Our Anti-Sanist Future
By: Jenara Nerenberg
Tags: Media, Sanism, Mental Health, Pop Culture, Holidays

Research by Heather Stuart at Queen University shows that characters with mental illness are often depicted as violent and dangerous, and the actual camera shots feature more extreme close-ups and odd facial expressions. “Regardless of the genre studied, media have been found to provide overwhelmingly dramatic and distorted images of mental illness that emphasise dangerousness, criminality and unpredictability,” she writes. She says that such shots reinforce “their isolation and dislocation from the other characters and from the community.”

The legal scholar Michael Perlin has documented sanism at length, as prejudice toward those with mental disorder also plagues the criminal justice system. “Sanism is as insidious as other ‘isms’ and is, in some ways, more troubling, since it is largely invisible and largely socially acceptable,” he writes. “These generalizations, based upon preconceived and misinformed opinions about the nature of difference, make little reference to actual information.”

While there is increasing interest in the topic of disability acceptance, it’s a slightly different endeavor to shake off deeply entrenched beliefs about the human mind. And while hard to talk about, it’s important that we do. There was once a time when people with anxiety and depression were shunned, and now those conditions are discussed rather openly in mainstream media, by social media influencers, and the plethora of psychology and mindfulness magazines sitting in bookstores, airports, and school offices and doctor’s clinics. Change is possible.

As such, it’s important to uncover where outdated beliefs come from and to understand how fierce compassion toward those with neurological or psychiatric differences helps us to reimagine an anti-sanist future. Writing in the 1990’s, the psychologist and researcher Otto F. Wahl states:

“When we perceive those with mental illnesses as a ‘different’ group or kind of people, it creates barriers to communication and understanding. Such a perception leads us to expect that it will be hard to be related to, to understand, or to appreciate those who are so different from the rest of us. In addition, as social scientists have repeatedly observed, the notion that a group of people is ‘different’ is the cornerstone of rejection. The idea that someone is ‘different’ often carries with it the connotation that he or she is also in some way ‘inferior,’ an idea certainly bolstered, with respect to mental illness, by the jokes and slang references to mental disorder found in the media. The image of people with mental illnesses as both different and unworthy lessens our desire for contact with such individuals and thus contributes to the social rejection commonly experienced by those with psychiatric disorders.”

In researching his book, Media Madness, Wahl found that 72% of characters depicted as committing violent acts were depicted as having some form of mental disorder, when in reality his research showed that only 12% of actual violent offenders have a form of mental disorder. “With the presentation of mentally ill characters as evil, villainous, and incurable, it follows logically that the main hope for safety from these dangerous criminals would be their permanent removal and, indeed, the most common outcome for mentally ill villains in the media is death,” he writes of this unfortunate and unfair state of media depiction. In fact, he suggests that the problem of violence is far more complex and cannot be lazily blamed on mental illness. “Such a suggestion protects us from a perhaps more troubling recognition that it could be our society, our neglect of those at risk for criminal development, our attitudes and policies toward weapons, alcohol, punishment, and so forth which foster criminality.”

All of this has real impact on people’s perceptions, and fear perpetuates stigma. When confronting someone in real life with mental illness, people may be quick to judge any slightly different kind of behavior as potentially dangerous or “odd.” Or when confronting a stranger, they may even be too quick to call the police, leading to a confrontation or worse. These are often the fears that people hold in opening up about anything from severe depression to bipolar to heightened anxiety. It’s no wonder then that mental health and illness are tough topics to discuss openly — if media, the law, and other trusted supports have helped to create distorted images and perceptions, an individual who is struggling will feel fearful to open up.