A new study has found that people with mental health conditions rarely are depicted in Hollywood’s most popular films and that their depiction “remains one of predominantly white, male, strai…
, found that of the 4,502 speaking or named characters across the 200 top-grossing films of 2019, only 1.5% were depicted with mental health conditions, which was down from 1.7% in 2016. By contrast, 21% of U.S. adults experience mental illness, according to national population research studies such as the U.S. National Comorbidity Survey.
More than half of the films included in the latest report didn’t feature a single character with a mental health condition, and 30% had only one such character. The report, titled “Mental Health Conditions Across 200 Popular Films,” noted that of those characters depicted with mental health conditions, 59.2% were male and three-quarters were white. Only 16 were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, just two were LGBTQ, and 42.3% had a disability.
The report also found that film characters with mental illness often are subjected to derision. Nearly three-quarters of them experienced some form of disparagement, with 45.1% facing derision specifically about their mental health, and more than 40% were the object of jokes or humor related to their mental health, an increase from 22% in 2016.
Characters with mental health conditions also frequently were linked with violence: 63.4% were perpetrators of violence, which was up from 46% in 2016, and 66.2% were victims of violence. More than one-third died at some point in the film, including by homicide or suicide, and 59.3% who perished did so by violent means, including 22.2% who died did so by suicide.
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