www.hollywoodreporter.com: Film and TV have always shaped how audiences see the world. Movies and shows have transformed how people think about mental health, addiction, sexuality, and countless other topics once considered too private for the big screen. But when it comes to one of the most common parts of our daily lives—living with illness—many of today’s most prevalent chronic diseases are still largely missing from popular entertainment.
7 comments:
I think it is extremely necessary for young creators and designers entering the industry to be aware of the lack of representation of health problems and diagnosis. By being aware of what is lacking as far as representation, we as young creators can then lead the way in industrial change. Representation has come a long way, but addressing that not all mental diagnosis, and health issues need to be negative is an important development that must occur in Hollywood. This is especially true, and I agree with the article in this statement, during movies that have cancer involved, it often ends with morality. Although, this is not always the case, and survivor stories are just as important to tell and reflect what individuals go through. The studies that Lilly is leading are very important, and I hope they continue this work to bring light to Hollywood’s complicity, and to push creatives further in their stories to accurately represent America, and the world.
This feels like a bit of the chicken or the eggs situation, where our movies and TV shows don’t have any characters with chronic illness because it's so stigmatized to talk about illness, and then because of that there are no characters to showcase it. I do agree that that cycle can only be broken by media making an effort to portray illness in an authentic way that just isn't done very often. John Green talks about this problem a lot in regards to stigma around illness. Human beings want there to be a reason for someone's suffering, because then we can convince ourselves that said suffering will never happen to us. But illness is never a result of moral failing despite how it is often portrayed. I feel like this is a really big problem in stories because every detail needs to be metaphorically significant, but hopefully stigmatizing illness can be something that can change in the future.
I think that media really should help people to understand more about different illnesses or diseases. There is such a stigma around the words that most people immediately think that anyone who has one is incompetent. There’s been a lot of harm that media has done about these illnesses like how the article described, so the industry has a lot of catching up and correcting to do. I’ve already seen this improve with popular books such as Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing, where the main character Violet has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS). EDS is a tissue disorder, but despite that Violet is just as capable as the other characters, if not stronger. Fourth Wing is set to become a TV show in the near future so hopefully Violet’s chronic pain is kept in and is done so in a way that people stop infantalizing those with similar illnesses.
I would really love to see more representation in popular media, and I really hope that it is done in a respectful way.
I find that illnesses are often portrayed in television through the perspective of the people surrounding the person who is ill, rather than focusing on the person suffering themselves. For instance, people with cancer are often portrayed mainly as a way to show the death of a character and create a tragic ending for a romantic relationship or family. Similarly, people with dementia are often portrayed through the suffering their illness causes their families. Rarely do these stories focus on the experience of the person with the illness themselves. I find this disturbing because it can encourage audiences to focus on the emotional drama surrounding an illness rather than understanding how deeply and painfully the illness affects the person experiencing it. So I find Lily’s work raising awareness and supporting research through the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative really meaningful as it’s crucial to shift the focus toward the realities and severity of illnesses themselves, rather than treating them primarily as tools for creating emotional impact for others.
This is a subject that I really don't think about enough, although it is clear that it is out there once I start actually focusing on it. I think it's evident that Hollywood influences the way we understand and visualize the issues of illness, treatment or mental health, however, the way it shows all of this in most cases has a direct relation to what is needed from a dramatic POV rather than the genuine truth. (especially older medical shows.) I am amazed by how much time TV shows compress the time frames of recovery; how they continuously misrepresent symptoms just to make them look more attractive for the camera, and how different illnesses are tackled as a plot device only without the actual content behind it. I think in recent years specifically from a medical standpoint actual facts of medicine have gotten better however influencer culture on health and other things related to TikTok fitness continue to to be an issue.
I’ve never really noticed that they aren’t a lot shows or movies that focus on different types of illnesses, I’ve seen a bunch of movies in my youth about fatal illnesses like cancer but when I think back on what I watched there was little on anything else or if it did pop up it wasn’t the main point of the story.which is a shame because I think besides experiences in the real world I think media effects are perceptions of topics the most, I’ve found myself more knowledgeable about things that I didn’t know about before by watching media, so I think it’s important for a wide range of health topics to appear in tv and film so that they are more in the public consciousness. While it’s important for it to appear I don’t think it’s only important aspect, I think it’s also vital for it to be done well, in a lot of media I see, people who have health issues are glossed over or the illness I just used as a basic cause for death
Researching how film and TV shape not only our understanding of the world, but especially our mental and physical health is extremely important. While I once believed that film and TV discussing health conditions might worsen the societal conversation around these topics, I now understand that discussing mental and physical health conditions on screen–especially positively–helps de-stigmatize and spread awareness about health conversations and the necessity of them. I think that Eli Lilly’s work and help with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative is extremely important in the modern day, as it shows TV and Film representation of Illnesses. I also think it is super surprising that such a large ratio of people live with at least one chronic condition. I think the research on how people with certain health conditions were once primarily portrayed in a negative light is also important to recognize. Overall, the conversation and research regarding portrayals of health conditions in Hollywood is extremely important in today’s society.
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