Our Say: Spotlight on mental illness

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MAGNOLIA PICTURES Kirsten Dunst stars as a woman about to wed as the Earth faces destruction in "Melancholia."

Crazed eyes. Shrill screams. Straitjackets.

For years, Hollywood has portrayed mental illness in the same stereotypically horrific way.

In film and television, mentally ill characters often are dangers to themselves and others, relegated to gray rooms in abandoned psychiatric wards where emaciated patients hobble down dim halls.

In other cases, their illnesses are contrived ("Girl, Interrupted"), romanticized ("A Beautiful Mind") or simply never discussed ("Benny & Joon").

When a thoughtful film or TV show does come along, such as 2002's "The Hours," it rarely shows how the illness affects the entire family. The exception is Showtime's "United States of Tara," which ran from 2009 to

2011 and did a decent job of using humor to show the ripple effects of dissociative identity disorder.

But that illness and other glorified film-fodder, such as schizophrenia, affect the tiniest fraction of our society. What we need are more depictions of depression and bipolar disorder, which plague millions of Americans.

Thankfully, two recent performances reveal the complexities and unimaginable fear in these lifelong illnesses. In the 2011 film "Melancholia," Kirsten Dunst plays! Justine , a bride suffering from chronic depression as Earth faces destruction. Dunst -- an actress I usually associate with pom poms and rom-coms -- shows how debilitating the physical symptoms of depression, such as catatonia and appetite loss, can

be.

Meanwhile, in Showtime's series "Homeland," Claire Danes brings to life the cycling moods and bursts of creativity associated with bipolar disorder, a disease that plagues her character, a CIA operative.

Danes' performance won her the Golden Globe this year for best performance by an actress in a TV series, while Dunst took home the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

They were well-deserved. Both performances are nuanced. There are good days and bad days. There are responsibilities. Careers and relationships are on the line. For the first time, I can look at the screen and see with clarity the friend, the parent, the co-worker, the sibling and all the other victims of mental illness that I know.

I think Dunst's performance was so accurate it made people uncomfortable, which explains why she was robbed of even an Oscar nod (or maybe Meryl Streep just needed another trophy on her mantel).

Early in the film, when Dunst dances on her wedding day, you can see the depression creep slowly into her face and body. Later, when she tries to eat meatloaf, her favorite food, it tastes like ash to her. When it's time to bathe, her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) has to help, hoisting Dunst's

lifeless body into the tub and encouraging her to open her eyes.

Danes' performance as driven CIA officer Carrie Mathison is equally riveting. It's also very realistic. Because of her high-profile position in the anti-terrorism division, she conceals her mood disorder even from her trusted friend and boss (Mandy Patinkin) out of fear that she will be seen as incompetent or, worse, taken off an assignment involving a war hero she suspects is plotting an attack on America.

Danes' character takes antipsychotics to control her anxie! ty. In t he season finale, she resorts to electroconvulsive therapy, formerly known as electroshock therapy, when antidepressants fail to curb her depression. I think it's the first time this procedure, which helps about 100,000 people a year, has been shown in its safe and modern incarnation. Certainly, we've come a long way since those lurid scenes in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

I also applaud "Homeland" for caring enough to reveal the genetic component of mental illness. When we meet Carrie's father, Frank (James Rebhorn), it is clear that he also suffers from bipolar disorder.

Why has it taken this long for Hollywood to handle mental illness with grace and honesty? Numbers don't lie. Medications to treat depression and bipolar disorder are among the top six most prescribed and sold drugs, according to IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. They are right up there with drugs to treat asthma and high cholesterol.

The stigma is less, and the dialogue is more. We now talk openly about our niece's autism or grandma's dementia. We know Brooke Shields and Gwyneth Paltrow had postpartum depression and that San Francisco Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff battles anxiety. When it comes up, we don't change the subject. As much.

It will be interesting to see where "Perception," a TNT drama that debuts July 9, lands in the dialogue.

In the show, Eric McCormack plays a brilliant yet irrational neuroscientist with paranoid schizophrenia. He helps the FBI solve complex cases because he has an acute understanding of the human mind and has hallucinations that "occasionally allow him to make connections that his conscious mind can't yet process," according to the show's web page.

Stereotypical? I haven't decided yet.

Reach Jessica Yadegaran at jyadegaran@bayareanewsgroup.com.