Media portrayals of Bipolar often grate on me. Watching many programmes you would easily convinced that people with Bipolar are constantly manic, psychotic and nearly always incapable of holding down a job or looking after children. There are of course people with the condition that fit this description (although there are many non –Bipolar individuals who are not suitable for these jobs either). However, much of the media representation of Bipolar, and many other mental illnesses reduce the experience to the most extreme symptoms, ignoring the many individuals who hold down jobs, have families and to the rest of the world may even appear “normal.”
There are of course the famous role models- Stephen Fry, Carrie Fisher etc, but I am not sure people working in the creative industries should provide the only models. There are people with Bipolar working as teachers, doctors, scientists, counsellors, civil servants, financial advisors who do not fit this media representation. I myself, medicated and under the care of a psychiatrist, work full time and have a family.
Homeland, first shown this week on Channel 4, promises to provide a different representation. The main character, Carrie has Bipolar. She is a high level officer working for Homeland Security in US. The symptoms are evident, even in the first episode (a state of hypomania, medication) but what is clear is that her Bipolar is woven closely with her personality. I am hopeful that it will demonstrate the way in which often it is difficult to separate the personality from the illness, where symptoms and traits overlap. The writer based the character on her sister, who has Bipolar and wanted to offer a more realistic characterisation of the illness and the way it impacts on the life of the individual. Ultimately is no more acceptable to represent people with mental illness as always manic and psychotic, as it would be to represent all black people as gang members, or women as housewives.
