Film Summary
“Girl, Interrupted”, directed by James Mangold, is a film based on Susanna Kaysen’s record of her 18-month stay at the renowned Claymoore mental hospital in the late 1960’s after attempting suicide. The film was adapted from Kaysen’s book, Girl, Interrupted. Throughout the film, there are many ways in which the whole idea of mental illness seems glamorized. During my film analysis, I found a few issues in regards to representation. First, the cast is stacked with attractive and renowned stars. Susanna Kaysen is played by the moody yet beautiful Winona Ryder, while her best friend Lisa is played by the award winning Angelina Jolie. The cast also includes stars such as Brittany Murphy, Jared Leto and Whoopi Goldberg. My point here is that mental illness doesn’t always look beautiful or handsome, and portraying it as so gives off the perception that it does. Secondly, the terminology the cast uses surrounding mental illness is poetic and almost romantic. There is one particular scene where Kaysen is lying depressed in bed and says, “But I know what it’s like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can’t. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside” (IMDb). I have seen this quote hundreds of times on Tumblr, where it is reblogged by thousands of people. Maybe this quote, typically paired with depressing and moody GIFs, is reblogged so many times because people can relate to what Kaysen is saying, or it is so popular because depression is considered trendy today for the people that can’t relate. Young, easily influenced girls are seeing the beautiful Winona Ryder portrayed as this depressed poet, and soon they want to be her. Tanya Parker, a clinical social worker wrote an article about how she has come to see, from working with adolescent girls, that this is an understandable notion. She said, “It’s easy to see why some young women may relate to the media pre-packaged version of mental illness. It provides a possibility of escape, for camaraderie with peers who may understand how you feel, and it provides an answer. Identifying with movies like Girl Interrupted can make you feel like you’ve just figured out why life is so hard” (Parker, 2016). It may seem like a good thing that people can find comfort in identifying with mentally ill characters, but at the same time this is extremely harmful for those who don’t already struggle with mental illnesses because the desire to be just like the characters in the movies and television shows also creates the desire to be mentally ill just because a movie character’s life came off mysterious and interesting. In addition, the patients in the film are always sneaking off from the hospital on unrealistic, spur-of-the-moment adventures. For example, all of the patients sneak into the basement of the hospital where they go bowling and later sneak into their psychiatrist’s office and read each of their files. In reality, there is no way this would ever happen. So, the implications are that patients in psychiatric facilities are able to roam freely whenever they please. This scene also implies that mentally ill people are rebellious free spirits, which Hyler earlier was one common stereotype found in movies that represent mental illnesses. Another very eventful part of this film follows Susanna and Lisa as they escape from the ward and visit one of the released patients who is played by Brittany Snow. Susanna Kaysen, the author of the book actually accused Mangold of adding “melodramatic drivel” to the real story because of this excursion that never really happened (IMDb). As if everything that Kaysen actually went through during her 18-month stay and battle with mental illness wasn’t enough, a sense of wild excitement had to be added to the film, further supporting the stereotype that mental patients are “rebellious free spirits”. This stereotype is one of six that Steven Hyler and his colleagues described as common in perpetuating stigma surrounding mental patients (Wedding, et al. 8). The final plot point that seemed to glamorize mental illness was when one of the male nurses in Kaysen’s ward falls in love with her, adding romance to a place where there is realistically none. This part of the plot is a key example of another common misconception that is perpetuated by film: “The treatment of mental illness involves boundary violations by a mental health professional” (Wedding, et al. Appendix D).
GIF Analysis
Stripped of all context, this GIF (Figure 3.1) is an animated image of a distraught and angry woman, soaking wet, wearing a hospital gown and holding herself up in a bathtub. The text, paired with the woman’s visual appearance, communicates a set of angry, chaotic and distraught emotional states. This GIF, and other similar ones, are deployed in order to be relatable to the community it circulates within. When you reblog this GIF, you are saying, “this is how I feel right now.” It’s almost as if the reblogger is using the GIF like a puppeteer would a puppet; as a form of ventriloquism. This is an amazing phenomenon because the GIFs purpose then transforms from the creators original intent into a virtual expression of the words that Tumblr users feel they can not express themselves. In Chapter 1, we talked about Tumblr’s uniqueness as a social networking site because it allows for anonymity, inclusivity and community.
This GIF (Figure 3.2) is a looping black and white sequence of a woman appearing to be disappointed. With the help of the text subtitles, the woman seems to be disappointed in herself. Behind her, we see the shape of some sort of moody lighting or candles. The woman’s expression also says a lot, in addition to the fact that it’s a tight camera shot so we really see her facial expressions... She never looks at the camera and we never see her eyes; in other words, one might argue she is quite literally looking down on herself, and for whatever reason, lacks confidence in herself. But why would this be a popular GIF? Why would this be deployed? Why was it one of the top GIFs under the search, “depression movies”? Again, because it’s relatable to the mentally ill community and helps some social media users assemble a virtual “mood board” of how they are feeling or who they identify as. However, more so than the last GIF we looked at, this sequence is a prime example of a GIF that supports self-sabotaging behavior or thought processes. The woman is literally saying she is disgusting, and appears as though she genuinely believes that. Based on that conclusion, I would argue that the people who are drawn towards this type of GIF; the users who make this GIF popular by interacting (reblogging, liking, commenting, etc.) with it feel the same way about themselves that this woman feels about herself. I am not to say that this GIF is directly harmful to the users who interact with it, however I don’t believe this type of inner dialogue is helpful whatsoever in securing an ideal level of mental health.
This GIF (Figure 3.3) alone highlights the sheer emotion that the character (Susanna) is dealing with. We see that her eyes look wet, probably because she was crying, and that she is lying curled up in bed. The duration of the GIF is fairly fast, and we can see that she is saying the words included in the caption, which reads, “I know what it’s like to want to die” and then the GIF restarts and loops again. The GIF is also fairly small, meaning the creator has intentionally cropped the aspect ratio of the film itself, and the shot is tight on Susanna’s face. The creator of this GIF may have cropped the aspect ratio to make the playback speed faster for viewers. This decision is consistent with the instant gratification mentality of our times, and more specifically, of the adolescent population. The GIF format allows for immediacy-- it plays endlessly and simultaneously-- which is another reason why this GIF, being short in duration and fast in playback speed, is circulated so often. This GIF, although similar to the first two from Girl, Interrupted, seems to focus more on the sheer emotion that Susanna is going through and tying that into feelings of hopelessness or the desire to die.
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