It’s no secret that what people see on screen in tv shows, movies and video games heavily influences their behavior as they attempt to emulate what’s shown to them. Massive shows like “13 Reasons Why” saw a 28.9% increase in suicide rates for US adolescents and self-harm rates by watchers, later having to cut several graphic scenes depicting suicide, rape, and assault. In particular, the scene in which Hannah Baker, played by Katherine Langford, kills herself had to be cut out due to the backlash Netflix received. Other shows like “Euphoria” saw the romanticization of drug use by many viewers as they watched Zendaya snort cocaine in a beautifully shot scene directed by Sam Levinson. 

However, not all popular media is intended to be harmful. “To The Bone” follows Ellen, played by Lily Collins, through her anorexia recovery journey. Although the movie plays on stereotypes regarding eating disorders, the overall message of the film is one of hope, showing how even with a support system, there are still pitfalls and relapses in recovery. 

Shows like “Young Royals”, a Swedish romantic TV drama about a boarding school, display symptoms of anxiety and grief very well through the two main characters as they deal with their respective issues. A major character in the series is Sara Eriksson, who’s diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD. Finding it difficult to make friends because she can’t understand social cues leads Sara to have a closer relationship with the horses kept at Hillerska Boarding School, which draws out some lines in the script where she discusses how perhaps her affinity to horses is because of her autism. Most of the fanbase agrees that despite the slightly awkward delivery of Sara’s autism, she is still a relatable character as she navigates the complicated world of high school, teenage love, and the obvious wealth difference between her and her classmates. Frida Argento, the actress who plays Sara, has also been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Her representation of this complex character that also has diagnosed disorders is a refreshing change from the usual stereotype autistic characters are pushed into. For example, a piece of media that makes use of nearly every stereotype in the book is the movie directed by Australian singer-songwriter Sia. 

“Music”, a 2021 musical drama starring Maddie Ziegler as a young autistic girl, was directed, written, and produced by Sia. The movie is an atrocious mess that received a ton of backlash upon release. Casting Maddy Ziegler– who’s neurotypical – to play an autistic character was a major mistake. This, paired with terrible writing, ended up with a bad representation of an autistic character and didn’t help Hollywood’s fame for being ableist. 

Other movies like “Girl Interrupted” starring Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder, followed the characters through their lives spent in a psychiatric home due to their mental illnesses. It shows the raw side of mental illness and how they quickly become victims of their own thoughts. The movie tackles things like eating disorders, suicide, rape, and borderline personality disorder. While not a bad representation of how destructive mental illness can be, the fandom spins the movie into a more romanticized version of itself, spawning inspiration for anorexia and bulimia from characters like Daisy, played by Brittany Murphy. These kinds of interpretations of media that portray characters struggling with mental health oftentimes are taken out of context by teenagers on social media.

Apps like Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr all see the reposting of GIFs or screenshots of shows with captions talking about how relatable the character in the screen-cap is. Comments like ‘she’s so real’ under a picture of Lily Collins’ in “To The Bone” where she’s so thin due to her eating disorder that you can count the ridges along her spine are normal on social media and are extremely harmful to young, impressionable kids with access to the internet.

While it’s important to address topics like mental health and disabilities to bring both awareness and diversity to TV, the flip side of the good impact it’s bringing is that it also allows for bad representation to gain traction and further reinforce stereotypes. That, along with how apps like Twitter use pictures of characters having mental breakdowns as memes, can push the narrative that mental health is a joke– that it doesn’t matter and boils things like major depressive disorder down to just being sad sometimes. 

Hopefully, in the future, media can take more inspiration from well-done shows like “Fleabag”– a show that focuses on a woman named Fleabag, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge as she deals with grief and attempts to heal while keeping up a comedic air– instead of movies like “Music” and disabled people in the film industry can make real headway.