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"Crazy chic:" pop culture making illness a fashion statement

  
  

Page: 12(3)

 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
23:09 / 11.10.06
TG: What I'm saying is: are you really, truly struggling to live up to some dumb bastard's view of what a "madwoman" ought to be? This, too, in an honest question.

And merits an entirely honest answer, though it's not something I really like to admit: Yes. Yes I am. Every. Fucking. Day.

It's got better as I've got older, but it really is there at the back of my head. If you're going to be mad (read: if you are going to indulge yourself in the voluntary luxury of madness) then you owe it to the rest of the world to be mad properly, i.e. with the epic novels/symphonies/oil paintings. Also, you must have good cheekbones. See also under being epileptic (OMFG you are teh natural shaman also Van Gogh!1!! No pressure).

And this isn't something I've picked up off a couple of bad Michael Keaton films. Yes, you're right, it's ridiculous. Yes, you're right, people shouldn't be coming out with this stuff; more to the point, I should not be taking it on board. But... there's just so much of it.

I know it must sound absurd to any reasonable person, but this is something I have had handed to me by any number of people I've encountered in my life, including people I counted as close friends--and indeed, one of my intimate partners. It kind of never goes away completely, you know? The message is always being reinforced.
 
 
Chiropteran
23:25 / 11.10.06
My ASPIE friend...? *shudders*

Not really (I'm speaking now more from personal observation than experience), but more people known to be generally "nuts," especially arty/poet types. It wasn't so clinically precise as "this is my bipolar, and this is my schizo," but a strong, almost fetishistic attraction to those "disturbed elements" that would help lend a streak of authenticity to one's own work, in addition to the cache of being "sensitive" and "understanding." Among the older adolescents, it was sometimes a two-way street of a possibly-maybe-or-not "mentally ill" person mystifying their "episodes" or whatever, and their self-appointed "bodyguards" or "guardians" making a show of "taking care" of them. This type of thing went on with people who may-or-may-not-have experienced physical or sexual abuse, as well. As someone mentioned above, a lot of it was about perceived "realness" or "grittiness." Connected with this were also people who claimed supposed borderline personality disorder or manic episodes to excuse their obnoxious behavior.

I should probably make it clear that I'm talking about incidents spread across several "scenes" over a number of year - it wasn't one big Everybody's Mad All The Time party. It was common enough to become tiresomely predictable, though.
 
 
Quantum
23:47 / 11.10.06
Abridged article on genius and madness. It seems well researched but the tone is a little insensitive. This bit made me worry;

Just as the blind have a heightened sense of hearing and touch, and the deaf have increased sharpness of vision, certain types of mental disability may cause compensatory adaptation. The best candidate for this is dyslexia. If a dyslexic has difficulty with language, then he compensates by increasing his powers of visual perception and creativity.

Daredevil Syndrome you might say. The idea that you have extra creative crystal genius if you suffer from mental illness seems about as sensible as if you're blind you must have super-hearing to compensate, but some of the article does seem reasonable.
 
 
Saturn's nod
09:05 / 12.10.06
Quantum: Interesting that the list of "geniuses" is all men in the above article, without that being explicit. I have heard that models of creative development where major breakthroughs occur in teens/early twenties (there's a table in the articles listing a number of men and the age at which they made their great breakthroughs) - a common assumption in math/science circles as I have encountered them - is actually only based on men's intellectual and creative development. I have heard it suggested that women's intellectual and creative peak may be in their 70s, though I can't bring to mind the researchers who suggested that just at the moment.

I came across a researcher in History and Philosophy of Science a few years ago who was working on gender and genius - she had found some early 20th century writings by men saying that it absolutely not possible for a woman to be a genius - apparently they wrote that a woman with genius talent would necessarily have a beard and thus not be a proper woman, because genius was seen as peculiarly a property of male hormones and bodies and thus of male minds.
 
 
redtara
09:25 / 12.10.06
If a dyslexic has difficulty with language, then he compensates by increasing his powers of visual perception and creativity.

Rubbish (I'm only being this aggressive 'cos you've already dimissed this quote). As I understand it Dyslexia is an index based on the discrepancy between the ability to communicate orally and the ability to communicate through the written word. Difficulty reading only points to potential dyslexia if it is linked with a broad vocabulary and the ability to express complex abstract ideas articulately.

I think this is a good example of 'other brained' being a better deffenition than the 'special needs' label alone. I don't think that dyslexics develop compensating mechanisms that involve a different view of the world. I think that a different spacial awareness is hardwired from the get go. Dyslexics are supposed to flourish in design for this reason.??

In a book called 'The gift of Dyslexia' Davis, Ronald D.; Braun, Eldon M., the authors talk about dyslexics metaphysical ability to shift their relationship with time. Rather like we all do when we get a hit of adrenalin in a crisis. In the book the examples are in dance and sport where a player or dancer's ability to hang in the air a heartbeat longer is related to this 'gift'.

As with all of the examples of conditions that have been mentioned in this thread, the single phrase labels cover a spectrum of experience. My brush with dyslexia was superficial and distressing in the context of my private exam-factory school where I could pull down the yearly O level average and there was no obvious reason for my willfull refusal to spell well when my other skills were so obvious, my spelling is still a little year seven.

We seem to be constantly crossing the line, in my head anyway, between disability and mental illhealth. I don't think Grants scarey DSM list (bottom of the first page of this thread) has helped to clarify the situation. I think it all just comes down to the diversity of experience that indeviduals have of these labels, the coping mechanisms that different people can bring to them in order to function in a society that gets a bit cagey around those unable to hide their otherness, but more than anything else irrespective of 'function' (what ever that means) a person's other brained status should be celebrated and cherished. If that means giving them 'cool' status, then so much the better so long as it doesn't allow the labeler to disregard the realities and challenges of the condition and the person who labours with it.
 
 
Quantum
09:39 / 12.10.06
the list of "geniuses" is all men in the above article,

Also the dyslexic example is referred to as 'he', there is no account taken of gender differences, and although many of the researchers cited are female the only women subjects mentioned in the text are the 59 female writers (from the women writers conference) and Sylvia Plath. Written from an unconsciously patriarchal perspective for sure.
 
 
grant
17:06 / 12.10.06
I do think there's something neurological about dyslexic information processing... inasmuch as neurology influences creativity.

But I remember seeing something with a diagram of how visual information follows a slightly different pathway through a dyslexic brain, which seems like it'd translate into different ways information is perceived or acted upon.

I can't find that exact diagram now. I did find this pdf of a dyslexic/creativity study which focuses on teaching dyslexic students to draw, but mentions some of the prior research into the area in the introduction.

And this Neurology article (a sort of hybrid HTML/pdf framed document) has some nice pictures of brain images, and says this:

Studies show that people with dyslexia
process language information in a different
area of the brain than people
without dyslexia. We believe that this
is what leads to the language problems
dyslexic people have. Despite this,
most people with dyslexia have normal
to above average intelligence. Even
though they have a language problem,
dyslexic people usually excel in one or
more other areas, such as music, mathematics,
or sports.

Which doesn't *sound* particularly scholarly, but it's in Neurology.
 
 
grant
17:09 / 12.10.06
Um, to translate why I think that's worth mentioning:

creativity=use of different strategies to solve problems.
dyslexia=use of different brain areas to process information.

astrojax is really the user to ask about this stuff; he works in a research facility dedicated to it.
 
 
Unconditional Love
04:50 / 15.10.06
So why does society need to create labels of seperation for people who are not 'normal', does it actually help to push labels in either direction, as positive or negative?

Do 'mentally ill' people actually need help?, i guess if they ask for it, but should they be forced to accept a largely negative social framing and then committed to seeking help for themselves to become more normalised, more sociallly coherent to the wider view, for the good of society.

Or are social ideas of whats 'normal' becoming wide enough to become inclusive of all differing groups of people that were considered other than 'normal' , ie are traits and labels that are used to single people out or create for some a sense of individuality being absorbed into a more compassionate open society, or is that just tokenism.

Or is it because less money is going into the current uk NHS mental health system, beds are being reduced as are ward sizes, so it would be good right about now to give mentally ill people the percieved confidence they need to better integrate into a society, that wants to cut costs, and perhaps with a future insight into privatising the health service altogether.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
10:34 / 15.10.06
So why does society need to create labels of seperation for people who are not 'normal', does it actually help to push labels in either direction, as positive or negative?

So people who are not 'normal' and suffer in some way because of it (whether it's persistent thoughts of suicide or a difficulty reading) can get the help that some of them need. A depressive has different needs to a manic-depressive, a schizophrenic has different needs to a dyslexic etc.
But 'normality' isn't the issue here. Doctors don't help people with mental illness because they want to create a society of homogenised conformodrones, but for the same reason that they help anyone, to preserve life and prevent suffering. If society was 'inclusive' of my depression during my teens I wouldn't be here writing this now, I would have suffered a slow and painful death. The pain would have been emotional, the death self-inflicted, but otherwise little different from dying of disease; suffering then dying.
Slackula- I always try to adress a poster's argument instead of the poster themselves, but seriously, those are some very naive opinions that betray a lack of understanding of the full range and depth of mental illness. We've already had this discussion with Jesse in the first two pages of this thread, so please read through the posts there and you should find a lot of answers to the questions you're raising.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:26 / 17.10.06
There's also a point to be made about class here, class as a huge factor in the way mental illness is percieved/presented. A well-to-do educated person with a psychiatric problem (e.g. Elizabeth Wurtzel*) is presented as acceptable, cool, even sexy, where as a young single mum with postpartum depression living on a council estate is just a miserable pramface.

To be the cool, glamourous kind of mentally unwell, you actually need quite a lot in the way of resources. You need support--a family or friends who can afford for you to live with them, or who don't mind supplementing your benefits and/or low income with cash or goodies. You also need to be a person with fairly high expectations. You need to be prepared to harangue doctors, the staff in the benefits office, the administration of your place of work or study, or to have someone who's prepared to do these things for you. You need to believe on a gut level that even though you may not be contributing much right now, you're still Entitled--to an education, to a decent standard of living, to entertainment, to a fulfilling career. That sense of entitlement comes with class privilege.

I wanna come back to this thread when I've had a bit more of a think.



*who got to have her bloody breakdown at bloody Harvard.
 
 
Quantum
17:37 / 18.10.06
As they say, the poor are mad while the rich are merely eccentric.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:04 / 19.10.06
I think it's worse than that, actually. Framing mental illness as something that happens to glamourous, creative (and definately not working-class) people is one of the ways in which the wealthy sane disappear mental health problems. The fact that mental illness disproportionately affects those on low incomes is conveniently ignored in favour of a comforting narrative in which it's the middle-class art-fart who goes keraayyzee, not the factory worker.

This counterfactual model has staying power because it is really fucking convenient. It permits the wealthy sane to go on treating mental illness as a luxury; we could all just snap out of it if we weren't so selfish and spoiled! It also permits them to go on regarding the poor as bad, not mad, handing out ASBOs rather than asking about the role of mental health issues such as mood disorders in criminal behaviour, let alone the role of poverty in damaging mental health in the first place.
 
 
Quantum
11:27 / 19.10.06
treating mental illness as a luxury

A friend of mine is getting hassled to go back into the office (she currently works from home) because her colleagues feel it's unfair that they have to go in and she doesn't, that if she's well enough to go to the shops she's well enough to commute into central london every day. It just emphasises that attitude, that mental illness is somehow self-indulgent and fake while physical illness is genuine.
You don't get people saying 'Oh, well I think it's totally selfish of X to work from home with a broken leg, I mean, I could break my leg any day too I don't see why they get to skive when I have to come in...' blah blah blah. When it's stress or depression or M.E. or anxiety or OCD or in fact anything that doesn't involve a visible symptom, that seems to be the normal reaction- it's all in your head, it doesn't count, snap out of it, stop being so wet etc. and as you say much less likely to get a sympathetic reception if you're working class.
 
 
StarWhisper
12:02 / 19.10.06


Another thing I think is wrong is the language people often and openly use to refer to people who are mentally ill.

This language is used to apply to an action or mode of behaviour that is deemed unacceptable in people who do have mental health issues, for example losing ones temper = nut-job, throwing a punch= schizo, which highlights (I think) the misuse of words that refer to mental illness as well as referring to people who happen to be mentally ill. It shows ignorance about the nature of psychologial problems.

It is not acceptable to use racial slurs or derogatory terms toward someone with a physical disability, although it still seems perfectly fine to call a person with mental health difficulties wacko or a nut-job or schizo, or to say they've 'lost it', and so on. I am not even sure that the term crazy is really p.c. enough for everyday use.

Mental illness remains one of the last taboos in modern culture. The use of such language has the effect that people with such problems are seen as problems first and people second orat the very least it re-inforces this veiw.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
12:50 / 19.10.06
The fact that mental illness disproportionately affects those on low incomes is conveniently ignored in favour of a comforting narrative in which it's the middle-class art-fart who goes keraayyzee, not the factory worker.

Whether considered as a mental illness or not, it's much the same with addiction. Pete Doherty, for example, is a nice middle-class boy who's got in a spot of bother, and needs our help. Whereas your average poor smackhead is likely to get sent down because he's a menace to society.
 
 
grant
17:52 / 19.10.06
Framing mental illness as something that happens to glamourous, creative (and definately not working-class) people

Hmm. I'm not sure about this. I tend to think of crazy chic as something akin to the romanticization of the working class. I know the two overlap in Charles Bukowski's self-mythologizing. And the Cuckoo's Nest characters are mostly working class, I think. Actually, I think a lot of this stuff seems related to the Beats to me (as much as Ken Kesey and Bukowski are Beats, that is). Oooo! That's so gritty and real!

Another thing I think is wrong is the language people often and openly use to refer to people who are mentally ill.

"Spastic" and "idiot" are both words that I believe once had specific medical meanings -- they kind of leaked out into popular culture from the clinic.

Along the same lines, some clinicians are fighting back:

With the Halloween season under way, mental health advocates have a simple request:

Scare people with ghouls and goblins. Fill your haunted house with trap doors and tombstones. But leave out the "psychiatric wards," the "insane asylums" and the bloodthirsty killers in straitjackets.

Such themes, which have become as much a part of Halloween as pumpkins, reinforce negative stereotypes and a stigma that discourages people from seeking treatment, say activists who wage a yearly fight to remove the images from holiday events.

"It's our annual Halloween horror cycle," said Bob Carolla, spokesman for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI. "The cases vary by size and level of offensiveness, but for some reason, this year has been worse than most."

So far, word of about 10 particularly egregious attractions has reached the Arlington, Va.-based organization.

Details at the link; the way these things are couched would definitely be a part of "crazy chic."
 
 
StarWhisper
20:41 / 19.10.06
err, I just want everyone to know that I am aware my use of language may be offensive to some and have put in a mod request to have it toned down.

Sincerest appologies for any offence that may have been caused.
 
  

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