufferer of PTSD and clinical anxiety/depression I thank you. I have been the victim of ignorance and fear, mostly by way of my own family. Public services and the public in general have shown me far more sympathy and kindness than my own flesh and blood. Progress is slow; but it is happening.
NTs: "People without empathy are soulless monsters trying to kill you and manipulate you!"
Me, just trying to vibe:
You also an aspie? We’re not devoid of empathy - literal sociopaths are.
aspie here- with the right cues i can pick up on emotion and adopt it. but i come off as cold because idk how to react in a way that NT people will accept. so, basically, half of the problems for neurodivergent and mentally ill people come from how we’re treated.
@@phastinemoon not to be picky, but this is wrong and i see it a lot. Empathy has two components, cognitive and emotional. ASD (autism) is associated with deficits in the former, ASPD (antisocial personality disorder, the *actual medical term*) is associated with deficits in the latter.
Struggling with any component of empathy is not morally wrong and doesnt make someone a bad person, and empathy is not a moral virtue. Its a skill people have no control over , and theres no shame in not being good at any part of empathy. Signed, a social processing researcher undergoing testing for ASD
Me, a cat: Hey, I resemble that remark! I may be a soulless monster, but killing others is pointless because then they can't give me food!
whenever i mention that we should try to understand the mentally ill, specifically the rare violent ones, people get mad at me claiming i'm trying to empathize with them. that's not what i'm doing but so what if i am? people would rather put mentally ill people into an "other" category and dehumanize them, than actually try to understand them so they can help them or prevent future violence. it seems like an ego thing to me, people don't want to believe that they have anything in common with mentally ill people, or that their brains have the ability to develop in the same way
Greif halucinations are a common occurence, 80% of people suffering from grief will hit this point. EVERYONE goes through greif, and yet never speak of the not so fun tricks their mind is playing on them. Even when a form of ill mental health is normal, it's rarely spoken of. THAT should tell you something about the stigmas surrounding mental illness.
Wow, another excellent presentation. This puts in to words how I felt about Bird Box, where the mentally ill are portrayed as even more ill and wildly dangerous as a result of the events in the film. Left me w a bad taste in my mouth. Thanks for the video!!
😍 Thank you for criticizing Loomis, I've found it so hard to talk about the bigotry in his characterization because he's so widely beloved as a character.
I'm bipolar with mild psychotic symptoms. Growing up, the only pop culture figures I ever knew of who were like me were either a) serial killers in thrillers and cop operas, or b) celebrities who died by suicide. Very good for self-esteem (:
Anyway, thanks for the reminder that I need to watch The Babadook.
I have cPTSD. I begged my dad to please let me get therapy for years after I was abused by my ex and watch him attempt suicide in an attempt to manipulate me. He said no. Which means the cPTSD got worse and worse. Steady decline over 7 years.
I finally got my own health insurance last year. I got therapy. It’s been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
No, disorders never totally go away. But we aren’t monsters. I have ADHD as well and I was more susceptible to be traumatized. Then it got compounded with each trauma.
I have never committed a violent crime. I’m actually terrified of having a flash back and doing just that. I have the ability though to develop better coping mechanisms, and honestly opening up about it and sharing with my loved ones about my triggers and coping mechanisms. I just want to be treated like a normal person but also with understanding and respect.
Also-I’m so sick of media thinking people with traumas being over dramatic and misrepresenting what a damn flashback looks like. Or thst with flashbacks, expect someone to start hurting people physically. 🙄
A long overdue critique of this trope. Well done, Leon.
Just clicked start and already wish it was longer. Thanks for touching on this subject.
I had absolutely no idea there were multiple psycho movies. Sigh.
I didn't even mention all of them. There is also a remake and two television series.
Wow. Psycho always had the most impact on me as far as sparking curiosity about the nature of human behavior and mental health. This last decade imo has really highlighted the harmful and dysfunctional perceptions perpetrated by media. Hopefully a real turning point is in fact underway for us all.
Ah yes, the remake with Vince Vaughn.
Rob Zombie's Halloween II is worth watching and an underappreciated gem for exactly this reason in my opinion. Much like the 2018 reboot, it depicts the Laurie Strode suffering from PTSD, but makes it the central focus of the film and depicts it in a more candid, poignant manner.
I had a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized because I was a harm too myself and I want to highlight the hard working, patient, caring mental health workers and counselors that helped guide me back to a healthy state of mind and I learned to accept my illness, take my meds and love myself.
Thank you to the nurses, doctors, counselors and experts in the mental health field; they’re under-staffed and not nearly thanked enough.
This. I feel so grateful to live in a country with a somewhat decent healthcare system (Australia) that has 100% saved my life, but my heart goes out to those suffering from mental health problems that do not have access to the same help that we had. Healthcare is a human right
This is excellent work. Thank you for making this I really appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Mate I have to say I very much appreciate your work. I get more excited when I see you have released a video than any other creator I follow. Thank you
Always coming with the finest content.
i'm diagnosed with DID and a psychotic disorder and love the horror genre, but it'd mean a lot to me and certainly everyone else with mental illness if people watched horror movies featuring mentally ill antagonists with a critical eye.
I wish more people understood the very real state discrimination that can come from stigma. For example, welfare cards that can only be used at certain stores because 'all poor people are mentally ill drug addicts' completely ignoring the actual causes of that correlation or the fact that not just poor people are mentally ill and/or substance dependent.
A new video day is always a good day.
What odd timing. I was just thinking yesterday about *why* the song _They're Coming to Take Me Away_ was on my childhood Halloween CD? Why have mental health conditions always been equated with horror?
Lifetime movies are some of the worst offenders when it comes to mental illness and antagonists. So many of them end with the antagonist in a mental hospital or something to that effect and it's infuriating.
Renagade Cut strikes again. Another gem.
been waiting a long time for this video. THANK YOU!!
You're welcome!
Hi, for someone who has been diagnosed “mentally ill” and institutionalized the only person or thing I ever wanted to harm was myself.
Same lol. Hope you're doing ok!
i love how passionate you sound in this one, put your heart and soul into it
There are four Psychos? Why stop at four? Psycho V - the retirement village.
Your videos continue to be incredible, love it, keep up the great work.
Very surprised that "Hereditary" wasn't brought up here
The true horror is within the ill person. I have bpd, depression, anxiety. Im told i overreact to small things that no one else cares about. I feel emotions and anxieties so strongly that i become physically ill. People who deal with me think they're the ones truly suffering. The only person I know truly suffering is my boyfriend of 14 years. He truly wants to help me and doesn't like seeing me in distress. I actively try to not be a burden to him or hide away from him so he can deal with more important things. My parents and family only care about how they feel or how it makes them look.
You seem to be the only TH-camr that understands how to balance your sound. Thank you.
Based on what I know, I think the best representation of mental illness that I've seen by FAR is in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
what exactly... is that game? Is it a darksouls like or an adventure game?
@@ziontartt6193 hack&slash with some puzzles
this video is soooooo good -- thank you so much for addressing this
Gosh! The horror movies have propagated misinformation and stigmatized mental illness for too long and has done so much damage!! Great video as always.
Thanks, this is a really good rundown.
Psychopathy isn't really a psychology term at all. Anti-social personality disorder exists, but sociopathy and psychopathy are just arbitrary terms that the uninformed population uses to "other" those with APD and Schizoid Personality Disorder.
Hey Leon, I just want to let you know in case you have eventual bad days that through your videos I honestly think you are a great guy, a really nice person and someone I wish I could have as a friend. Great content btw :)
I'm currently thinking about Leatherface and how the fact that he's developmentally disabled is one of the things that makes him sympathetic. And how horror villains often become so popular that they become the protagonist of the franchise they're in. And how that relates to those characters being reclaimed by the marginalized communities they were intended to villainize. Jason Voorhees, Bubba Sawyer, and Michael Myers are all nonverbal neurodivergent serial killers, and they're also some of the most iconic characters of all time. People love them. People draw cute fanart of Jason being a camp counselor and Bubba having his makeup done by Sally and Michael Myers wearing cat ears and a Hooters uniform. There's something liberating about embracing the monster within.
Good video with a lot to say and think about. Thanks.
As a diagnosed "maniac" and a satirical writer, this...was absolutely brilliant in every way.
Thank you. Word has to be spread.
Oh this is gonna be interesting
My thoughts exactly when i saw the title :)
I am so thankful to people like you for teaching me so much about mental illness .
Your work is truly amazing. 🙏
I feel like the reason actually dangerous mentally ill people are portrayed such is they make for more dramatic material, but it is entirely fair to detail how their depiction shapes the perceptions of the public regarding those who suffer mental illness, especially in light of how few depictions of more mundane forms of mental illness there are in popular media.
Before I realized anything was up with me mental health wise, I thought I was a monster deep down and that the serial killers and other "psychos" I saw so much in the horror media I consumed were a reflection of my own self, as many of the things they would mention about themselves were similar to symptoms I experienced with my types of mental illness, such as pure-O OCD. I hated myself for years and was terrified to tell anyone any of the problems I was going through until I randomly found out about the type of OCD I experience and it just hit me that I wasn't the freaking antichrist. I didn't even put together that these tropes in horror that I've seen so often might have caused this, and honestly wish more people would realize this. The isolation and self loathing you can experience when you understand the symptoms that the monsters on screen are exhibiting is enough to lead to depression or even worse things..
7:57 this is very truee. So many people like to explain criminality as something genetic, specially in cases were antisocial behaviors are seen in family members. That argument does a lot to discredit the posibilities that other psychosocial elements could come into play in the development of violent or antisocial individuals.
bro, i love your channel
Nice! I'm doing this for my Film essay.
The Babadook was such a great movie!
Really enjoyed the horror and finely packaged subtext and the protagonist felt like a truly relateable person. Awesome!
9:10 A bit of nitpick, but you got that backwards. Loomis kept calling Myers "it". To which Marion asked: " dont you think we can refer to "it" as "him".
Ack, I think you're right. I misspoke and never corrected it, seems like. My bad.
Still a great video though. 💯 Really opened my eyes to how mental illness is portrayed in horror. Like it's almost always the excuse for the why the killer kills and definitely spreads misconceptions and stigmas about it.
incredibly insightful, as always
Brilliant work! And just wanted to say I absolutely love The Babadook! One of my all-time favorite horror films.
Always so informative 😊
I feel like this video was made specifically for me. I am so hugely into this topic about mental disabilities representation in horror. So excited to watch.
Thank you very much for this
You're welcome.
Great analysis! TH-cam needs more videos like this. Great work.
Great analysis! I love the more contemporary horror genre, when they explore mental illness instead of blaming the horror on the mentally ill, as a welcomed catharsis. As someone who suffers from mental illness if helps me to process and express what it's like to suffer from mental illness.
I always got the feeling that Loomis was simply bad at his job.
Okay, so I have BPD (borderline personality disorder) and I gotta say - the amount of 'crazy obsessive bitch' tropes such as Fatal Attraction, Poison Ivy, The Crush, the Roommate, Single White Female, ect is... Fucked. And annoying. And hurtful. And just... Dumb.
Demonizing mentally ill people and blowing their illnesses up to seem 'scary' is such a shitty feeling, and also, such lazy writing. "What if we made him cRaZy!!?! That's never been done before, right?!?" But even I'm subject to catch myself thinking, "well °of course° they're mentally ill if they're killing/stalking/kidnapping/torturing people - I wonder what their diagnosis is?" as if that's fair at all to assume, and I °do° suffer from mental illness lol. dumb brain go brrrrrrrrrrrrm.
But I don't think anyone gets as much shit as schizophrenics and people with DID. My brother is schizophrenic, and it's frustrating to see how they're so horribly demonized as these 'balls to walls-nutso-psychos' that are all 'blood lust and unhinged' when schizophrenia isn't like that °AT ALL.° It's mostly just him spacing out occasionally, chatting with himself and laughing out of nowhere. He's still a lot like neuro-typical people with hobbies and passions and a job and a family... He just reacts and processes differently. His paranoid episodes can be scary, sure - but not scary like any of us fear for °our° safety... Just his. But he's medicated and relaxed, and I'm happy to see him comfortable.
These stereotypes are so offensive and harmful that even though we're in the the best year (so far) to be mostly open about mental illnesses, a hugeeee majority of people don't want to talk about their mental disorders because people will instantly pair us with someone like Norman Bates from Psycho, Alex from Fatal Attraction, the guy from Split (idk his character's name - only saw it once and hated it), or Mrs. Voorhees from Friday the 13th while almost every single person on the internet is convinced they have depression and anxiety, which is basically the common cold of mental health and still rather trendy. Smh. I know times are hard and I don't want to seem like I'm discrediting feelings or gate keeping mental illness but like, there's definitely a huge difference between being °depressed° and having •depression•. Anyways.
(Please do not claim mental illness without a proper diagnosis, please, guys. Seek professional opinions if you think you may have a mental disorder - don't internet diagnose. You're doing more harm to yourself by not seeking real help. Thank you. ❤)
While I do think that having mentally ill characters in horror (or any genre of film) is important for representation, can we ••please•• stop writing them in as the psychotic villains? As you said, mentally ill people are far more likely to be victims than aggressors. (Although I obviously don't want to see neuro-divergent people getting murdered, but rather the hero/heroine, ty)
A person doesn't need to be schizophrenic, have multiple personalities, or any other type of personality disorder to be 'evil' - most of the cruel people and abusers I've known personally were far more neuro-typical than mentally ill. Anger and lack of empathy aren't always sociopathic traits; sometimes 'evil' is far more normal seeming than people want to believe.
Loved this video, love this channel. Binging all your videos rn lmao
I love this channel ! Im obsessed with the horror film analysis .
Hoo boy, I had to go quick to avoid those Relic spoilers! Warn us, Leon!
So this is how I find out there was a whole series of Psycho movies? Wild.
Psycho 2 is a classic and I don’t think it’s acknowledged enough!
THE RING can be interpreted as a reaction to horror that sympathizes with mental illness. There's that hard plot pivot where the protagonist realizes what seemed like a breakthrough - releasing a misunderstood, abused girl from trauma - in fact unleashed deliberate evil on the world. It's just a mean-spirited, dumb twist compared to sympathetic horror like the Babadook which is fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far more enlightening.
Excellent video. I think the misuse of mental illness in horror movies reflects the wider stigmatization of mental illness in society on the whole.
I really want to see a horror movie that deals with how rare cases of mentally ill people committing violence can impact non violent mentally ill people. Because there are a lot of serial killers and mass murderers who are mentally ill, but they represent only a minute fraction of mentally ill people, and a minute fraction of murderers. In terms of psychology, Norman Bates isn't even that unrealistic. In fact he's based on real life murderer Ed Gein, who was declared not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life living peacefully and happily in an in-patient mental health facility. I think too often people think the main problem with mental illness in horror is a lack of realism, but horror doesn't have to be unrealistic to be stigmatizing.
It's interesting comparing stuff like Psycho to a show like Mindhunter, which manages to make it clear that mental illness and violence are not synonymous. The protagonist himself is mentally ill, and another character has a child who is really clearly autistic. There's also a scene where two characters get chewed out for focusing too much on a serial killer's crossdressing while interviewing him instead of focusing on the whole murder thing.
It's a complicated topic with a lot of nuance, and it's very interesting to discuss.
I think the show Hannibal deals with mental illness really well. The episode Buffet Froid is weirdly moving for me. There's something about how the protagonist desperately wants to reach out to the killer of the episode and assure her that's she isn't a lost cause is just beautiful tbh
Well done Leon, your content just keeps getting better 🔥
The thing I liked about the show Perception was that it was a time drama where people with mental illness/disorders weren't portrayed as monsters like other shows. I have no idea the level of accuracy in said portrayals but I think the intent was good.
Jeez, that shovel hit...