There aren’t many details about the as of yet unnamed comedy series, but initial reports say it will be based on the personal lives of its creators, which has led to speculation that the series will, in some way, tackle the topic of chronic illness.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Chronic illness on TV: More nuanced and realistic portrayals are needed
There aren’t many details about the as of yet unnamed comedy series, but initial reports say it will be based on the personal lives of its creators, which has led to speculation that the series will, in some way, tackle the topic of chronic illness.
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Upon reading the title of this article, I immediately thought of the Netflix series "Atypical", in which a family struggling with issues regarding divorce, college, and the main character Sam, who falls on the autism spectrum. In this show, the creators take note of the real symptoms of autism and cleverly combine it with the heart and wit of a good sitcom episode (See "How I Met Your Mother" Season 8, Episode 20) to create a fun, heartfelt comedy that proves to also be educational to its viewers about autism in general. However, following my brief side-thought about how much I enjoyed "Atypical", I realized I couldn’t think of many more realistic depictions of disorders in television, film, and media in general, shy NBC’s This Is Us.
For example, a film entitled "Five Feet Apart" came out recently in which two teens with cystic fibrosis fall in love (cue swoon), and test their physical boundaries for love. I mean they’re literally risking their lives (due to the nature of the disease) to be together, which I won’t deny is cute, but still. It is hypothetically throwing your life away over a love interest, which I’m sure most people would not do. The severity of the disease is completely discounted in the film to focus on the everlasting love of the two main characters. Here, filmmakers have a perfectly good time to teach viewers about the dangers of cystic fibrosis and the sacrifices those who have it must go through in their lives, and it’s thrown away for the loving embrace of Cole Sprouse and his soft boy energy. It’s rather disrespectful of those with the disease itself, and incredibly uneducational and bland.
All right, instead of praising or ranting various media outputs, I’ll wrap this argument. I completely agree with the article that diseases are utterly discounted and romanticized in modern media, and while not necessarily harmful to viewers, the lack of realistic illness representation creates an ignorant population of viewers, and while ignorance is stereotypically bliss, it causes for an uneducated world, and with the resources of public outreach and education in the modern world, we have no excuses to be uneducated.
Create realistic representations of diseases please. Thanks.
P.S. “Don’t Give Up On Me” from the Five Feet Apart soundtrack came on whilst typing this. Coincidence or fate? The world may never know.
Chronic Illness is an issue that needs to be talked about more. Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and similar health matters do not get the air time they need for people to understand and doctors are less sympathetic when a patient comes in with symptoms and asks to be checked out. I have personal experience with fatigue and my doctor telling me that I just need more sleep. In the performing arts, our bodies are bruised, beaten, and battered. We hurt, we are tired. Hopefully a show like this will have the effect of getting doctors to take more notice when their patient complains of certain symptoms but also to get the insurance companies to pay attention and stop denying coverage for the more invasive testing that is needed to reach some of these diagnoses. The other positive effect that I am hoping to see from a show like this is that people stop making jokes about those who suffer from these chronic conditions. A person’s health is not a laughing matter or joke and TV/Film and Theatre needs to stop making those with Chronic conditions the running joke of a show.
After reading this article, I realized that I could only name one or two TV shows that represented a chronic illness in a non-comedic way (only in documentaries). When shows did write in characters with chronic conditions, without the intention of making them comedic, they are still portrayed in a superficial and conventional manner. One specific example that comes to my mind is the way mental illness is portrayed in films/TV. Although there is representation of it on screen, they are either terrible or conventional, like the portrayal is not realistic and conforms to the stereotypical way people view mental illnesses. The same goes for the representation of disabilities. The portrayal of disorders and illnesses now create negative assumptions. Although it’s amazing how shows and films nowadays strive to be diverse, to represent differences, what we need now is what the article says - realistic and authentic representation. Let’s do better than this.
I think it is important to understand that everyone's experience with illnesses are different. As humans, we are all wired differently. So not only will our bodies react differently, but the way we cope with or handle things are also different. I completely understand that shows may dramatize some illnesses, downplay some, or even poke fun at them, but that may actually be some people's reality (emphasis on some). Also, in the case of TV shows, or writing in general, there will be more to it than seeing how a person suffers or deal with their illness. The writer is trying to tell an engaging story that has a central plot and subplots. So to expect to truly see what that illness is like in a fictional show is expecting a lot. Yes, we may get a better understanding. But things will be dramatized or downplayed. That's just the nature of the beast.
-Apriah
Medical TV shows have been on for longer than I've been alive and yet there are only a handful that are both accurate and inclusive of those that suffer from chronic or mental illnesses. In the past few years, there has been an increase. With ABC's The Good Doctor and Netflix's Atypical being the only ones I've personally seen. While both are exceptionally good at demonstrating what daily life for high functioning autistic teens and young adults is like they are not the standard at which film and TV are set, they are the overachieving exception. If we want to make things like chronic illness more visible in the public eye it starts where the average 2017 American spends almost 4 hours of their day, watching TV. Regardless of the greater societal implications of such numerous hours of television viewing, it is important for our representations of illness in the media to be accurate as it is the main source of information for both adults and children. If we want representation to change, we need to be vocal about it.
Chronic illness is something that surrounds us. It is something that countless amounts of people deal with every day, it is not something that is portrayed in the media. Even shows or movies that do happen to portray a character with a chronic illness never seem to properly explain that the lives of people with these illnesses are not easy ones to live through. I can only seem to remember one movie out of the many shows and movies that I have seen that seemed to depict chronic illness. It was a show that was entirely based on a boy and his best friend that struggled with cancer. However, even though the movie featured this girl with cancer, it didn't exactly show the hardships she went through. Yes, the movie featured her at the hospital and in the end she very sadly passed a way, but we never heard of or witnessed any of the pain and suffering she went through due to her illness. I understand that show or movies about chronic illnesses could be extremely uncomfortable for those who chose to watch them, but at the same time I think it's important for people with these illnesses to be accurately represented in television and film.
I am always for more and, most importantly, more accurate representations of chronic illness and disabilities on screen and onstage. So often the only reason disability or chronic illness is included in a show is when a character in the show needs to go through some sort of epiphany or major life change and it is only present until that change happens, then it magically disappears. In real life there are people living with chronic illness every day and those people deserve to be represented just as much as anyone else. I know that one of actresses mentioned was recently praised for not wearing spanx to conceal a symptom from a kidney transplant she underwent. While I was really happy to see that the response to her was overwhelmingly positive, I think that including chronic illness in fictional worlds as well could go a long way to helping to normalize a lot of this to a wider audience.
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