Welcome to Flipswitch’s mood disorders in the media. On Mood Disorders in the Media, we take a closer look at one instance of how the media is currently handling mood disorders. News, movies, tv, radio, the internets......if it’s somehow connected to the media, it’s fair game.
Did you know that people are getting depressed while watching blue people that live in communal setting in nature? According to the media news reports, there’s something about the peace of the land and these blue folks that has people all sad and blue because life out here in the real world just isn’t as carefree.
No, we’re not talking about the smurfs. We’re talking about Avatar.
In Avatar, a blue humanoid species known as the Navi live on the planet Pandora, existing in a manner that is very similar to Native Americans of centuries past. They commune with nature in a tranquil and peaceful way, going so far as to do some kind of vulcan mind meld with the roots of trees......or something......I was still getting used to the 3D glasses to tell you the truth.
But my point this week isn’t to talk about the giant James Cameron 3D smurfs. No.
What’s got me in a tizzy is the fact that out of all the important things the media could bring up about depression and put on the front page of newspapers, what the media settled on was something that was relatively titillating and meaningless.
They could’ve focused on the very real problem of suicide and how depression eats away at so many people until they just don’t want to face life anymore.
They could’ve focused on families that watch as their loved one’s suffer needlessly from the ravages of a severe depression.
They could’ve focused on the fact that the rates of getting better for people that receive treatment are astoundingly good.
They could’ve really focused on a million things. But no. Instead, we get the short shrift of listening to babble about people that are sad because they don’t live on another planet in a movie.
Mind you, the follow up and ramifications of just what this “depression” really means to these people is never really addressed in any of these stories. Only that something so banal as being upset by a movie is occurring is “neato.”
Not that people that are depressed because of the movie aren’t truly suffering. They have every right to combat their own pain. But that is NOT why the media is covering this story. I’m sure there have been people that were depressed after that dog died at the end of Marley and Me, as there probably are with virtually every movie. Instead, this is part of a giant media strategy to sell a movie; namely, Avatar. And much worse, it’s done at the expense of the very serious issue of depression and suicide.
Look, if the Avatar-depression story had been part of a long line of stories, many of which addressed the more important issue of mood disorders, I would’ve been much less annoyed by the media this go round; but that’s not been the way it has gone at all.
Instead, the media has stuck to the script of shock and awe, letting things that are shocking, regardless of merit, rule the airwaves and the front pages.
But I say no! Depression is serious business. Suicide is not something to be taken lightly. The true pain that people in these times go through is not to be made light of, regardless of how titillating a factoid is.
I know these people have to sell newspapers and adspace, but our media can do better.
Let them know that it’s serious business to you too.
