October is mental health month in Australia. About 20% of adult Australians will experience a mental disorder at some stage in their lives.
Mental health issues are often stigmatised and brushed aside, mostly out of fear of the unknown and the unexplained. Depression is a common diagnosis that many of us can relate to.
Over the years, several movies have portrayed mental illness, some accurately, some not. These movies have served to remind us that mental disorders can affect anyone at any time, regardless of age, race or background.
In Australian film Shine, Geoffrey Rush’s portrayal of pianist David Helfgott, a genius who suffered a mental breakdown and spent years in institutions, was phenomenal and earned him an Oscar for Best Actor.
Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind depicted John Nash’s struggle with paranoid schizophrenia, a role brilliantly played by Aussie-NZ actor Russell Crowe.
Aussie movie The Black Balloon starring Toni Collette, Luke Ford and Rhys Wakefield featured an autistic character, and the animated movie Finding Nemo, partly set in Sydney, brought attention to retrograde amnesia, a condition that sees a person forget part or all of his or her past.
There have been numerous articles written about the portrayal of mental illness in movies. As recently as yesterday, an article was published in Sydney’s mX newspaper:
Acting to stop stigma - changing mental health attitudes
Story by Cayla Dengate, mX features editor
Jack Nicholson’s depiction of madness in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest set attitudes towards mental health back decades, an advocate says.
Beyondblue deputy chief executive Nicole Highet told mX today that slang and pop culture were good indicators of our understanding of mental health issues.
“We’ve come a long way since One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,“ Highet said.
“I was watching Packed to the Rafters recently and one of the characters had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – I jumped straight on Twitter and said there was no better way to reduce the stigma of mental illness – to show what it’s like to have it.”
Films such as A Beautiful Mind and soapies dealing with depression were changing outlooks.
“Even though you do hear words used like ‘psycho’, ‘nutter’ or ‘emo’, young people tend to be much more literate when it comes to mental illness,” Highet said.
“They’ve grown up in a society where mental illness is spoken about in the same sentence as diabetes and asthma.”
Today’s Stigma Summit in Brisbane coincides with the UN World Mental Health Day.
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