TW: suicide
The TV industry continuously tries to shed a light on mental illness. With shows and movies like Spinning Out, All The Bright Places, Bojack Horseman and many others, viewers can get a closer look into different mental illnesses. But the right portrayal is difficult for some TV makers. That’s why VLESP (the Flemish Centre of Expertise for Suicide Prevention) created guidelines to follow.
Fiction can raise the threshold to suicidal tendencies, but it can also lower it. It’s always important that fiction-makers think about the consequences of portraying suicide can have on people who already experience suicidal thoughts.
Mistakes that are often made are normalising or romanticising suicide or mental illness. Suicide is normalised when it’s portrayed as an acceptable and common solution to difficult problems. If suicide is portrayed as a possible way out, it gives the impression it’s normal to act on the suicide when someone faces a problem. VLESP’s first guideline is to not normalise or romanticise suicide or mental illness.
Saskia Aerts from VLESP tells us more about the impact a wrong or normalised portrayal of mental illness can have on viewers who already struggle with one, “Sadly, normalising suicide still happens a lot. In TV it’s often the case that the people who are struggling don’t look for help and they don’t have any doubts about the suicide. We don’t know why the character is committing suicide, which makes it seem really normal, because it’s just a ‘normal’ solution. Over-all the suicide seems pretty easy, which is not the case in real life.”
“We’re often contacted by viewers who’ve just seen a TV show or movie in which suicide is discussed, definitely when it mentions our suicide hotline. Seeing something like suicide on TV can reinforce the thoughts of suicide in people who are already struggling with their mental health. It’s not only people who already struggle with it that call us, by the way. People who are worried about someone close to them call us as well.”
“Youths are extra vulnerable for copycat behaviour because they can’t put the things they see on TV in perspective. They’re still developing their own identity and mirror themselves to the people they look up to."
Suicide in the name of love Another tip from VLESP is to not show the method of suicide. This can cause suicide contagion. Suicide contagion or copycat behaviour refers to the phenomenon of indirect exposure to suicide or suicidal behaviours influencing others to attempt to kill themselves. Multiple studies have been done about this ‘Werther-effect’ or copycat behaviour.
Sociologist David Phillips came up with the term Werther-effect in 1974. The name comes from the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, written by German writer Wolfgang von Goethe. In the book, the main character Werther is in love with Lotte, who is unreachable for him. He eventually commits suicide in the name of love.
The book was such a success that shortly after its publication, people started to commit suicide in a similar way. It even led to the banishment of the book in several countries, like Italy and Denmark.
The Netflix-show 13 Reasons Why was a perfect example of this. It depicted the main character’s suicide in graphic detail. After the release on March 31st, 2017, it was found that Google queries related to suicide increased by 19%. The Werther Effect may suggest that there’s a risk for an increase in suicides following the release of the show. This has serious implications considering the show was marketed toward adolescents who are even more likely than adults to experience suicidal ideation after being exposed to suicide or a suicide attempt.
Another tip is to always think about the high-risk groups, like teens. It’s really important to be extra careful while making a movie or show targeted at this target audience. Saskia explains: “Youths are extra vulnerable for copycat behaviour because they can’t put the things they see on TV in perspective. They’re still developing their own identity and mirror themselves to the people they look up to. Definitely fragile teens, like kids who are bullied, who have a difficult situation at home or have psychic problems, are at extra high risk.”
“You can portray suicide in a preventive manner. If you bring a hopeful story and show that help is possible.”
Give hope The guidelines that VLESP made aren’t binding in any way. This means that TV makers can consult them, but are under no obligation to actually follow them. They can portray these delicate topics however they want. And because of that, there are still a lot of productions out there that aren’t good for the viewers' mental health. If we take a look at 13 Reasons Why, it’s obvious to us that they didn’t take these guidelines into account. The suicide scene was really graphic and showed the method in an extremely detailed way. They received a lot of backlash for depicting the suicide so graphically and later on removed the scene from the show completely.
Giving hope is the last of four guidelines to portray mental illness and suicide in a good way. “You can portray suicide in a preventive manner. If you bring a hopeful story and show that help is possible," Saskia says.
If you ever think about suicide or self-harm, and are in need of a conversation, then you can always contact the Suicide Hotline on the number 1813 or www.zelfmoord1813.be for Belgium. For international helplines, click this link.
Text and image: © Janne Schellingen