NAMI StigmaBuster Alert

NAMI StigmaBuster Alert: August 25, 2008

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is preparing to grade each of the 50 states on public mental health services in 2009 and needs your help. Please take this online survey and forward it to others. It includes a Spanish version.

Anyone age 18 or older who has been diagnosed with a serious mental illness or who has an adult family member with a diagnosed mental illness can take the survey. The survey will remain online until September 30, 2008, and takes about 15 minutes to complete. Responses are anonymous.

Specific survey questions include whether public mental health services in a state are easy to find, convenient, affordable and without waiting lists—as well as whether they are sensitive to cultural backgrounds.

Hollywood Stigma
Two of the summer's blockbuster movies show that insensitivity, if not pure, unadulterated stigmatization, still lives in Hollywood.


Batman: The Dark Knight

Many StigmaBusters have condemned a scene in The Dark Knight in which Gotham City's district attorney interrogates one of the Joker's henchmen. Batman dismisses him as "a paranoid schizophrenic" who exemplifies "the type of mind" attracted to the villain. Because of the Joker's violence, there is "guilt by association" that perpetuates a false, stigmatizing stereotype.



Now that initial hoopla around the movie premiere has passed, it's time to seek a dialogue with Warner Bros. studios and director and screenwriter, Christopher Nolan. Asking him to use their power and talent to bust stigma. In your own words, please make these key points:
  • The U.S. Surgeon General has reported that stigma is one of the greater barriers to people seeking help and recovery from serious mental illnesses.
  • "Paranoid schizophrenic" defines a person by their illness, not as a human being. The scene made a major, stigmatizing impression on audiences.
  • The movie portrayed people with schizophrenia only as violent villains; no positive characters living with mental illness balanced the stereotype.
  • Please help fight stigma—we challenge you to include positive themes and portrayals in your movies.
Barry Meyer
Chairman &CEO
Warner Bros. Entertainment
4000 Warner Blvd
Burbank,CA 91522

Christopher Nolan (please forward)
c/o Writers Guild of America West
7000 West Third Street
Los Angeles CA 90048
complaints@wb.com

Tropic Thunder
Stigma is not limited to mental illness. It's also imposed on people with intellectual disabilities and other conditions.

Tropic Thunder is a satire about Hollywood and the making of a movie about the Vietnam War. But the satire is excessive, frequently using the word "retard" and making people with intellectual disabilities the butt of a joke that is central to the plot.

The ARC of the United States has condemned the movie for its "hate speech" and offensive caricatures and called for a national boycott. As a general rule, NAMI does not use boycotts as a tactic— they usually are counterproductive. (In fact, Tropic Thunder has set a record at the box office). However, please send a message to the movie studio and actor Ben Stiller—who should know better—asking them to join the fight against stigma.

Ms. Stacey Snider
Co-Chairman & CEO
Dreamworks Studios
1000 Flower Street
Glendale, CA 91201
comments@dreamworksstudios.com

Mr. Ben Stiller
Red Hour Films
629 North La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036

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I haven't seen either of the above mentioned movies so I don't have an opinion yea or nay. However, I thought it was interesting so I posted it.

Comments

Greatly appreciate your having posted this, complete with links and addresses.

I haven't seen either film and do not intend to. Batman to me is still what it was back with Adam West and Burt Ward-I have no intention of changing that (not to mention they've used a few men to play Batman in the movie versions, which destroys the enjoyment factor for me). As to the essentially talentless Ben Stiller, I have yet to find any real humor in anything the little twerp has done. His parents (Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara) have talent, he does not. He uses insults as a way of generating laughs, which I can do without.

Sadly, the word 'retard' is gaining favor again in daily usage among many of the people I encounter. "So and so is such a retard" "Blah, blah, blah that's so retarded." and things of that sort. I hear it from teens and from adults well fast approaching their first Social Security check.

Once more, thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
 
As far as Tropic Thunder is concerned I understand that it is a farcical comedy. However, I was more than a little peeved to learn that Robert Downey Jr. is portraying a black man. :wtf2: I understand that Wesley Snipes is doing some time for tax evasion; but surely there was another mediocre black, male actor available for the role. To have a white man in black face isn't funny to me. :mad: Nor should it be to anyone.
 
TROPIC THUNDER is not stage blackface. It was an acting role. Maybe you should see WATERMELON MAN, where Godfrey Cambridge plays a white man who turns black.

I see examples of mental illness every day, in the news. Censor the news?

It isn't the intent of the films to deal with issues, but to portray them. There's a great deal of difference between these films, and pure exploitation on the lines of "Reefer Madness"...
 
I'm so glad I decided to check-out your blog. As a worker in the mental health field I see the way people react to my clients on a daily basis. Those people that move to the other side of the isle in the grocery store and the ones that whisper and laugh behind their hands have no idea of how lucky they are that they or someone they care about hasn't been effected by mental illness. I believe that if more people were educated on the subject they would understand that living, lawfully and nonviolently, with mental illness was closer to the reality than what is portrayed in the movies and on TV.
 
oh and by the way NJQT...

Downey's role of an Australian portraying an African American was created as a way of lampooning the great lengths that some method actors will go to depict a role. Downey acknowledged the potential controversy over the role: "at the end of the day, it's always about how well you commit to the character. If I didn't feel it was morally sound, or that it would be easily misinterpreted that I'm just C. Thomas Howell [in Soul Man], I would've stayed home." When initially approached by Stiller about the part, Downey said on CBS's The Early Show that his first reaction was, "Ben, this is insane!" and that Stiller responded, "Yeah--isn't it great?" Brandon T. Jackson, who portrays Alpa Chino in the film, stated: "When I first read the script, I was like: What? Black face? But when I saw him [act] he, like, became a black man...It was just good acting. It was weird on the set because he would keep going with the character. He's a method actor." Ben Stiller also commented on Downey's portrayal of a white actor playing a black man: "When people see the movie – in the context of the film, he’s playing a method actor who’s gone to great lengths to play an African American. The movie is skewering actors and how they take themselves so seriously. Audiences that have seen it so far have totally embraced the character." Stiller also previewed the film before several African American journalists and the NAACP who reacted positively to the character.
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from wikipedia, not exactly the gospel, but good enough
 
Ah--one report has Brandon Jackson so taken by the role, he didn't realise Downey was white until he saw IRON MAN.
 

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