Why most movies about mental illness are terrible

Depictions of mental illness on the silver screen are often lacking when it comes to how accurately they portray the lives of real people with these disorders. Why is this the case? Find out why mental illness makes for a poor fit with movies and storytelling in this video.

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Close up of 8mm movie projector, showing two film reels focusing just one in foreground in 4K Free Video – CineMitch (Vecteezy)

the thief is trying to open the safe and The thief is trying to open the safe in the night – Ковальов Сергій (Vecteezy)

Writing in a messy apartment – karim3run216039 (Vecteezy)

Extreme close up shot of clock hands moving from 8:40 to 9:50 in 4K time lapse – CineMitch (Vecteezy)

Piece of white jigsaw filling by hand, Success concept – Prakasit Khuansuwan (Vecteezy)

Silhouettes of man win on the background of the sunset sky – Prakasit Khuansuwan (Vecteezy)

Life Mood And Restlessness – Joe+MeaganWO (Vecteezy)

Disabled senior woman sitting on a wheelchair in a hospital park – Prakasit Khuansuwan (Vecteezy)

Man Riffle Through Books with Fingers – Yurii Romanov (Vecteezy)

Blue Chromosome DNA – tthamrongpat (Vecteezy)

Man hand reaches for the sun – Prakasit Khuansuwan (Vecteezy)

Depressed and angry man looks in broken glass shards – Michael Kuelbel (Vecteezy)

Analog CRT Monitor Flicker – Beachfront (Video)

Bearded man thinking – BEARDED HANDS (Vecteezy)

Ice Cream Production Factory - Ice cream is sprinkled with Coffee Beans

Hand Grinds Salt and Sprinkles It – Prakasit Khuansuwan (Vecteezy)

Shadows of people on a wall at outdoor in two time slow motion at Istanbul – Engin Sezer (Vecteezy)

Silhouette of a crying girl in the window – irikri (Vecteezy)

Close up portrait of Asian young man napping on sofa in living room at home. Tired man sleeping on couch. Guy relaxing looking at camera and closing eyes – Prakasit Khuansuwan (Vecteezy)

Sad and disappointed woman standing by the sea – Nattawan jayawan (Vecteezy)

Slow motion of woman hand touching organic wheat flower in countryside or farm background, spring summer and travel concept – nuchyleephoto (Vecteezy)

TV Eye Malfunction – raymond (Vecteezy)

Homeless man receives happily money donation from a passer-by. he is jobless and unemployed from the C0vid 19 epidemic. Amonsak Sriwilai (Vecteezy)

Close up of 8mm movie projector, with detail of the lens and flashing light in 4K – CineMitch (Vecteezy)

Extreme front close up of 8mm movie projector and detail of the photograms of the film in 4K – CineMitch (Vecteezy)

Extreme close up of 8mm movie projector showing the central part of the film reel spinning in 4K – CineMitch (Vecteezy)

Vertical panning going up and then down of a 8mm movie projector showing the film moving in 4K – CineMitch (Vecteezy)

Vertical panning shot of 8mm movie projector with detail of film reel spinning in 4K – CineMitch (Vecteezy)

Industrial Clock Gears – okan akdeniz (Vecteezy)

Looking Real And Ready – Joe+MeaganWO (Vecteezy)

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[ballisticalrift]

You brought up a great point about most experiences with mental illness being non-visual in nature. Even when I experience psychosis during bipolar depression, my personal visual hallucinations don’t match popular depictions of them, and my delusional thoughts and increased obsessive thoughts are much more debilitating but are unable to be visualized. Great video!

[mustacheofgold]

As raunchy as it is, to me, South Park's "Feeling old yet" & "Assburgers" are 100% the perfect depiction of depression. Simply said: to Stan, everything turns to shit. Literally. His favorite music turns to fart noises, his favorite food turns to turds, actors he likes are replaced by talking poop etc. At a certain point, he doesn't feel compelled to do anything anymore and turns into a bitter person nobody wants to hang out with. Nothing actually changed in the world, but merely how he perceives it. If everything is shit, doing anything feels pointless.

It made for a compelling plot and it didn't even have a happy ending. Stan became an alcoholic, since alcohol is the only thing that temporarily removes the shit, and they never bring it up again.

[matthewcrome]

I'm autistic and my favorite movies about autism (as an autistic person) are Mary & Max and Stranger Than Fiction (no explicit mention of autism but very heavily coded in the main character and to an extent in another character). These are the only good movies about autism that I've seen, because they don't make the entire film about the person's autism, and rather about the story and the characters.

My favorite film about mental illness in general is 12 Monkeys. I think it's so brilliant in depicting a state of mental chaos and the way mental institutions/medications fail people.

As much as I love The Sixth Sense (Bruce Willis may have been in a lot of bad movies, but he was sure in some good ones in the 90s) for its tearjerking metaphor for living with mental illness/anything disbelieved by society, I equally hate many of M. Night Shamalamadoingdoing's films that portray mentally ill/disabled people as killers (which even The Sixth Sense does).

[smk]

Absolutely love this as someone interested in the intersection of psychiatry and creative writing. Very honest. Keep it up!

[engr]

I think “Monk”, while unrealistic in some aspects, did a decent job showing a mental illness (OCD and to some extent OCPD) as a chronic condition which has remissions and relapses and often makes the most mundane tasks difficult.

[dilshadicad]

Such a well written and well articulated video! Thanks :)

[NotSoNormal]

I'm not sure I've seen an accurate depiction of any of the mental illnesses I suffer in the media. Which is sad. I feel like we could use some real representation. At the end of the day, I'm just a human being that also has some extra stuff to deal with. It's not flashy. I'm not some scary unpredictable thing. I'm just a person living a pretty basic life. I may have more meds than the average person. And more appointments to go to. But I'm just a regular human being.

I've had people say that I act too normal to have bipolar disorder for instance. Which is a rather odd thing for someone to say. I'm not sure exactly what they expect. But it's certainly not my actual lived experience.

[josawesome]

I personally think that Aftersun is the best depiction of depression I’ve ever seen. The unexplainable is the point in the film, as it’s told by the character’s daughter trying to remember her last few days with him to try and understand why he took his own life. But it doesn’t really provide any clarity. Devastating and beautiful film.

[riverd]

Very interesting video! Would be nice if there was a compilation of real representation of mental disorders in movies

[sethclark]

The best media example I experienced is The Cat Lady (2012) video game. They did sacrifice some aspects for the sake of story, with supernatural elements, but the atmosphere holds for depression. The game stays in black and white with few other colors. Shows the feeling of futility, anger, and helplessness that comes with it. It can be campy or a bit overt at times, but the conclusion shows that things dont necessarily get better, as she says "I've been getting better, but I must admit, yesterday was real bad" showing that depression doesn't conclude, it simply can only be managed.

[Stopnormalizingviolence]

Fatal Attraction, in my opinion, has done major damage to society's view about women, especially women with borderline personality disorder or borderline traits, even though there is no mention of BPD or any other mental diagnosis in the movie. To this day I'm still seeing ugly comments like "Women with BPD are bunny boilers!" On popular BPD video comment sections, Fatal Attraction comparisons come up regularly. When I did a little research into that movie, I've read that many mental health professionals say the star's symptoms in the movie more closely line up with erotomania. That movie is very misogynistic also. It depicts the unfaithful husband as some kind of hero for killing the mentally ill woman in the end. How depressing that so many people think that was such a great movie.

[KalypsoVega]

I was in college for sociology and psychology and was able to use the film Fight Club in a forum conversation regarding certain topics of mental health. I feel like Fight CClub does a good job of expressing certain mental health problems

[sukaitodd]

Great video! I think Christopher Nolan's films "The Prestige" and "Memento" are two excellent, albeit non-linear displays of how mental illnesses can be properly or at least somewhat decently portrayed in media in a way that is both realistic and a bit haunting. Without spoilers for those who may have not seen it, I believe one of the main characters in "The Prestige" may have narcissistic disorder among others and the other main character definitely shows signs of dependency. Whereas in "Memento", it's a non-linear journey of how menacing (yes, menacing but it is handled somewhat tenderly, ironically) and equally tenderly of having C-PTSD. Of course, there are many, many, many elements in both of these films that complicate this comment. But I think these movies are at least decent visual representations of some of what mental disorders can look like, taken to extremes, in my opinion. Sorry for the essay (lol). I hope whoever reads this has a great time of day, if you made it this far. :)

[KiaraBarmen-gwwc]

Inside out is one of the only movies I know that actually present depression a mental health issues properly

[TheOpticalFreak]

Verry well said! 🙏☺️👍 These movies influenced me heavenly when I was younger and made me hesitant to go to s psychologist and get help I was also afraid to take medication because I thought the side effects would maybe make me worse and want to hurt people! But that was very far from reality! I am happy i got help for my depression! 👍😉

[HasanAlKharfan]

I love the amazing quality of this channel.

[adde]

There might be a successful formula for depicting an in depth and accurate look at mental illness. I've got a few issues, but the one where I could really see it work is OCD, particularly "germaphobia." I often have to stop and plan how I am going to work around the gross or heal the "contamination" that comes from wading straight in. It doesn't stop me from responding in an emergency, it doesn't cause me to have outbursts, but I'm going to have to wash SO MUCH.

So, I could never be the protagonist, I only get better when I'm less stressed, wjich is the oppositeof a plot. The protagonist would have to have their story arc and carry the adventure while learning that their germaphobe-second-banana can't be logiced but that they can help them be "more functional."

For me, being more functional usually involves people actually doing the very few things I ask them to, and not helping when it just means I'll have to redo it. You can put the dirty laundry in the washer for me but Don't touch the clean stuff. Not a very heroic example, but part of the heroes journey would be getting the idea that it's not scalable and it's not logical. I know all doorknobs are equally disgusting all the time but I only care when I just washed my hands.

Of course the movie ends with the germaphobe doing something disgusting while having hesitated to consider that it does majorly upset the OCD and then act like a totally nornal person for the remainder of the climax: the hero thinks they're cured! And then the germaphobe hurls themselves into shower when they get home to have a proper scrubby-dubby freakout. The hero is left to conclude that they did save the day hut that they cannot save the germaphobe from OCD. But they can wash tgeir handsato get them a clean towel without needing to be asked.

The movie wouldn't about OCD. It could be superheroes, or war, or teachers, or sports. OCD is the C or D plot. And the purpose of that plot is that it's a big deal me to be a germaphobe, it's not a hig deal for you that I'm a germaphobe.

[dr.ashvinchouhansendurance]

Dear sir, you made such a valid awareness videos. Plz tell being a psychiatrist how do you get time to prepare such things.?

[darcichambers]

As someone with bipolar whose depressions are accompanied with hallucinations, one of the best representations I thougut was Kandis (in the books). Being in her head the entire time, there was a lot of me going. Hey yeah, this is more like what I go through then any media I've consumed. Then the movies ruined it. They lost the point of telling a broken girl's story, and instead focused on all the cool shots the games gave them.

[YeshMCx]

Julien Donkey Boy is an incredible portrayal of Schizophrenia and mental illness. The director/writer based the main character off of his schizophrenic grandfather who he grew up with. Beautiful film. Definitely worth checking out