Day 67 : Mental Ilness & Sensitivity

Introduction

Mental illness can considered deviant due to some societies seeing it as a moral panic, however in the contemporary UK more is being done to enable people to understand those who are mentally ill instead of fearing them especially through media. The fact that Flora's behaviour is inspired by Schizophrenia borders on the lines of distancing a individuals in society, as many know someone who is effected by a mental illness or has one themselves. Even though we are portraying someone who has symptoms inspired by Schizophrenia (originally we were going to make it clear she was) we are not going to make it obvious as we don't want to offend or anyone make feel uncomfortable when engaging in our media trailer.

We plan to make Flora's mental illness ambiguous like Norman Bates from Psycho (1960), who is a likable character who has become ill due to his mother's controlling and manipulative ways. Flora is exactly the same however she has become immoral and twisted due to her father's abusive and controlling relationship with her Jean (Flora's mother). As an audience member I victim identified with Marion Crane in Psycho, however I consistently felt sympathy towards Bates which is the impact me, Priscilla and Afreen want to have on our audience when watching our trailer Insanity. 

Here are contemporary articles which address mental illness I hyper-linked them below:

(These increasingly made me realise it would be plain wrong to address a specific mental illness, as it is an increasingly sensitive topic which effects people on a day to day basis)

Mental health cases 'rose in young' after recession [15/01/14]

An article on the increase of young people suffering from a mental illness

Panorama - Locked Up For Being Ill?

A panorama documentary on how mentally ill people are being treated whilst in police custody

Conclusion 

Our teacher's feedback on clearly using Schizophrenia statistics  in our voice over made me realise that if we made it so Flora was Schizophrenic, our audience would not be happy as in terms of the space and time of the contemporary UK mental illness is no longer considered deviant whereas in the past it was (highlighting historical deviance). When creating our trailer we have to keep in mind the society of which we now live in, as help is most likely to be available for those who are mentally ill which is why we had the psychiatrist scene, whereas in Psycho during the 60s mental illness was less known about which caused more people to fear it. This is why we will not directly address schizophrenia in our trailer through a voiceover as we don't wish to offend anyone.

Hyperlink : http://mentalhealthxdesign.com/category/headlines