MHA's Blog: Chiming In

Perception, the TNT television show, has an interesting hook. The main character, Dr. Daniel Pierce, is a neuroscientist who assists the FBI with cases. He also has paranoid schizophrenia. Instead of making him an empty shell of nervous tics, the show makes Dr. Pierce a fully formed person.

Entering its second season, Perception focuses on Dr. Pierce, played wonderfully by Eric McCormack, and Agent Kate Moretti, played by Rachel Leigh Cook. She’s a former student of his who brings him in to help with cases. Together, they solve crime and try to understand the brain. Dr. Oliver Sacks, the world renowned author and neuroscientist, is an advisor on the show, which helps with the accuracy of science and with the portrayal of brain disorders of all kinds.

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I’ve often written about how positive images of mental health appear in odd places in pop culture, and this week’s topic, the USA show Necessary Roughness, is one of those places. USA is known as a lightweight network, where all of the shows have a certain soap opera aspect to them, and Necessary Roughness is no different.  It also has something interesting to say underneath it though.

Just starting its third season, the show is about psychologist Dr. Danielle “Dani” Santino, who is hired by the New York Hawks football team to help their star receiver, Terrence King. Through her work with T.K. and the Hawks, she is suddenly in demand with other sports figures, celebrities and politicians. The show is split between her long term work with T.K. and the case of the week stories. In addition, the show follows Dani’s personal life, which includes dating after a messy divorce and raising two teenagers. She’s involved with one of the Hawk’s trainers, Matt Donnally, and drawn to the team’s mysterious fixer, Nico Careles.

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I’d been on a roll with this blog, watching movies that present good depictions of mental health conditions, or at least, weren’t as awful as I thought they were going to be. That streak is over now, having watched Girl, Interrupted. This movie is not just bad; it’s just about as bad as it can get.

Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 movie based on a book by Susanna Kaysen. Susanna is the main character, a young woman put in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt. She spends a year there, learning about herself and getting into adventures with the other consumers, including Angelina Jolie’s Lisa and Brittany Murphy’s Daisy. After becoming close with Lisa, the two break out of the hospital and this leads to disaster and Lisa’s disappearance. Susanna begins to get better and finally is scheduled for release, but Lisa’s reappearance threatens to derail her progress. This leads to a bitter confrontation before Susanna leaves.

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In my review for A Beautiful Mind, I complained that the movie switched points of view once John Nash’s schizophrenia was diagnosed, and that was the interesting point of view. I believe that I said that there are no movies that keep the main character’s point of view when his or her illness is identified. I was wrong.  Spider does and does it very effectively.

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Sometimes, smaller movies are the best avenues to discuss mental health on film. There are numerous ways to interpret an illness, and by taking a smaller, more daring approach to the material, filmmakers can say more about what it means to deal with a mental illness than if they tried to appease the masses. Keane takes that approach, and it makes for an interesting movie, if not a clear story. By putting the scenes of the movie out of order, he makes a statement about what perception means and how movies can express it.

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