Fetishization of Insanity

Recently I was playing Borderlands 2 and something struck me. Perhaps it’s because I’m not enjoying the game as much as I thought it would. But it really started to bug me out that most of the characters in the game are insane. The enemies you fight are psychotic. They laugh, scream, run around wildly and they are excessively aggressive. I mean, some of them are actually called “Psychos”. But also many of the “good” characters are insane as well. I find Tiny Tina’s lines hilarious as surely most other players do. But she is also a 13-year-old turned psychotic bomber/torturer because her parents were murdered. I find it quite baffling that the game takes it for granted that I find it cool to support her in her deranged murder plans. It’s not cool at all. If anything, I want to find a safe place for her so she can deal with her loss in a meaningful and not self-destructive manner.

When exactly did this become cool and endearing?

Of course, the coolness of insanity is not something Borderlands invented. The “not normal” has been glamorized in pop culture for quite some time now. From the top of my head, characters like the Joker (and to some extent Batman himself) really helped to make insanity into an acceptable way to make appealing characters. They are extravagant but damaged and therefore exciting and lovable.

Looking at the bigger picture, insanity in general seems more like an easy way out for writers than actual depiction of an illness. Need a memorable, extroverted character? Let’s turn up that dial and say they are insane! The murder mystery doesn’t make sense because nobody has a good motif? That’s because a madman has done it! The plot of the evil guy is too convoluted and doesn’t make any sense? Well, that’s because he’s insane! It’s the “insane button” – an easy excuse for poor writing.

It took an excessive exploitation of that cliché like in Borderlands 2 to drive the idea home for me how dishonest and ignorant this method is. Recently, a family member very close to me passed away. He was struggling with psychiatric disorders for the last 20 years or so. I witnessed the kind of impact this had on his personality and his everyday life. Let me tell you, it’s not at all as depicted in pop culture. And there is nothing cool about it.

Joker, you’re so cray!

First of all, there are a lot of different psychiatric disorders. One could say that every patient is in some way unique. In treatment, a lot of time is invested in properly understanding the individual’s particular disposition. Most disorders are also very unstable. Patients may go through various episodes with vastly different, sometimes even polar opposite symptoms. Contrary to that, pop culture likes to focus solely on Mania. You know, because it’s the fun brand of insanity. Unlike Catatonia or Depression. Pop culture insanity is fairly stable too. The Joker’s Mania is so stable and reliable, I wonder if you could call it insanity at all. Seems almost like a character trait to me.

A lot of stories also center around characters overcoming their psychiatric disorders. Batman is often depicted having some sort of internal conflict about the death of his parents. Quite often, the Scarecrow is somehow involved. He always eventually defeats his fears and becomes normal again. In reality, it’s never that simple. You don’t heal so much from a psychiatric disorder, you learn to live with it. You need to accommodate your life for it. And it’s not just something the patient does, it’s also a challenge for their family and everybody around them. It’s a painful process of adjustment and learning for everybody. It requires a lot of understanding and patience. Of course there are drugs too. Sometimes they can help a lot. But they usually replace one psychotic disorder with another, more manageable one. This was one of the reasons why I have neither a happy ending nor a complete resolution in TRAUMA. Having a way out would betray the very idea of a trauma.

Finally, perhaps the most painful realization about insanity for me was that it’s always very close and personal. The delusions of patients are never completely irrational. They are much more like thoughts and observations you know you had yourself sometimes, but you ignored them. But they obsess about that weird coincidence that happened to them the other day. They feel down just like you did once only they never get over it. They get worse and worse. And the illness often shows the most not in the things they do, but in the things they say. They ask you for favors and you aren’t sure if it’s the illness speaking or if they really need your help with that thing. Or the mood strikes them and they turn against you and insult you. And you don’t know if it is the illness speaking of it is really something they feel. But that kind of thinking turns into a weird paranoia in itself. You start to second-guessing every word they say. The disorder starts defining every interaction you have with them.

I’m not saying that psychiatric disorders shouldn’t be portrayed in pop culture. As you can tell, there is a tremendous potential for incredibly powerful stories in there. But I do believe that there is a certain obligation for writers to be more careful with the way we use insanity in our stories. It’s not a topic that should be treated lightly. Using it as a flimsy excuse to make characters to CRAAAZY things is bad writing. If you are a writer, stop for a second before you mash that “insanity” button. Do some research and think about what kind of disorder you want to talk about. Think how that disorder may change throughout a story. Think how the character and the people close to them attempt to deal the disorder. Think how it affects others. Think how how it speaks to something the audience recognizes in themselves. Most importantly, ask yourself if you really are interested in the psychiatric disorder or if you are just trying to cover up shitty writing and lack of ideas. And keep in mind that there is nothing endearing and cool about insanity. Insane people are not fun. Quite often, they are very sad, confused, lonely and desperately helpless people.