Eastercon Diary Sunday 16th April 2017 Mental Health And Superheroes

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The third day of the Birmingham Innominate Eastercon Convention. I got there nice and early after quite a relaxed breakfast and bus journey. The first event of the day I chose to attend was an important panel on the depiction and treatment of mental health in comics and superhero movies. Given that much of my voluntary work at present involves helping promote mental health awareness and supporting The University Of Lancashire (UCLan) especially with its pending 1 in 4 Mental Health movies festival. The panellists, some of them receiving / having received treatment for depression, anxiety, bi-polarism, etc, included Joanne Hall, Ali Baker, D A Lascalles (who moderated proceedings), Anna Smith Spark and Tianti. Batman gained an immediate mention for being progressively depicted as moodier, darker and more depressed and depressing in subsequent incarnations. His reaction to his darkest moods amounting to retreating deeper into his cave and drawing more curtain closed round himself. Panellists saw him as a weak role model until the parody of his behaviour in The Lego Batman movie. For me Batman fails as a realistic mental health study as Arkham Asylum is such an easy escape for the captured villains. It is the third standard comic villain fate once beaten by the hero; they disappear, missing presumed dead so we know they will return to attack again, they get prison, so we know they will get either parole or escape, and finally there is Arkham insane Asylum, where again, escape is possible but just as often they are released by a psychiatrist or councillor who decides they are now sane. At least three villains, Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, and Hugo Strange, have the same origin. They are psychiatrists who went as mad as their patients. It helps perpetrate the myth that mental illness is contagious. Revisionist comics like Alan Moore’s Watchmen portray the heroes as deeply psychologically disturbed, bordering on villainy in their own right. One problem with arts depicting mental illness at all is that it makes the subject and the sufferers look interesting, and even attractive. Many real life sufferers begin to hold on to their condition because it begin to define them. It makes their personality and affects how others move around them. The reality of depression as one commentator noted from the panel is that real depression is not very exciting drama or cinema. The depressive who stays in bed for three days with occasional ice-cream cravings does not make an action dynamic-movie. Another cliche the panelists challenged is the depresgive, near suicidal figure saved by making love or falling in love with the hero at the last minute as though their entire problem has been down exclusively to the lack of love, sex and a perfect partner. Such a simplistic stance upsets many. One movie praised was Frozen as its makers were totally taken by surprise by how young audiences empathised with and related to the alienated Snow Queen who was intended to be seen as the villain of the movie. The reaction changed the whole dynamic of the film and gave many lonely viewers a role model they could learn from. A bold, brave, direct and challenging panel item and like many other convention events, far too short to really do its subject justice. Arthur Chappell