A Rebel without a Cause and His PTSD: Depictions of Mental Illness in The Winchesters
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/19686Parole chiave:
medical humanities, mental illness, television, popular cultureAbstract
The Winchesters (The CW, 2022) tells the story of John Winchester (Drake Rodger) after his return from Vietnam. The show seeks to explore his PTSD through the monster of the week format, exploiting the conventions of the horror genre without adhering to outdated and negative stereotypes. In doing so, showrunner Robbie Thompson challenges Supernatural’s (The CW, 2005-2020) narrative and the one proposed by other media focused on the same issues. However, the references made to Western ideals of masculinity ensure an all but ‘sanitized’ depiction that ultimately asks the audience to question the limits of empathy and their own prejudices. This essay aims to analyze the show through the lens of medical humanities, focusing on the depiction of John as a patient-person and how his PTSD is depicted throughout the show.
Riferimenti bibliografici
American Psychology Association (2013). “Exhibit 1.2-4, DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for PTSD.” National Institutes of Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/box/part1_ch3.box16/#:~:text=Intense%20or%20prolonged%20psychological%20distress,the%20traumatic%20event(s) (last accessed 26-05-2024).
Bar-Haim, Yair et al. (2021). “Intrusive Traumatic Reexperiencing: Pathognomonic of the Psychological Response to Traumatic Stress.” The American Journal of Psychiatry 176(2): 119-122. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.19121231
Barnes, Colin (1992). Disabling Imagery and The Media. Halifax: Ryburn Publishing Limited.
Beliveau, Ralph and Laura Bolf-Beliveau (2014). “‘A Shot on the Devil’: Female Hunters and the Identification of Evil in Supernatural.” In Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul: On the Highway to Hell and Back, edited by Susan A. George and Regina M. Hansen, 111-124. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Benson, Stephen (2003). Cycles of Influence: Fiction, Folktale, Theory. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Branje, Susan J.T. et al. (2009). “Parent-Adolescent Conflicts, Conflict Resolution Types, and Adolescent Adjustment.” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 30: 195-204, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2008.12.004
Canham, Sarah L. (2009) “The Interaction of Masculinity and Control and Its Impact on the Experience of Suffering for an Older Man.” Journal of Aging Studies 23(2): 90-96. https://doi.org.10.1016/j.jaging.2008.12.003
Capps, Walter H. (1991). The Vietnam Reader. New York: Routledge.
Carlsmith, Lyn (1964). “Effect of Early Father Absence on Scholastic Aptitude.” Harvard Educational Review 34(1): 3–21. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.34.1.t23173u451jhu637
Caruth, Cathy (1996). Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, History and Narrative. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Cassell, Eric (1984). The Place of the Humanities in Medicine. Hastings: The Hastings Center.
Charon, Rita (2001). “Narrative Medicine: A Model for Empathy, Reflection, Profession, and Trust.” JAMA 286(15): 1897-1902. https://doi.org/10.001/jama.286.15.1987
Cross, Simon (2010). Mediating Madness: Mental Distress and Cultural Representation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Daddis, Gregory A. (2020). Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davidson, Carol Margaret (2012). “The Victorian Gothic and Gender.” In Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion, edited by Andrew Smith, 124-141. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Dean, Erik T. Jr (1997). Shook over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Dignan, Corinne Rowena (2022). “Evensong: How the Medical Humanities Can Strengthen a Patient-Centered Approach to Both Physical and Mental Health Conditions.” BJPsych Bulletin 46(3): 156-158. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjb.2021.3
DiLillo, David et al. (2000). “Linking Childhood Sexual Abuse and Abusive Parenting: The Mediating Role of Maternal Anger.” Child Abuse & Neglect 24(6): 767-779. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0145-2134(00)00138-1
Elsaesser, Thomas (2012). “Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama.” In Film Genre Reader IV, edited by Barry Keith Grant, 433-462. New York: University of Texas Press.
Faludi, Susan (2007). The Terror Dream. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Foster, Michael Dylan (2016). “Introduction: The Challenge of the Folkloresque.” In The Folkloresque: Reframing Folklore in a Popular Culture World, edited by Michael Dylan Foster and Jeffrey A. Tolbert, 3-34. Boulder: University of Colorado Press.
Friedman, Matthew J. (1981), “Post-Vietnam Syndrome: Recognition and Management.” Psychosomatics 22(11): 931-942. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0033-3182(81)73455-8
Fruth, Laurel and Allan Padderud. (1985). “Portrayals of Mental Illness in Daytime Television Series.” Journalism Quarterly 62(2): 384-349.
George, Susan A. (2014). “A man and His 1967 Impala: Supernatural, U.S. Car Culture, and the Masculinity of Dean Winchester.” In Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul: On the Highway to Hell and Back, edited by Susan A. George and Regina M. Hansen, 141-154. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gerbner, George. (1980). “Stigma, Social Functions of the Portrayal of Mental Illness in Mass Media.” Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill: Research Perspectives, edited by Judith G. Rabkin et al, 45-46. Washington: GPO.
Gilman, Sander L. (1988). Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Gough Paul J. And James Hibberd (2008). “90210 Upfront and Center for CW.” The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/90210-upfront-center-cw-111620/ (last accessed 25-04-2024).
Gurian, Michael (1992). The Prince and the King. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Haggerty, Robert J. et al. (1996). Stress, Risk and Resilience in Children and Adolescence. Processes, mechanisms, and Interventions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harper, Stephen (2005). “Media, Madness and Misrepresentation: Critical Reflections on Anti-Stigma Discourse.” European Journal of Communication 20(4):460-483. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323105058252
Harris, Rachael (2019). “Wheelin’ and Dealin’: Crossroads Mythology, Deal Making and Death in Supernatural.” In Death in Supernatural: Critical Essays, edited by Amanda Taylor and Susan Nylander, 84-102. Jefferson: McFarland & Company.
Higashi, Robin. T. et al. (2013). “The ‘Worthy’ Patient: Rethinking the ‘Hidden Curriculum’ in Medical Education.” Anthropology and Medicine 20(1): 13-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2012.747595
Hoffner, Cynthia A. and Elizabeth L. Cohen. (2015). “Portrayal of Mental Illness on the TV Series Monk: Presumed Influence and Conseuqences.” Health Communication 30(10): 1046-1054. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2014.917840.
Howell, Charlotte E. (2014). “God, the Devil, and John Winchester: Failures of Patriarchy in Supernatural.” In Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul. On the Highway to Hell and Back, edited by Susan A. George and Regina M. Hansen, 169-182. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Huxley, Adolus (1963). Literature and Science. New York: Harper & Row.
Iranzo, Ivan Pintor. (2022). “The Representation of Neurological and Mental Disorders in TV Series: Complexity, Transmission, and Educational Models.” Sociétés 156: 95-106.
Klin, Anat and Dafna Lemish. “Mental Disorders Stigma in the Media: Review of Studies on Production, Content, and Influences.” Journal of Health Communication 13(5); 434-439. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730802198813
Kort, Michael G. (2018). The Vietnam War Reexamined. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCombs, Phil (2003). “Comeback of the Alpha Male.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2003/03/16/comeback-of-the-alpha-male/e0a62740-a2e9-4345-97df-eeab8e81e315/ (last accessed 25-04-2024).
Miller, J. Hillis (1985). Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mitovich, Matt Webb (2022). “Ratings: Winchesters Scares Up Strong Debut, New Amsterdam Goes Low.” TV Line. https://tvline.com/ratings/tv-ratings-the-winchesters-premiere-cw-supernatural-spinoff-1234886312 (last accessed 25-04-2024).
Mittal, Dinesh et al. (2013). “Stigma Associated with PTSD: Perceptions of Treatment Seeking Combat Veterans.” Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal 36(2): 86-92. https://doi.org/10-1037/h0094976.
Moore, J.J. (2022). “The Winchesters’ Review: Pilot Is a Supernatural Failure.” The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/10/25/the-winchesters-series-premiere-review-2022/ (last accessed 5-05-2024).
Nicol, Rhonda (2014). “How is that not rape-y?”: Dean as anti-Bella and feminism without women in Supernatural.” In Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul. On the Highway to Hell and Back, edited by Susan A. George and Regina M. Hansen, 155-168. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nicosia, Gerald. (2001). Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veteran Movement. New York, NY: Crown Publishers.
Nordahl-Hansen, Anders et al. (2018). “Pros and Cons of Character Portrayals of Autism on TV and Film.” Journal of Autism and Development Disorders 48(2): 635-636. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3390-z
Olstead, Riley (2002). “Contesting the Text; Canadian Media Depictions of the Conflation of Mental Illness and Criminality.” Sociology of Health & Illness 24(5): 621-643. https://doi.org/0.1111/1467-9566.00311
Özkent, Yasemin (2023). “The Effect of Psychological Disease Portrayals in TV Series on Internet Searches: A Google Trends-Based Analysis.” İletişim Kuram ve Araştırma Dergisi 63: 37-55. https://doi.org/10.47998/ikad.1159182
Parrott, Scott. (2022). “PTSD in the News: Media Framing, Stigma, and Myths about Mental Illness.” Electronic News 17(3): 181-197. https://doi.org/10.1177/19312431221146757.
Perrin, Paul et al. (2009). “Development, validation, and confirmatory factor analysis of the Father Hunger Scale.” Psychology of Men & Masculinity 10(4): 314.327. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017277
Pieper, Katherine et al. (2023). “Mental health Conditions Across 300 Popular Films: A Research Update from 2016 to 2022.” USC Annenberg. https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii-mental-health-2023-06-28.pdf (last accessed 20-05-2024).
Quintero Johnson, Jessie M. and Bonnie Miller. (2016). “When Women ‘Snap’: The Use of Mental Illness to Contextualize Women’s Acts of Violence in Contemporary Popular Media.” Women’s Studies in Communication 39(2): 211-227, https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.1016.1172530
Rosen, Lugene. (2014). “‘Who’s your daddy?’: Father Trumps Fate in Supernatural.” In Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul: On the Highway to Hell and Back, edited by Susan A. George and Regina M. Hansen, 183-195. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schmidt, Lisa (2016). “We All Have a Little Monster in Us: Dean Winchester, the Mark of Cain and the New Monster Paradigm.” In The Gothic Tradition in Supernatural: Essays on the Television Series, edited by Melissa Edmundson, 167-182.
Schrempp, Gregory (2016). “Science and the Monsterological Imagination: Folkloristic Musings on David Toomey’s Weird Life.” In The Folkloresque: Reframing Folklore in a Popular Culture World, edited by Michael Dylan Foster and Jeffrey A. Tolbert, 241-254. Boulder: University of Colorado Press.
Sibielski, Rosalind (2021). “‘What Else about Our Reality Is Actually a Disorder?’ Mental Illness as Crisis of Reality in FX’s Legion.” Television & New Media 22(5): 529-545. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419869716
Sieff, Elaine. “Media Frames of Mental Illness: The Potential Impact of Negative Frames.” Journal of Mental Heath 12(3): 259-269. https://doi.org/10.1080/0963823031000118249.
Signorelli, Nancy (1989). “The Stigma of Mental Illness of Television.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 33(3): 325-331. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838158909364085
Spieker, Lisa. (2017). “House, Monk, Dexter, and Hannibal: ‘Super-powered’ Mentally Ill TV Characters.” In Mental Illness in Popular Culture, edited by Sharon Packer, 159-168. Westport: Praeger.
Steveyockey (2022). “WAIT. THEY HAVE SCENES SET IN VIETNAM IN THE WINCHESTERS SHOW??” Tumblr. https://www.tumblr.com/steveyockey/698786618508705792/wait-they-have-scenes-set-in-vietnam-in-the?source=share (last accessed 25-04-2024).
Stuart, Heather (2006). “Media Portrayal of Mental Illness and ITS Treatments: What Effect Does It Have on People with Mental Illness?” CNS Drugs 20(2): 99-106. https://doi.org/10.2165/00023210-200620020-00002.
Taylor, Mark (2003). The Vietnam War in History, Literature and Film. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Tiktaalic (2021). “Supernatural season 9 is god punishing cas for dean being gay…” Tumblr. https://tiktaalic.tumblr.com/post/654926469062098944/supernatural-season-9-is-god-punishing-cas-for (last accessed 30-03-2024).
Turner, Heather A. et al. (2006). “The Effect of Lifetime Victimization on the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents.” Social Science & Medicine 62: 13-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.05.030
TVTropes (n.d.). “Monster of the Week.” TVTropes. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonsterOfTheWeek (last accessed 5-05-2024).
Van der Kolk, Bassel (2000). “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and the Nature of Trauma.” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 2(1): 7-22. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2000.2.1/bvdkolk.
Wahl, Otto and Rachel Roth. (1982), “Television Images of Mental Illness. Results of a Metropolitan Media Watch.” Journal of Broadcasting 26: 599-609.
Wahl, Otto (2003). Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Wondemaghen, Meron (2019). “Homeland and Its Use of Bipolar Disorder for Sensationalist and Dramatic Effect.” Social Semiotics 29(2): 131-144. https://doi.org10.1080/10350330.2017.1422900
Yu, Jessie (2019). “From Stigmatized to Sensationalized.” National Alliance of Mental Illness. https://www.nami.org/general/from-stigmatized-to-sensationalized/ (last accessed 5-05-2024).
TV Series
The Winchesters (2022)
Downloads
Pubblicato
Come citare
Fascicolo
Sezione
Licenza
Copyright (c) 2024 Anna Caterino

Questo lavoro è fornito con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale.