PSYCHIATRY AND THE MEDIA Fall and rise of the movie 'psycho-killer' Peter Byrne The Glasgow Media Group, through a combi due to the US National Committee for Mental nation of media watching and group interviews, Hygiene of 1909, which sought to change popular has confirmed the importance of media represen misconceptions of mental illness, but it is also tations of mental illness, with its finding that worth noting that Freud's first lecture tour in the negative images can outweigh even an individ USA, at Clark University, Massachusetts, was in ual's direct experiences in this area (Philo. 1996). 1909. In one recent summary, Philo concludes: "the From this time, 'violent lunacy' could be cured, results show clearly that ill-informed beliefs on, as for example in Griffith's The Restoration for example, the association of schizophrenia (November 1909) where a jealous husband who with violence can be traced directly to media has attacked a mistaken suitor to his wife, is accounts" (Philo, 1997). The origins and strength talked out of his 'insanity' by a convivial doctor. of this association can be traced to cinema, From then on, bad guys were just bad guys. where powerful images of violent 'insanity' Images of lunatics running amok became less endure today. In a questionnaire of 487 people fashionable for the next decades, but did not who had a family member with severe mental disappear from movie houses. illness, 85.6% identified "popular movies about mentally ill killers" as the largest single con tributor to the stigma of that illness (Wahl & The return of the 'mad': fitting and Harman, 1989). splitting Two screen actors who were best known for their Early images of 'madness' bad guy roles helped to end this respite in two popular and important films of the 1940s. What began as a variation on the chase movie, the 'lunatic on the loose' formula found early Edward G. Robinson as Captain Larsen in Sea Wolf (1941) suggested that mysterious headaches popularity with cinema audiences. French film maker Georges Méliès'1901 film The Escapees were the cause of his malevolent rages. In White Heat (1941). James Cagney also displayed from Cherenton was one such film, distributed in symptoms of epilepsy as if to explain his motive the USA as Off To Bloomingdale Asylum and in the UK as Off To Bedlam. In D. W. Griffith's less violence. Cagney, who initially rejected the role of gangster Cody Jarrett as a reprise of a Where The Breakers Roar (1908), a young woman stereotype he was trying to avoid in his later is threatened by brute force, knife and gun, by a man who has escaped from the 'lunatic asylum'. career, admitted that he had brought much to the part: He is defined in terms of his dangerousness and his 'lunacy', as if one feeds into the other, and the I knew what deranged people sounded like, because, once as a youngster, I had visited Ward's Island, where film ends with his safe return to custody. Two of a pal's uncle was in the hospital for the insane. My Griffith's films released in January 1909 support God. what an education that was! The shrieks, the this association: The Cord Of Life shows a child screams, of those people under restraint. I remember being held out of a third floor window while the those cries, saw how they fitted and I called on my eponymous Maniac Cook puts a child into an memory to do as required (Cagney, quoted in Katz, oven. 1979). Another film image of 'insanity' was the disin tegration of personality. The Three Faces of Eve A brief respite (1957) depicted multiple personality disorder, but owed more to Robert Louis Stevenson's Doctor This demonic view of mental illness pertained at that time, but 1909 marked a distinct change in Jeckyll and Mister Hyde than to psychiatry. It Griffith's approach to the subject of mental presented mental illness as loss of control, with illness, with more sympathetic portrayals. Fried- images of possession reminiscent of the witch berg (1992) has suggested that this change was trials of the Middle Ages. Although this film 174 Psychiatric Bulletin (1998). 22, 174-176 PSYCHIATRY AND THE MEDIA inspired many imitators, its enduring legacy can Hitchcock barred people from entering cinemas be seen in 'Psycho' (1960). Norman Bates after Psycho had begun. Another device is (Anthony Perkins) is presented as a split person tainting these films with reai life crimes. The ality, where the dominant dead mother's person Jack the Ripper legend has lead to many films, ality has taken over. Even the opening titles and not least Hitchcock's The Lodger (1927). Each of the film's poster shows the word psycho fragmen M (1931). The Boston Strangler (1968) and 10 ted into three pieces. His and his mother's mental Rillington Place (1971) were written around illness are signposted throughout the film, as in specific criminal cases, and marketed as such. the final exchange between resident Marion Crane Robert Bloch, writer of Psycho claimed to have (Janet Leigh) and Bates: based the story on Ed Gein. This case is also said to have 'inspired' The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Bates: We all go a little mad sometimes. (He smiles) (1974). changing the killer's modus operandi (the Haven't you? title is a give-away) and increasing the number of Crane: Yes, sometimes just one time can be enough. murderers four-fold. More often the films present a type of pseudo- science, obfuscating details behind the super Psycho-killer: Qu'est-ce c'est ça? natural insight of criminologists. Capture of the killer in Silence of the Lambs (1991) hangs on the Alongside the action adventure genre of the video-store sits the psychological thriller, which fact that the killer is personally known to serial has 'evolved' into the 'Psycho Film'. The key killer/psychiatrist Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). The film was an immense critical and commer element of these films is the all powerful, all evil psycho-killer. The prototypes, Michael Myers of cial success, but the demonic cannibalistic psychic Lecter would not have been out of place the Halloween series (6 films). Jason from Friday in a D. W. Griffiths one reeler. The 'knock on' the Thirteenth (7 films) and Freddy from Night effects of such films can be seen in a recent front mare on Elm Street (7 films), tend to pop up again page headline of an Irish national newspaper and again, not just in the sequels, but after countless apparent on-screen deaths. He (rarely about the murders of two former psychiatric patients, which in the absence of any supporting she) is an outsider who intrudes on a community evidence or even a suspect, declared: 'Psycho or a family, examples of the latter being The murderer a cannibal' (The Examiner, 24 March, Stepfather (1987) and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992). 1997). The film may begin with the psycho-killer's escape from prison and/or institution, as in Halloween (1978), although in Psycho II (1983), Bates is released by the psychiatrists who have What's in a name? 'cured' him. Often there has been a perceived Many readers will find the frequent use of the wrong done to the person, who returns to the word 'psycho' in this article offensive. This is scene of that event and the initial killing(s) may however, the language of these films, with titles have a revenge motive. The killing brings like Paranoiac (1963). Strait-Jacket (1964). Es- pleasure in its own right, and a pattern develops to taunt detection, a recent example being Seven tate of Insanity (1970), Asylum (1972). Deranged (1996). (1974), Schizo (1976), Delirium (1977), Maniac (1980). Madhouse (1987) and Schizoid (1988). Given that these films contain a wealth of With such titles, it is hardly surprising that clichés,it is hardly surprising that a film has reviewers and critics pick up these labels and been released which deconstructs the genre. In compound errors further. In his book Movie Scream (1997). the characters watch, talk and Psychos and Madmen - Film Psychopaths from then live these films. They identify the next Jeckyll and Hyde to Hannibal Lecter. McCarthy victims (anyone who leaves a room saying "I'll (1993) uses the terms 'psychotic' and 'psycho be right back", or if female, after sexual inter pathic' interchangeably, most often settling for course) and discuss the motives of their heroes: "Did Hannibal Lecter have a reason for wanting the generic 'psycho'. This homogenisation of to eat people?". At one point, the murderer enters mental illness makes these stereotypes more the video violence debate: "movies don't make difficult to challenge. psychos. Movies make psychos more creative". Although these films have been examined by psychiatrists infrequently, Hyler et al (1991) have defined these psychokillers as "homicidal maniacs", comprising one of six common stereo Based on a true story - almost types of mental illness. The prevalence and In addition to gruesome special effects, these influence of these other cinematic images of films use other gimmicks: audiences are in psychiatric patients, along with suggested rem structed not to reveal the (surprise) ending, while edies are also presented (Hyler et al, 1991). Fall and rise of the movie 'Psycho-killer' 175 PSYCHIATRY AND THE MEDIA Conclusions In Early Cinema Space. Frame, Narrative (ed. T. Elsaesser). London: British Film Institute. Both studies cited in the introduction have HYLER.S., GABBARD.G. O. & SCHNEIDER,I. (1991) Homicidal identified these films as sources of misinfor maniacs and narcissistic parasites: stigmatisation of mation about mental illness, causing actual mentally ill persons in the movies.