The Disney Media Networks and ABC Television plan to re-air an episode of Modern Family on Wednesday night that is a distasteful example of blatant prejudice against Americans with mental illnesses.
I first wrote about Modern Family:Halloween 3: AwesomeLand the day after it aired last year and thousands of you and The National Alliance on Mental Illness joined me in expressing outrage at the show’s stigmatizing characterization of persons with mental illnesses.
This morning, NAMI’s Executive Director Mary Mary Giliberti issued a strongly worded press release calling the network “Callous” for refusing NAMI’s request that it not show the episode again on Wednesday. NAMI is asking its members to participate in a Twitter conversation at #unmodernfamily
In the episode, Claire Dunphy decides to create the most frightening house in her neighborhood by transforming her front yard into a “scary insane asylum” complete with “deranged mental patients,” a “sadistic nurse” and “demented doctor.” The episode features daughter Alex chained to a hospital bed and Luke wearing a straight jacket – images that are intended to make viewers chuckle. Words such as “nut job, Looney Bin, cuckoo” are sprinkled throughout the dialogue — less viewers forget that nothing is more frightening than someone with a mental disorder.
Three men have the authority to stop the showing of this episode and two of them should know better than to air such hurtful garbage.
The trio are Bob Iger, the chairman and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company; Ben Sherwood, co-chairman of Disney Media Networks, and President, Disney-ABC Television Group, and Paul Lee, head of ABC Entertainment Group, which oversees the television network ABC and its production arm ABC Studios.
In June 2012, Steven Spielberg, Founder of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, presented Iger with the Institute’s highest honor, the Ambassador for Humanity Award. Iger was recognized for his support of the Institute’s work, his longtime philanthropy, and his leadership role in corporate citizenship.
The Institute for Visual History and Education is dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides a compelling voice for education and action. Has Mr. Iger forgotten that in addition to targeting members of the Jewish faith, the Nazi’s murdered “persons who suffered from diseases considered hereditary, such as mental illness (schizophrenia and manic depression), retardation (“congenital feeble-mindedness”), physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, and severe alcoholism?” (1)
How does showing a television episode that belittles and marginalizes persons with mental illness for a belly laugh fit with someone who is an ambassador for humanity? I would encourage you to ask that question in an email to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education,
Ben Sherwood is a former journalist and author, whose best known book is The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life. As part of his book promotion, he created a website that proclaims:
“The Survivors Club is an American online resource center and social networking website that provides information and support for people confronting life-changing adversity such as depression, alcoholism, breast cancer, divorce and bereavement.
Ben Sherwood
How does that lofty goal fit with the airing of a television program that dehumanizes individuals with mental disorders? That’s another question that should be asked of the Survivor’s Club on its webpage.
After this offensive program aired last year, NAMI officials contacted ABC executives who now report to Paul Lee. Those officials assured NAMI that the network didn’t mean to offend mental health groups. In knowingly deciding to rebroadcast this episode Wednesday night, Lee and his people are thumbing their noses at NAMI and those of us who care about persons with mental disorders.
Shame on them!
I am identifying these three men because it is too easy for Disney/ABC to hide behind their publicists. The persons being hurt by the airing of this show have human faces and so do those who are responsible for this sort of stigmatizing programming. I wonder if Bob Iger, Ben Sherwood, and Paul Lee know anyone who is living with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe and persistent depression? If they do, perhaps they should invite them into their homes Wednesday night so that they can have a real live “nut job” to laugh at like just as the characters in Modern Family do. Perhaps then they would understand how hurtful this episode is to persons living with mental disorders and those of us who love them.
Iger and Sherwood have proven records of concern about persons who are suffering and marginalized. It is sad that they would put those reputations at risk over such a pathetic episode.
Please share this blog. NAMI suggests that you participate in the following:
Join the Twitter conversation at #unmodernfamily
Give ABC feedback at http://abc.go.com/feedback Let them know that stigma is real. Modern Family is unmodern in its portrayal of mental illness.
Post the NAMI press release on Facebook along with the Twitter hashtag
Send a copy of the release to the Station Managers and/or News Directors of local ABC stations. Ask them to drop the episode. Ask them to air a story on Wednesday’s newscasts to discuss the impact of stigma on the nation’s mental health crisis.
Here is my original blog post. (Anne Sweeney has since left the network.)
Disney/ABC Marginalizes Mental Illness In Tasteless Modern Family Episode
An Open Letter to Anne Sweeney, Co-Chair Disney Media Networks President, Disney/ABC Television Group
Dear Ms. Sweeney,
I am writing to ask why Disney/ABC Television ridiculed and marginalized our nation’s veterans and millions of other Americans during the October 29th broadcast of its prime time television show, Modern Family.
Twenty-two veterans commit suicide each day in our nation. Nearly all have a diagnosable mental illness. Many have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that they suffered fighting for your safety and freedom. Yet, the writers of Modern Family:Halloween 3: AwesomeLand decided to make these proud warriors the butt of belittling jokes.
In the episode, Claire Dunphy decides to create the most frightening house in her neighborhood by transforming her front yard into a “scary insane asylum” complete with “deranged mental patients,” a “sadistic nurse” and “demented doctor.” The episode features daughter Alex chained to a hospital bed and Luke wearing a straight jacket – images that are intended to make viewers chuckle. Words such as “nut job, Looney Bin, cuckoo” are sprinkled throughout the dialogue — less viewers forget that nothing is more frightening than someone with a mental disorder.
The episode’s writers clearly understood their script was demeaning to individuals with mental illnesses. As part of a plot twist, the Dunphy’s neighbor, Amber, “goes ballistic” and has her feeling hurt by the front yard display because she once was in an “insane asylum” for six months. Her husband tells viewers that he will calm her down by giving her a box of cereal and putting her in front of a fish tank, further portraying her mental condition as a joke. But don’t worry, Amber’s claim turns out to be a ruse. She really wasn’t one of those “whack jobs.”
Is it any wonder that individuals who have a mental illness, such as my son, often are reluctant to seek treatment because of stigma associated with their disorders? Is it any wonder that employers are reluctant to hire persons with mental illnesses, such as my son, because of untrue perceptions fostered by shows such as yours? (Persons with mental illnesses are no more likely to be dangerous than anyone else and, in fact, are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.) Is it any wonder that our wounded warriors suffer in silence because they are afraid that if they reveal they are having re-occurring nightmares or suicidal thoughts they will be fingered as one of those deranged patients your writers were so quick to skewer? Do you realize that 40% of the first responders after the Twin Towers collapsed during 9/11 developed PTSD? Perhaps your writers would like to write a sequel episode ridiculing Robin Williams.
Words matter. And your writers’ words hurt people and fostered prejudice.
NAMI released this press release this morning.
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