“I’ve been diagnosed with being bipolar. It’s an affective disorder in which the individual alternates between states of deep depression and extreme elation. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Despite what some people might think” [1]
To what extent and why is the depiction of mental illness less truthful in contemporary British teen drama, such as ‘Skins’, in comparison to mainstream soap operas, such as ‘Eastenders’?
The media landscape is often criticized ,"for promoting stigma and discrimination towards people with a mental illness ,[2]” through unrealistic and exaggerated representations of those with mental health issues. This is apparent through a number of texts such as the british teen drama, Skins and E4 drama Shameless, whilst it can be argued some texts such as Soap Opera - Eastenders shows a truer to life representation of such issues, claiming to challenge television’s “dressed up[3] ” representations. However a lack of realism is still evident.
Over time from the primary years of soap operas to the present , soaps have shaped themselves to “follow the day-to-day lives”[4] of ‘everyday’ characters, similar to in the genre of drama. However, within drama the representations of individuals are typically exaggerated, this can been seen across the genre in a number of examples. Television however now uses these conventions in an up-to-the-minute and contemporary manner reflecting the zeitgeist of today, viewers no longer want the “cliché plots, themes, and situations”[5] of the cheating husbands, arguing families which would have previously been shocking and emotionally gratifying , viewers have now become desensitised to these expecting to see something ground-breaking on television. With “ 'how mental are you' questionnaires on the net that tell you which disorders you’ve got”[6] plaguing the youths computer screens it has become apparent that “some people want to be mental”[7] and they want to see the new phenomenon unfold on their screens in front of them. Such enthusiasm towards the area can be interlinked with the cultivation theory. Children are being cultivated to accept mental illness and to show interest in the topic unlike in the past fuelling the desire to see the issue in the media.
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