“Wire Hangers”: Hollywood’s Version of Mental Illness
The air of the bedroom has gone as still as the breath of the child cowering in her bed. A figure, her mother, stares hauntingly into her closet as a maddening inhuman shriek claws its way out of her throat. She turns toward her daughter, wearing a grimace of seemingly inhuman nature, and screeches “No. Wire. Hangers!!” Spittle forming at the corner of her snarl, cold eyes wide and unblinking, and veins protruding from every vessel in her neck, her rampage begins. Grasping fistfuls of dresses in her hand as she rips them from the closet rack, her wild anger seems to come unhinged. Her estranged chant “What’s wire hangers doing in this closet?!?!” becomes the fuel to her madness as every …show more content…
Characters with mental disorders are often shown as having absurd characteristics that are amusing with the purpose of being eye catching as well as memorable. Recurring use of the image of the mentally ill in advertisement occurs when restaurants or products refer to their services as “crazy good” or use offensive slang to convey a slogan. In 1989, the “Certifiably Nuts” peanut product was introduced; a gift bag of peanuts packaged in a straitjacket, including a small ring that would emit hysterical laughter when pulled. Regardless of the insensitivity this brand displayed, the product won a prestigious CLIO award from the advertising industry for “innovative retail packaging”. By making the bag resemble a person in a mental asylum, using maniacal laughter and the inappropriate slur “nuts” as a clever slogan, the company facilitated the idea that all mentally disturbed people are just a commodity to not be taken seriously. By promoting this idea in the minds of their consumers, the company simultaneously tarnished the image of those with mental disorders, and oversimplified the plight of those suffering from mental …show more content…
An early advertisement for Pipe Dream, a computer game, incorporated the image of a man in a straitjacket with “hair going in all directions, wide eyes and open mouth”. In another instance, to convey that the character was crazy, Crazy Eddie’s logo feature a misshapen cartoon with a large pointed nose, crossed eyes, and wiry, disheveled hair. Even the adored cartoon series ‘Animaniacs’ coincides with this behavior, as the character named Wakko consistently has his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, his hat askew, and even his name insinuating that he is mentally unstable. These cartoons and advertisements use over-exaggerated facial features in order to make their characters laughable, ridiculous, and even outrageous to catch the attention of their audiences. However, these same outlandish features that are portrayed by the media actually hinder the understanding of the mentally ill. Instead of being seen as a person with a problem, people with mental illness are seen as comical and as outlandish as the cartoons and advertisements
The air of the bedroom has gone as still as the breath of the child cowering in her bed. A figure, her mother, stares hauntingly into her closet as a maddening inhuman shriek claws its way out of her throat. She turns toward her daughter, wearing a grimace of seemingly inhuman nature, and screeches “No. Wire. Hangers!!” Spittle forming at the corner of her snarl, cold eyes wide and unblinking, and veins protruding from every vessel in her neck, her rampage begins. Grasping fistfuls of dresses in her hand as she rips them from the closet rack, her wild anger seems to come unhinged. Her estranged chant “What’s wire hangers doing in this closet?!?!” becomes the fuel to her madness as every …show more content…
Characters with mental disorders are often shown as having absurd characteristics that are amusing with the purpose of being eye catching as well as memorable. Recurring use of the image of the mentally ill in advertisement occurs when restaurants or products refer to their services as “crazy good” or use offensive slang to convey a slogan. In 1989, the “Certifiably Nuts” peanut product was introduced; a gift bag of peanuts packaged in a straitjacket, including a small ring that would emit hysterical laughter when pulled. Regardless of the insensitivity this brand displayed, the product won a prestigious CLIO award from the advertising industry for “innovative retail packaging”. By making the bag resemble a person in a mental asylum, using maniacal laughter and the inappropriate slur “nuts” as a clever slogan, the company facilitated the idea that all mentally disturbed people are just a commodity to not be taken seriously. By promoting this idea in the minds of their consumers, the company simultaneously tarnished the image of those with mental disorders, and oversimplified the plight of those suffering from mental …show more content…
An early advertisement for Pipe Dream, a computer game, incorporated the image of a man in a straitjacket with “hair going in all directions, wide eyes and open mouth”. In another instance, to convey that the character was crazy, Crazy Eddie’s logo feature a misshapen cartoon with a large pointed nose, crossed eyes, and wiry, disheveled hair. Even the adored cartoon series ‘Animaniacs’ coincides with this behavior, as the character named Wakko consistently has his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, his hat askew, and even his name insinuating that he is mentally unstable. These cartoons and advertisements use over-exaggerated facial features in order to make their characters laughable, ridiculous, and even outrageous to catch the attention of their audiences. However, these same outlandish features that are portrayed by the media actually hinder the understanding of the mentally ill. Instead of being seen as a person with a problem, people with mental illness are seen as comical and as outlandish as the cartoons and advertisements