Sad Girl Cinema (obviously) isn’t the final word in the ever-shifting space of screen representation and mental health! This is particularly in light of the fact SGC focusses on chiefly Hollywood examples, which is certainly not the only space for mental health screen culture. Here’s a small selection of incredible writing and publications on film and television to continue the conversation <3
Essays and Articles
Aashmita Nayar, These Bollywood Filmmakers Need To Learn From Deepika’s Campaign On Mental Illnesses Right Now, The Huffington Post
Aditi Natasha Kini, The Myth of Male Genius, Bitch Media
Abel Shifferaw, ‘Chula’ Is a Psychological Thriller Challenging the Continued Stigma Around Mental Illness in African Communities, Okayafrica
Aisha Harris, New Pop Culture Trend Alert: the Black Lady Therapist, Slate
Ann Hornaday, Uma Thurman, Quentin Tarantino and the costs of auteur worship, Washington Post
Anupama Chopra, A bumpy ride: Dear Zindagi review, Hindustan Times
Alaina Leary, How Media Prevents Us From Truly Empathizing With Disabled Characters, The Establishment
Allison P. Davis, TV Finally Figured Out Black Women Go to Therapy, The Cut
Anna Leszkiewicz, Ten years on, how Cassie from Skins’ eating disorder affected a generation of teenage girls, New Statesman
Anna Leszkiewicz, Is new Netflix drama To The Bone glorifying eating disorders?, New Statesman
Annie Tucker, Review of Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan, psychoculturalcinema
Ariel Smith, Trespassed Lands, Transgressed Bodies: Horror, Rage, Rape, and Vengeance Within Indigenous Cinema, Bitch Flicks
Aaron Orbey, Mourning Through Horror Movies, The New Yorker
Angelica Jade Bastién, Mother My Madness, Doll Hospital Issue Three
Angelica Jade Bastién, What TV Gets Wrong About Mental Illness, Vulture
Angelica Jade Bastién, Why don’t women of color get to be mentally ill on TV?, Fusion
B.N. Harrison, The Unified Theory of Ophelia: On Women, Writing, and Mental Illness, The Toast
Brodie Lancaster, Really Funny, Rookie Magazine
C Wessels, J Van Kradenberg, I Mbanga, RA Emsley, DJ Stein, Television as a medium for psycho-education in South Africa: analysis of calls to a mental health information centre after screening of a TV series on psychiatric disorders, The Central African journal of medicine
Cate Young, “Dietland” and the Language of Fatphobia, Bitch Media
Eve Sturges, OCD and Me, Rookie Magazine
Hansika Kapoor, Dear Zindagi from a therapist’s perspective: Gauri Shinde’s film does much for mental health, First Post
Hannah Black, You are Too Much, The New Inquiry
Hannah Ewens, Meeting the People Who Make Mental Health Storylines On TV Look Realistic, Vice
Hunter Harris, An Appreciation of Molly’s Therapist’s Office on Insecure, Vulture
Imran Siddiquee, Why Do We Let “Genius” Directors Get Away With Abusive Behavior?, Buzzfeed
Izzy Leslie, Talking about Trich, Doll Hospital Issue Five
Janiera Eldridge, Why Gothika exposes the hidden thoughts of every black woman who’s ever experienced mental illness, Graveyard Shift Sisters
João Mauricio Castaldelli-Maia; Hercílio Pereira Oliveira; Arthur Guerra Andrade; Francisco Lotufo-Neto; Dinesh Bhugra, Using selected scenes from Brazilian films to teach about substance use disorders, within medical education,
Sao Paulo Medical Journal
Kamayani Sharma, Good Treatment: Dear Zindagi’s radical break from Bollywood’s portrayal of mental illness, The Caravan
Karthika S Nair, It’s Time Films Began Portraying Mental Illness With Greater Sensitivity, Feminism in India
Kelsey Ford, Slashed Beauty: On Female Masks in The Skin I Live In, Eyes Without a Face, and Under the Skin, Bright Wall/Dark Room
Kristina Wong, I Thought Being Miserable Was Just Part Of Being Chinese American, xoJane
Laura N., ‘Madness in the Margins: Bollywood Heroines and the Spectre of Mental Illness’, Doll Hospital Journal Issue Three
Lakesha Lafayett, Dark Times Under the Radar: Black Women and Mental Illness, Adios Barbie
M.Shergilla, S.Kumar, An Exploration of Portrayal of Mental Illness in Bollywood Films, European Psychiatry
Mansoor Malik, Imran Trimzi, Gerard Galluci, Bollywood as Witness: Changing Perceptions of Mental Illness in India (1913–2010), Applied Psychoanalytic Studies
Maria Turner Carney, How Queer Women’s Mental Health is Depicted in Movies, After Ellen
Marianne Eloise, What the death of Chris in Skins meant to a generation of British youth, Dazed Digital
Maya Golden, I Am Rocket: A Reflection on PTSD from a Sexual Trauma Survivor, Black Girl Nerds
Megan Abbott, The Virgin Suicides: “They Hadn’t Heard Us Calling”, Criterion
Mel Perez, Mental Health and the Strong Black Woman Trope, Black Girl Nerds
Mey Rude, Who’s Afraid Of The Big, Bad Trans Woman? On Horror and Transfemininity, Autostraddle
Nyasha Junior, Don’t we hurt like you? Examining the lack of portrayals of African American Women and Mental Health, Bitch
O.F.Aina, Mental illness and cultural issues in West African films: implications for orthodox psychiatric practice, Medical Humanities
Parul Sehgal, The Forced Heroism of the ‘Survivor’, New York Times
Pier Dominguez, Not All Queer Love Stories Are Called Universal, Buzzfeed
Prateek Sharma, Dear Indian filmmakers, have you done your homework on mental illness?, Women Making Films
Riese, 105 Trans Women On American TV: A History and Analysis, Autostraddle
Rose Lyddon, The Acceptable Performance of Insanity, Girl Fury
Ruby Tandoh, An illustrated taxonomy of queerness and mental illness in film, Little White Lies
Sara Lautman, Some Notes on Compulsive Hair Pulling, Jezebel
Samantha Mann, Why “Sharp Objects'” Portrayal Of Adult Self-Harming Is So Important, Bust
Sasha Geffen, Trans Horror Stories and Society’s Fear of the Transmasculine Body, Them
Sessi Kuwabara Blanchard, In Defense of the Trans Villainess, Them
Shannon M. Houston, Is it Still “Diversity” or “Inclusion” if No One’s Broke on TV?, Paste Magazine
Shruti Venkatesh, Mental health and Indian pop culture, Deccan Chronicle
Shoma A.Chatterji, Porphyria? Indian Cinema and Mental Illness, The Citizen
Soraya Roberts, Winona, Forever, Hazlitt
Tahiera Overmeyer, ‘Being black, going crazy?’ shows we need more conversations about mental health, Gal Dem
Tarana, Bollywood Only Uses Mental Illness for Laughs, Sobs, or Scares, The Timeliners
Tara Isabella Burton, The dark history behind letting male “geniuses” get away with bad behavior, Vox
Taryn Finley, Kofi Siriboe Makes An Urgent Case For Discussing Black Mental Health, Huffington Post
Taylor Bryant, Why Mental Health Is A Complicated Issue For The Black Community, Nylon
YeoJin Kim, A TV drama shatters taboos around mental health in South Korea, Global Nation
Vanessa Willoughby, Black Girls Don’t Read Sylvia Plath, The Hair Pin
Vilissa Thompson, Disability, Slavery, & The Call to #PickUpUnderground, Ramp Your Voice
Willow Maclay, Someday You Will Ache Like I Ache, SVLLY(WOOD) MAGAZINE
Zoé Samudzi, What White Girl Coming-of-Age Movies Don’t Do For a Black Girl, Broadly
Books
Alana Massey, All the Lives I want (Grand Central Publishing: 2017)
bell hooks, Reel to Real: Race, Class and Sex at the Movies (Routledge: 2015)
Eunjung Kim, Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea (Duke University Press: 2016)
Dinesh Bhugra, Mad Tales from Bollywood: Portrayal of Mental Illness in Conventional Hindi Cinema (Psychology Press: 2006)
Glen O. Gabbard, Krin Gabbard, Psychiatry and the Cinema (American Psychiatric Press Inc: 1999)
Kier-La Janisse, House of Psychotic Women (FAB Press: 2012)
Nancy Wang Yuen, Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism (Rutgers: 2016)
Sady Doyle, Trainwreck (Melville House: 2016)
Websites
Journals and Zines
Sonorus Zine: Feminist Perspectives on Harry Potter