it manifests itself in the form of name calling, dehumanizing phrases, and stigmatizing behaviour. Mentally ill characters are frequently portrayed as disenfranchised with no family connections, no occupation and no social identity . They almost never indicate signs of recovery nor hope for future improvement, and they rarely make any sort of productive contribution to their communities. Derogatory terms and verbal references are also often mentioned in movies used to describe those characters, where they denigrate,those characters, where they denigrate, segregate, alienate and denote another character’s inferior status. Phrases like ‘crazy’, ‘psychotic’ and ‘monster’ reflect the fear and overwhelmingly negative perception of viewers when thinking about mental health problems and the people
affected by them. This is made even worse as the character with a mental health condition was not required to be present for the phrase to be mentioned. Additionally, there is an erroneous belief that individuals with mental health conditions are largely “dangerous” to society, a inaccurate image that is consistently being reinforced by films. Specifically, they portray mentally ill characters as criminous individuals who perpetuate violence and are unable to live normal, fulfilled lives. Recent reports state that one in four mentally-ill characters kill someone, and half of them inflict harm on another person . While the majority of these characters are used as plot devices or as background roles, those who are given speaking roles become ten times more likely to violently lash out.
7