Becca Lumley (IMP Class of 2021)
Next week, Becca Lumley (IMP Class of 2021) will present the third and final talk in her three-part lecture series exploring how Hollywood depicts illness in film.
The main focus of the lecture, titled “(Mis)representing Mental Illness,” will be how mental illness—in particular, mood disorders—is portrayed in cinema. As with the previous two lectures, Becca will also question what’s helpful and what’s potentially harmful about the way movies frame illness in general.
Becca presented the first two parts of her series over the past few weeks. The first discussed cancer with a focus on pediatrics, while the second explored disability with a focus on degenerative disease and loss of autonomy.
In advance of her final talk, we sat down with Becca to discuss why she turned her attention to Hollywood and why this topic is so important.
Why is it important to talk about how Hollywood depicts illness?
I think popular films can have a huge impact on the way people think. Often, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface of a film that audiences can internalize without necessarily recognizing it. A film is a product of the social and political values, beliefs, and anxieties of the time in which it’s made, and therefore films also offer us a mirror with which to view the world. Discussing how Hollywood depicts illness helps us to explore the way society conceptualizes illness and the experience of being ill.
Why did you decide to focus on cancer, disability, and mental illness?
Honestly, the topics arose fairly naturally when I started to look for films about illness in general. While there are plenty of films about illness, there is not a lot of diversity in terms of the types of illness they depict. Hollywood is all about the spectacle, and stories of terminal illness, disability, and mental illness have the potential to be transformed into dramatic and emotionally captivating spectacles for audiences. I was interested in looking at the conventions, or audience expectations, shared by films within each of these categories.
Where there any other subtopics that you considered but didn’t make the cut?
Absolutely. This topic could have been divided many different ways. I thought about looking at the way the experience of illness is constructed based on the age of the ill character(s) (e.g., children and young adults, middle-aged adults, and the elderly), as well as looking beyond illness at the way pregnancy is depicted on screen and delving deeper into the ways in which health care workers are represented. It’s also worth mentioning that much can be learned by looking at what types of stories aren’t told. For example, while there are plenty of films about terminal illness and visible disabilities, there are far less about chronic illnesses and invisible disabilities. Ill characters are often Caucasian, heterosexual, and upper middle-class, and illness films typically fail to explore challenges related to intersectionality or to address issues related to social determinants of health.
Can you give an example of how depictions of illness in movies cause harm? How can these depictions be helpful?
One example I talked about in the context of degenerative disease was the ways in which caregivers are depicted. In some films that I analysed—e.g., You’re Not You and Love and Other Drugs—it was made to seem inevitable and common sense that someone with a degenerative disease would be cared for by a sole individual who would dedicate all of their time and energy to that person in relative isolation with little outside help. This has the potential to cause harm if patients, their caregivers, or their health care providers were to internalize these ideas and have unrealistic expectations of caregivers, who need to be given the time and space to express and meet their own needs in addition to caring for their loved ones. On the flip side, films such as The Theory of Everything and Still Alice depict difficult conversations between families about the needs of caregivers, and those caregivers are not vilified for asking for and accepting help. This, then, is helpful in promoting ideas and discussion around how to support caregivers.
In a broader context, representation is also huge. A film that accurately depicts someone’s experience can be empowering, while a film that misrepresents that experience can send a message that a person’s experience is not valuable or valid.
How can people educate themselves more on this topic?
I think a great first step is just reflecting on and challenging ideas you might have about illness based on films you have seen in the past. When watching new films, try to think about the values and beliefs that they endorse. Ask questions like the following: Who is ill? Does their illness define them as a character? What stereotypes are reproduced or subverted? One goal I am setting for myself is to watch and read film reviews created by individuals who have experience with a film’s subject matter.
Becca will present her third talk, “(Mis)representing Mental Illness,” on Feb. 26 in UVic’s Medical Sciences Building room 150 at 6–8 p.m. Light refreshments will be provided.
All of Becca’s lectures are part of the Let’s Talk Science UVic MedTalk series.