PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES AND DISORDERS

PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES AND DISORDERS

Physical Disabilities

Another group that is very concerned about its media image is people with disabilities, either physical or mental (Balter, 1999; Cumberbatch & Negrine, 1991). Disabilities only appear in less than 1% of series characters on TV, compared to 10–20% of the population having some sort of physical disability (Balter, 1999). However, people with disabilities have occasionally appeared, often in the form of the “bitter crip” or “supercrip” stereotypes. In the former, the person with a disability is depressed and bitter due to the disability and other people’s failure to accept him or her as a full person. Often such story lines revolve around someone challenging the character to accept him- or herself. Often the character with the disability finds that this self-acceptance miraculously leads to a physical cure, perhaps subtly suggesting that happiness comes only from being physically whole. The supercrip image, on the other hand, is seen in characters like the superhuman and selfless paraplegic who wheels hundreds of miles to raise money for cancer research or the blind girl who solves the baffling crime by remembering a crucial sound or smell that sighted people had missed. Sometimes the two even coexist in the same person, as in The Miracle Worker’s Helen Keller, at first bitter and inept, almost animalistic, until she is “tamed” by the saintly teacher Annie Sullivan, after which she goes on to

be almost superhuman. A covert message of both of these portrayals is that individual adjustment is the key to disabled people’s lives; if they only have the right attitude, they will be fine. Factors like prejudice and social and physical barriers of the broader society are underplayed (Longmore, 1985).

Positive images do count. The old TV show Ironsides featured the lead detective who worked from a wheelchair. Dr. Carey on ER uses a crutch, but it does not define her character. Heather Whitestone, who is deaf, was chosen Miss America in the 1990s. Down syndrome character Corky (played by Down syndrome actor Chris Burke) on Life Goes On struck new TV ground for the mentally handicapped. It is not uncommon to see an advertising model in a wheelchair. The teacher in the comic strip “For Better or For Worse” is a positive example of a character who just happened to have a disability requiring her to use a wheelchair. Such portrayals can have

Media Portrayals of Groups 86

substantial impact. When a popular Brazilian soap opera introduced a character who was ruggedly handsome and very sexy but also deaf, interest in learning sign language soared nationwide.

Psychological Disorders

The media image of psychological disorders (mental illness) is also an issue.

A content analysis of week-long program samples from 1969 to 1985 showed that 72% of the prime-time adult characters who were portrayed as mentally ill injured or killed others, and 75% were victims of violence (Signorielli, 1989), whereas in reality about 11 % of persons with psychological disorders are prone to violence, the same ratio as in the overall population (Teplin, 1985). A comparable bias exists in print media coverage of mentally ill persons (D.M.Day & Page, 1986; Matas, Guebaly, Harper, Green, & Peterkin, 1986; Shain & Phillips, 1991). One of the few truly violent disorders, antisocial personality (“psychopath”), is greatly overrepresented among the media mentally ill (W.Wilson, 1999).

Besides the violent mentally ill person, another stereotype is the person with disorders as object of humor or ridicule (Wahl, 1995). Although mental illness is seldom ridiculed directly, there is frequent use of metaphors that many find demeaning and insulting. For example, in advertising, an ad portrays a straitjacket as appropriate for someone crazy enough to buy the competitor’s product; a lawn mower is described as “schizophrenic”; a line of peanuts called Certifiably Nuts is sold by picturing cans of the product wearing straitjackets. Ads describe sunglasses as “psycho,” and vicious criminals are labeled “psychotic killers” as if the two words were one. It even creeps into political discourse. In the 1992 U.S. Presidential election campaign, third-party candidate Ross Perot happily told his followers, “We’re all crazy again now! We got buses lined up outside to take you back to the insane asylum” (Willwerth, 1993). A popular movie Me, Myself, and Irene poked fun at a character labeled as schizophrenic but having the symptoms of Multiple Personality (Dissociative Identity) Disorder. People who have dealt with the tragedies of schizophrenia, depression, or other illnesses find such language and images very hurtful.

A third stereotype is that people with disorders are “a breed apart,” that is, totally different from the rest of us (Wahl, 1995). People are presented as being obviously different, unmistakably symbolized by wild hair, disheveled clothing, bizarre behavior, and odd facial expressions. This encourages two inaccurate beliefs: (1) mental illness is immediately identifiable by one’s appearance, and (2) people with an unusual appearance are thus objects of suspicion and perhaps fear.

Such attitudes support a stigmatizing of mental illness that discourages people from disclosing their own disorders and perhaps even dissuades them

87 A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication

from seeking much-needed treatment. Media discussion of this stigma is perhaps most clearly seen in its role as political poison (Rich, 1997). Traditionally, any seeker of high political office in many countries admits their own use of counseling or psychiatric resources only at their peril. One of the most celebrated political casualties of such prejudice was probably U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton, the original Democrat Vice Presidential nominee in 1972. He was replaced on the ticket after “admitting” he had been hospitalized for depression some years before. Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis lost ground in 1988 after a rumor that he had sought therapy to deal with grief over his brother’s suicide some years before. How sad when the desirable seeking of help for problems is considered a moral or character failure! Would someone make a better President if he or she ignored a problem and did not seek help?

Occasionally there are reassuringly helpful images. One of the most influential in recent years was the 2001 Oscar-winning biopic A Beautiful Mind, the true story of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash’s descent into schizophrenia and largely successful treatment for it. In spite of some cinematic license (visual hallucinations instead of auditory ones, more successful treatment than is often the case), the illness and its treatment were presented realistically and sensitively Important issues were dealt with, such as the gradual detachment from reality, the necessity of maintaining medication therapy, and the devastating impact on one’s family Someone watching this film will learn a lot about schizophrenia (though nothing about multiple personality!), as well as being greatly entertained for two hours.