| Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) face numerous difficulties associated with the stigma of having a mental illness, including decreased quality of life, prejudice, and negative responses from the general public. This stigma is developed in a number of ways, including the history of the treatment of people with mental illnesses, the social acceptability of the stigma, and media portrayals of these illnesses. Cultivation theory suggests that the images and depictions of people with mental illness in the media are likely to have an impact on public perceptions of these disorders. The perceptions in turn are likely to continue the trend of stigma towards mental illness. In order to determine what these depictions are, I examined 11 films containing a character labeled as having OCD, described as obsessive compulsive, or who demonstrated obsessions or compulsions. Results of this analysis indicate that OCD is portrayed differently from the depictions indicated by past research on mental illness. While there are, generally, more positive portrayals of OCD in films than previous research has indicated about mental illness in the media, depictions of violence are frequently used, and there are relatively few depictions of how stigma affects people with OCD. |
