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

[DrRanj]

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?

How about Orphan for a recent-ish portrayal of a sexy nuts bird up to no good?
Fatal Attraction and Betty Blue are the blueprints with the crazy birds who shag like a bat in biscuit tin until it all gets a bit much for a regular guy and the sexy chick has to be carted off in a straight jacket/chastity belt/body bag and knackered hero can return to wife, kids and picket fence.
I'm sure there's lots to be said about Puritain America, whores and madonnas, etc.

Carrie's been mentioned already, yes?
Monster?

It's sort of a Hollywood stereotype, isn't it, that a staple alternative to a bland pretty lil lady is a lunatic chick who needs to be detonated before wholesome rightfulness can be reinstated?

Girl. Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie.

I give you "hand that rocks the cradle" Rebecca's de Mornay's character; beautiful, sexy, crazy all rolled into one.

A wander through TV Tropes might give you some ideas (also covers film)
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandard

The Yellow Wallpaper has a good enough adaption available on youtube - however it's an old story, based on the treatment on mental illness in the very early 20th C if not the 19th C.

There is room for historical comparison I suppose? And it's a fantastic comparison with Jane Eyre and the Wide Sargasso Sea.

There's also some of the Hitchcock films - most especially the character of Mrs Danvers in Rebecca, and in terms of violence, the murderer in Pyscho..

Silver Linings Playbook - a film in cinemas right now would be worth your while seeing.

In the film you have both a man and a woman who suffered breakdowns. He after his wife had an affair and her after her husband died.

Betty Blue. Such a sad film.

Monster is an upsetting film and very disturbing.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0090563/

www.imdb.com/title/tt0340855/

Bit of a crappy film, but in The Devil's Advocate the main character's wife goes insane from lack of attention from her husband . Also Girl, Interrupted is very, very different from the book it's based on.