When I look
back through history, I see that today we actually have things quite a bit
better when it comes to treating those with mental illness. From around the
1840’s to the 1950’s, the main model for treatment of those who were deemed “mentally
ill” was to institutionalize them. The patients of those institutions were
often severely neglected due to these hospitals being desperately underfunded
and understaffed. It also caused a mentality in the wider American mind about
how mental illness was something that could be sent away and never thought of
again.
According
to The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), around 1 in 4 people
over the age of 18 suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.
In fact, I remember learning in my Abnormal Psychology class in college that
about 50 percent of Americans will suffer from a mental disorder at some point
in their life. However, only 6 percent are diagnosed as having severe mental
illness.
It’s
probably very likely that at least in some point in your life you will suffer
from a mental disorder. It is then unfair to think that we still have a stigma
against admitting that we are suffering from it. I have examples of this from
my own life. One of the best is the fact that I have a mild case of Tourette’s
Syndrome. Tourette’s Syndrome is defined as a combination of motor and vocal
tics. According to the website tsa-usa.org, this is what it takes to be
diagnosed as having Tourette’s:
- Have both multiple motor tics (for example, blinking or shrugging the shoulders) and vocal tics (for example, humming, clearing the throat, or yelling out a word or phrase), although they might not always happen at the same time.
- Have had tics for at least a year. The tics can occur many times a day (usually in bouts) nearly every day, or off and on.
- Have tics that begin before he or she is 18 years of age.
- Have symptoms that are not due to taking medicine or other drugs or due to having another medical condition (for example, seizures, Huntington disease, or postviral encephalitis).
Since I was diagnosed with Tourette’s,
I have discovered that there are very few people who are really aware of what
it is. Heck, even I didn’t know what it was until I had a younger brother who
was diagnosed with it (which then led to me being diagnosed). While my tics
aren’t very noticeable, unless you know me really well or watch me to the point
where it might be uncomfortable, I do feel it necessary to inform teachers and
prospective employers about my tics. Sometimes I can’t stop clearing my throat,
which is awkward if I’m sitting in class while the teacher is lecturing.
Most often when I inform the
teacher, they will ask me if Tourette’s is the one where you swear. I then
inform them about how there are only a small percentage of those who suffer
from Tourette’s who do that (the exact name for it is called coprolalia), and
that I don’t have that particular tic. I have also been in experiences where
people have told me that it’s all in my head, or that I shouldn’t go telling
prospective employers as they may be wary to hire someone who is “retarded”.
 |
| Quite creative of you. Do you also happen to create fake handicapped parking permits to use? |
With all of this in mind, I have
two different examples that I have noticed of mental illness in the more
popular media.
“Being A Malkavian”
I was first introduced to the video
game “Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines” while watching a series of YouTube
videos called “Marik Plays Bloodlines”. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the
game, which is probably a good number of you, Bloodlines takes place in the
modern world of California. You take control of a vampire who was recently ‘sired’,
and are then set up with a list of tasks that you need to do.
One of
the things that makes the game really interesting is how you can choose what
kind of vampire you will be. Just to name a few, you have the Toreador (Who are
really like a better version of the “Twilight” vampires), the Nosferatu (Vampires
who are extremely ugly, but excellent at sneaking around), and the Gangrel (who
really look like what you would get if Tarzan was a vampire).
 |
| For some reason, George of the Jungle doesn't fit as a vampire as well as Tarzan. |
However,
the one I’d like to talk about is the Malkavian. The Malkavian is defined by
being insane. The Malkavian is a vampire who is characterized as being forced
to speak in riddles by the strange visions they see and the voices in their
head. Interestingly enough, though, is the fact that the Malkavian are
extremely perceptive. They are able to see into the future at times, or see
into things that were long ago hidden from the eyes of others. All-in-all, it
makes for a very interesting character to play.
 |
| You at least can't fault him on his fashion sense. |
One of
the more hilarious aspects of being a Malkavian (and there are many) is the
fact that on occasion while you are walking around you will move past a stop
sign and suddenly hear it talking to you. You can even have a heated debate
with it. Also, sometimes if you watch the television you’ll notice that it’s
talking TO YOU, and not just AT you. You can even have a conversation with the
anchor on the news show.
But
there is something that is slightly unsettlingly about the powers of the
Malkavian. Mainly it is the fact that you have the ability to drive other
people insane. In fact, there are occasions where you are talking to someone,
and you can confuse them to the point where they think you are a pet turtle
they had in their childhood, or even themselves.
While
this was hilarious to play through, it didn’t occur to me until later that it
seemed like a really strange portrayal of insanity. I get it that the game is
all about supernatural beings with magical power. But why have an insane
vampire who can spread their insanity? You can even KILL enemies by inflicting
them with severe insanity.
In real
life, you can’t ‘catch’ a mental illness from someone. Sure, they tend to be
genetic, meaning that if you had a parent or ancestor with a mental illness you
are more likely to develop one, but you can’t get schizophrenia from the guy
you met on the street. Phobias don’t spread like some sort of mental virus. It
just doesn’t work like that.
“Iron man
3”
In case
you haven’t been participating in the extremely clandestine world of comic book
heroes in the last 5 years, then you might not have heard of Iron man. If you
haven’t heard of Iron man, then I’m not going to even assume that you’ve seen
Iron man 3.
If this
is you, then you should go out and watch Iron man 3 NOW. Just go. Now. I’ll be
waiting for you.
…
…
Okay, I’m
done waiting.
To be honest, I really loved
Iron man 3. However, after going online and looking at reviews people posted
about the movie on YouTube and basically everywhere else, I realized that my
love of Iron man 3 wasn’t that popular. Many people pointed out how the movie
basically made a big joke of one of Iron man’s biggest enemies (The Mandarin)
and about how Tony Stark destroyed everything that made him Iron man, which
would mainly be all of the suits that he had made. He even went and had the
iconic endless green energy arc reactor taken out of his chest and the shrapnel
in his heart removed. How would he be Iron man in the next Avengers’ movie??
 |
| The movie would basically be like this. |
However, one of the stranger
criticisms I heard that were leveled at the movie was about Tony Stark
suffering from PTSD (or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). In case you don’t
remember, Tony bravely sacrificed himself at the end of the first Avengers
movie and diverted a giant nuke missile through a magic/scientific portal just
above New York that led to an alien armada awaiting in outer space. As a result
of doing this, he very nearly died, draining his suit’s power and almost
falling to his death. However, thankfully the Hulk managed to jump up and grab
Iron man (in a move that should have broken nearly every bone in Tony’s body)
before he hit.
Iron man 3, which takes place
shortly after The Avengers, shows that Tony never really recovered from that
fight. In fact, he developed PTSD, suffered from insomnia, and would have
severe panic attacks when reminded about what happened. One scene shows Tony
having a full-blown attack while out in public. He rushes to get into one of
his suits and has it run a diagnostic on his body to see if he is having a
heart attack or something (which is actually a fairly common thought among
those who have a panic attack for the first time), only to discover that
nothing is really wrong with him.
I’m sure that other people have
come to the same realization that I have. In fact, I really wouldn’t be
surprised if this was the ultimate goal of the movie. But before you go and
accuse me of plagiarism, I want to tell you that plagiarism is for those who
are too last to do their own work. I, however, am too lazy to even get up the
effort to go out and FIND other people’s work.
When going back and thinking about
the Iron man movies, I realized something. Let me give a brief history of
Iron man:
1) Tony Stark is a big jerk who
seduces women and then leaves them. He also happens to be an insanely brilliant
inventor who designs weapons for the military. During one of his
demonstrations, enemy soldiers kidnap him and force him to build them weapons.
During the kidnapping, he is mortally wounded with shrapnel that is slowly
working its way into his heart.
2) While being forced to build
weapons, he designs a piece of technology that keeps the shrapnel from killing
him. As a byproduct, it also produces insane amounts of energy that he uses to move
really cool suits of technological armor.
3) Tony breaks out of prison,
teaching his captors a lesson about keeping Americans prisoner, and then flies
off into being an awesome superhero.
 |
| Incidentally, this also jumpstarted Robert Downey Jr.’s career. |
In the
first movie, Iron man has to defeat his corrupt uncle who wants to develop the
Ironman suit into being an ultimate weapon (an idea which wouldn’t really be
used until giant monsters invaded and humanity was forced to create the Jaeger
in Pacific Rim). With Tony proving that his way is better (mainly by killing
his uncle), he then goes on to become a huge jerk in the second movie. He gets
drunk, nearly kills people, and eats donuts while in his suit.
In The Avengers, Tony has improved
slightly. He doesn’t really go out and get drunk and nearly kill people with
his Ironman suit, but he DOES enjoy trying to provoke Bruce Banner into becoming
the Hulk. At the end of The Avengers,
Tony proves that he is a real hero by trying to sacrifice himself to save everyone
(or at least everyone who isn’t an alien trying to invade Earth).
But there
is actually an undercurrent that I hadn’t noticed until a couple of days ago
when I was thinking about it. It could be that I’m just really dense, which is
likely, but I thought it was pretty cool. When Tony gets back to the United
States in the first movie, why doesn’t he seek medical help to remove the
shrapnel? I think someone in the movie mentions the fact that the shrapnel is
too close to the heart to remove safely, but don’t we have the ability to do
full-on heart transplants? In the Marvel Universe, you have some freaky amazing
technology. Wouldn’t it be really easy, in a modern hospital, to just remove
the shrapnel?
I think
that the reason Tony doesn’t have it removed is because he is scared. He is
terrified of having something go wrong when he doesn’t have control. In fact,
he really makes things worse for himself by relying on the arc reactor in his chest
to not only keep the shrapnel at bay, but to also power his very hungry suits
of awesomeness. And he constantly pushes his suits and arc reactor to the
limits, which doesn’t make much sense seeing as how that is really the only
thing keeping him alive.
In the
second movie, Tony spends quite a bit of time in his suit. He really doesn’t
leave it all that much. In The Avengers,
he kind of goes the next step and builds a suit that can be summoned to him
from anywhere. It basically builds itself around him in a couple of seconds.
And in the third movie, he goes to the extreme by installing implants into
himself that make it much easier for him to summon his suits from pretty much
anywhere in the world so that he’ll never be without one.
In
fact, the third Iron man movie shows us that Tony has really gone overboard on
building his suits. He has designed dozens of them. It’s not even that he has
designed a different suit for specific occasions. It’s more like he has made
sure that he has a backup for the backup for the backup for his backup.
In my
mind, Tony Stark doesn’t create the Iron man suits to fight evil. Rather, he
created Iron man to protect himself, and then he realized that he should
probably try and help others. Iron man isn’t the result of Tony Stark being
awesome. Rather, Iron man is the result of Tony being afraid.
That’s
why I think Iron man 3 is fairly great. Sure, Tony spends a good portion of his
action time outside of the Iron man suits, but he still shows that he can be
awesome.
At the
end of the movie, he destroys all of his suits and has the shrapnel removed
from his heart. In my mind, Tony made the move from using his Iron man suits as
a shield to protect himself to honestly realizing that he needs to be Iron man
to protect others. He literally removes the doubt from his heart, and shows his
love interest that he has decided to move on from his paranoia by destroying
all of the suits he had built as a kind of safety blanket for himself.
So
while there may be a lot of people out there who strongly disagree with me, I
don’t really care. I think that Tony Stark will be a stronger Iron man in the
future Marvel movies. At least as long as he doesn’t get bitten by a Malkavian
vampire. Which could happen. You never know.
 |
| I mean, they DID do a zombie Ironman. You never know. |
Link to NIMH: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-numbers-count-mental-disorders-in-america/index.shtml
Link to tsa-usa.org: http://www.tsa-usa.org/aMedical/whatists.html
Interesting article on mental illness in video games: http://kotaku.com/nobody-wins-when-horror-games-stigmatize-mental-illness-912462538
Link to a YouTube video I did on my own tics:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDDUbrCLNdo
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