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How mental illness in women is portrayed in the movies...

34 replies

DrRanj · 17/12/2012 19:57

Hi all.

I am a regular poster, but I have had a recent name change due to a near outing incident.

I am a medical student and I am doing a special project on cinema and psychiatry. I need to write an essay and was thinking of basing it on how women with mental health problems are portrayed by hollywood films and/or whether the violence in psychiatric illness in films (perpetrated by men or women) is an accurate representation of real life (but I may post in mental health to get more input on this).

If anyone has any films they could recommend and their comments it would be great food for thought to get me started. Obviously I won't pinch any of your ideas directly, as everything I write about will have to be backed up by references anyway!

And as an aside I think this a really interesting topic for discussion anyway, whether I was writing an essay or not...

Any thoughts?

OP posts:
Darkesteyes · 17/12/2012 21:29

Single White Female springs to mind.

ParsingFancy · 17/12/2012 21:28

I'd have thought there would be lots of "mad old cat lady" type portrayals. Characters who are basically plot devices rather than seen as interesting in themselves.

ParsingFancy · 17/12/2012 21:22

"Tom & Viv" is about TS Eliott's wife Vivienne, who is portrayed as having psych problems arising from gynae problems. The scene of her being "tested" for committal to the asylum is, um, interesting.

monsterchild · 17/12/2012 21:21

It might also be interesting to look at how mental illness is portrayed differently if the perpetrator is a man or a woman.

monsterchild · 17/12/2012 21:13

Other movies would include The three faces of Eve and I would say Basic Instinct was a MH issue, surely? Or Misery.

What about the "woman scored" trope? Like the one with the bunny killer, or Carrie? What about the girl in The Ring? does she count as having mental health issues enough to make herself a ghost?

WidowWadman · 17/12/2012 21:13

Jane Eyre is the one with the mad woman in the attic, and there's at least one or two adaptations. You probably also ought to look at Wide Sargasso Sea which is a prequel to Jane Eyre

Original poster
DrRanj · 17/12/2012 21:09

Thanks very much, I may look into that one. So is much of it set in an institution then? It's just that one of my colleagues is thinking of writing about how insitutions are represented...

Yes the whole mad woman in the attic thing may be good to look into! Which one of the Austen type novels had a mad woman in the attic? Has there been a film made of it?

OP posts:
saintlyjimjams · 17/12/2012 21:08

Oh there was Sybil as well, although that's based on an autobiography isn't it? I only saw the film (years ago), haven't read the book.

Oh and Island which I've just watched. Fab film. Sort of touches a bit on mental health. But perhaps less obviously than something like Sybil.

WidowWadman · 17/12/2012 21:04

Don't know much about cinematic portrayal, but it's a standard literature trope that mad women (in attics and elsewhere) have wild hair (as opposed to a nice neat plait).

As with psychiatric illness in women in films, the only one that springs to mind is "Girl, interrupted", based on Susanna Kaysen's autobiography. I'm not sure what can be said about accuracy, as treatment of people in psychiatric institutions has changed since she's written it.