I was watching David Letterman's opening monologue this evening as he commented on Iran's president. Ahmadinejad speeches definitely don't come off very coherent or based on evidence such as his questioning the holocaust the Nazis committed during WWII. However, hearing Letterman refer to him as crazy, nuts, etc. seems to reinforce the negative stigma towards people who suffer from mental illnesses. Freedom of speech of course allows Letterman or anyone for that matter to use negative connotations towards any group, but that doesn't make it right. The more often we allow words synonymous to crazy to be used in everyday language, the more it becomes natural to use it towards those who struggle to overcome their mental illness.
What made me think of this all of a sudden? I was watching the movie Men Who Stare at Goats with Wenona this past weekend and saw a preview that disturbed me. The preview was for the movie "The Crazies" which is a remake of a 1973 movie of the same name. The characters for some unknown reason begin to turn permanently insane. There is so much knowledge in this country about mental illness that this movie seems to ignore. There are a variety of illnesses out there and to put a blanket term out there such as The Crazies to sell tickets is sad. I will hold out on full judgment as I haven't seen the movie yet (It doesn't come out till 2010). I was always one who got upset when Christian groups criticized movies like The Last Temptation of Christ without seeing it so I will have to play a little bit of the wait and see game. I can say that unless the movie does a radical about face from the preview, I will not be happy.
I hope movies will continue to entertain without having to dredge up old stereotypes. Let's see if we can not use derogatory terminology and instead recognize that the mentally ill are people, too. Do you think I have something here or am I just "crazy"?
