A rebuttal about ASM #390 Part 3-Depictions of mental illness in fiction
Click here to check out part 1 or click here to check out part 2.
If we look at everything I’ve said and then think about this realistically, then surely it means a lot (perhaps even most) comic book super villains shouldn’t be as demonised as they are, or regarded as ‘evil’ as they are?
Surely the Joker, Carnage, Venom, Norman Osborn and who knows how many other bad guys, are simply victims of their own mental illnesses and so are the people they themselves victimise? Surely they should receive help too and be treated like Shriek?
Well…those are interesting questions.
I’d say we’d have to compare each character individually to make that assessment.
But…there is an inherent problem…this is fiction.
This is yet another reason I was severely opposed to the fan on this podcast looking at the situation in this comic book and then using it as the starting point to put out his own beliefs about mentally ill criminals.
ASM #390, and indeed the majority of comic books and all forms of media in fact, rarely have an accurate depiction of mental illnesses or the people who cope with them, in particular when it comes to those whose criminal behaviour is linked with their illnesses. For these reasons it’s completely disingenuous to seriously use it as the basis for discussion of real life efforts to reform the criminals with mental illnesses.
Fictional portrayals of life, relative realism and suspended disbelief
I will try to keep this compact but it’s important for context.
Essentially many writers (including those of comic books) concern themselves with making stories, with entertaining and/or making a statement. However very often that involves a less than realistic depiction of various aspects of life.
Super hero comic books are of course notorious (especially in the Silver Age of the 1950s-1970s) for having bombastic entirely unrealistic pseudo-science which even back in the day made no sense.
One need only glance over the Marvel pantheon in the 1960s for countless examples of this. The overwhelming majority of characters (including Spider-Man of course) obtained their abilities through some kind of exposure to radiation. Radiation was the catch all way of developing super powers. Even the X-Men, who were said to be born with their abilities, initially were supposed to have ties to radiation. Of course the depiction of radiation even in the 1960s was ludicrous and highly inaccurate. I mean Peter Parker attended an open air radiation experiment in the middle of New York City in 1962. That would NEVER have happened!
As time went by of course comic books became more realistic and their depictions of science became more believable. Notice I said ‘more realistic’ and ‘more believable’ because the truth is even today there is still a certain amount of suspended disbelief and an understanding that the realism we’re getting is not truly realistic but a kind of ‘relative’ realism. After all Peter Parker obtaining powers through a ‘genetically altered spider bite’ might be less out there than a ‘radioactive spider bite’, but it’s still completely silly from a scientific point of view.
But it’s accepted for entertainment purposes and to tell a good story, the same way the laws of physics are routinely violated in comics, films and TV shows.
Even things which don’t involve people with super powers often depict people enduring experiences which should realistically mentally or physically damage them far more than they seem too. A testament to this are the countless Hollywood action movies depicting people running, jumping, landing, fighting and crashing with minimal injury or otherwise show them nonchalantly walking away whilst explosions occur in the background leaving them unharmed.
We accept this because every story and genre has its own rules it plays by and its own ‘levels’ of ‘relative realism’. However this doesn’t mean anything and everything goes, as some elements of a story might stretch things too far and go beyond the ‘relative realism’ a story or genre has established for itself.
Understanding mental illness in fiction
Why am I talking about all this? Because it’s important to understand the issue at hand.
Basically in the same way comic book writers have not exactly got an accurate grasp on science or the legal practice they don’t have a particularly good grasp of psychology either. At least not in terms of identifying and depicting mental illnesses.
Often the terms “insane” or “psychotic” or “deluded” are thrown around incorrectly or inappropriately because the writers don’t actually understand what those terms mean.
E.g. a personal pet peeve of mine (which I've inherited from my mother) is how almost EVERY use of the term ‘schizophrenic’ in pop culture is intended to mean people with more than one personality, which is completely incorrect. Multiple Personality Disorder is (one of) the correct term(s) for people with that mental illness and schizophrenia is something completely different. Norman Bates in “Psycho” had Multiple Personality Disorder. Russel Crowe (playing John Nash) in “A Beautiful Mind” had schizophrenia.
Another example is the fact that the term ‘insane’ is thrown around very casually in describing characters (typically villains) when in reality that is a legal term and not a medical one.
Because of this most depictions of people with mental illnesses in media are highly inaccurate to real life, often mixing and matching various symptoms and conditions which actually don’t go together. A super villain might display signs associated with ‘mental illness A’ but other signs associated with ‘mental illness B’, even though it’s impossible/unlikely that they could have both mental illnesses and therefore wouldn’t have those signs.
In particular the use of terms like ‘psychopath’ or ‘sociopath’ are highly dubious because the definition of psychopathy has varied throughout the ages and continuous to do so even today.
And yet despite being unrealistic (to varying degrees), ‘psychopathic’ characters like Hannibal Lecter, the Joker, Norman Bates and Lord Voldemort have been around for centuries in fiction and more often than not fulfill the role of villains in a story.
In fact, because they say it much better than me, I will quote the Wikipedia article about fictional portrayals of psychopaths:
Fictional portrayals of psychopaths, or sociopaths, are some of the most notorious in film and literature but may only vaguely or partly relate to the concept of psychopathy, which is itself used with varying definitions by mental health professionals, criminologists and others. The character may be identified as a diagnosed/assessed psychopath or sociopath within the fictional work itself, or by its creator when discussing their intentions with the work, which might be distinguished from opinions of audiences or critics based only on a character appearing to show traits or behaviors associated with an undefined popular stereotype of psychopathy.
Such characters are often portrayed in an exaggerated fashion and typically in the role of a villain or antihero, where the general characteristics of a psychopath are useful to facilitate conflict and danger. Because the definitions and criteria in the history of psychopathy have varied over the years and continue to change even now, many characters in notable films may have been designed to fall under the category of a psychopath at the time of the film’s production or release, but not necessarily in subsequent years. There are several stereotypical images of psychopathy in both lay and professional accounts which only partly overlap and can involve contradictory traits: the charming con artist, the deranged serial killer, the successful corporate psychopath, or the chronic low-level offender with Juvenile delinquency. The public concept reflects some combination of fear of the mythical bogeyman, fascination with human evil, and sometimes perhaps envy of people who might appear to go through life unencumbered by the same levels of guilt, anguish or insecurity.
Comic book villains are especially bad at being accurate because they have been around so long and have passed through so many writers the depictions of their illnesses and symptoms have varied widely making it hard to make proper diagnoses of what illnesses or conditions they have.
Crazy villains are still entertaining
Now there are a few caveats to all this:
a) None of the above means psychologically analysing these characters is a pointless effort. It can still be fun and can still help us rationalise, explain and understand the characters even if they’re not truly accurate to life
b) A character can be unrealistic whilst still being psychologically complex. Spider-Man himself is incredibly complex as a character but realistically he should’ve had a mental break down at age 15.
c) Just because they’re unrealistic to varying degrees doesn’t necessarily make these types of characters suck. They’re extrapolations and exaggerations intended to entertain and tell a story. And it’s pretty obvious they’ve been effective at that since so many of them are iconic villains.
The heroes are just the same. In real life few people are as honestly heroic and noble as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, etc, and few people could sincerely keep going in the face of such tremendous tragedies they’ve faced.
But the fact that they do persevere is entertaining/inspiring and intended as an extrapolation/exaggeration of the best aspects of humanity. It’s been a function of fictional heroes dating back to the oldest myths and legends. E.g. when taken together the 12 Labours of Herakles/Hercules are about ultimately about the perseverance of humanity, told through the story of super human being performing super human feats which are a metaphor for the more mundane 'labours' we all have to endure and struggle through.
Distinguishing the insane villains from the sane ones
This all ties back to what I was saying about relative realism.
Like I said every series, story or genre has its own ‘levels of relative realism’ that provide a context for the stories at hand.
Within the context of the relative realism of Spider-Man comics Peter Parker and Roderick Kingsley are understood to be perfectly sane but Norman Osborn is identified as being a deranged lunatic.
If however we treated Peter and Kingsley as totally realistic we might have cause to question Peter’s sanity given what he does as Spider-Man and the risks he takes. This isn’t to say that realistically he 100% has a mental illness or condition of some kind but it’s something that’s more questionable in the real world than within the fictional context of his own comics where he is (to all intents and purposes) understood to be in his right mind.
Roderick Kingsley however is often touted as being the ‘sane’ Goblin in his identity as the Hobgoblin. But when you really look at his character realistically the fact that he dresses up in a lurid orange Halloween costume, rides around the city on a glider and throws bombs at people in a bid to increase his financial wealth and power is obviously very alarming and makes us question his sanity.
More than this if we looked at Kingsley truly realistically he honestly does have psychopathic tendencies. The biggest ones being his cold indifference to murder and his lack of remorse. When he kills his decoys Ned Leeds and Lefty Donovan and his henchman Georgie he displays no sadness or remorse for these actions at all. He doesn’t even think about them afterwards and went so far as to mock Ned’s widow after cruelly telling her how he destroyed her husband and their marriage (though she had a hand in that too but that’s not the point). He’s never in fact shown much (if any) true empathy in his fictional life.
But within the context of the Spider-Man comics Kingsley’s depiction is understood to be that of someone who is not a psychopath and not insane. This is because within the world of Spider-Man, Marvel comics and super hero comics generally the term ‘psychopath’ or ‘insane’ is reserved for maniacal mad men like the Joker and Norman Osborn. Kingsley by contrast is understood to be entirely sane and is just kinda a nasty piece of work and a bad guy because…well because he just is.
Is that unrealistic and simplistic? Perhaps so, but also perfectly acceptable within the realms of superhero comics.
Which then brings me back around to my original points.
Are the Joker, Norman Osborn, Venom and Carnage blameless for their crimes?
Are they’re victims the victims of an illness and not of a person?
Is it wrong for the comics and us fans to view them as ‘the bad guys’ and want to see them get their comeuppance?
Are they not after all just like Shriek in this story?
The answers depend upon each character and I’m not going to sit here and psychologically profile all of them to make a decision.
I will just briefly touch upon Norman and Carnage as extreme examples.
With Carnage, his alter ego of Cletus Kasaday literally was born with a desire to hurt people and be cruel to them. So in a way one could argue he genuinely is blameless for his crimes because he couldn’t help but be born that way. And he was certainly deemed legally insane by virtue of his imprisonment in Ravencroft right?
Well that’s the iffy thing because when Kasaday first debuted he was in a normal prison alongside Eddie Brock.
Now Brock is undeniably mentally ill and belongs in an institution since he literally sees things which aren’t there and remembers events differently from how they occurred. In addition Kasaday was modelled upon the Joker who I think we can all agree is definitely mentally ill and belongs in Arkham Asylum.
One might argue that in placing Kasaday in a normal prison, it was just David Michelinie (co-creator of Carnage) simply not understanding legal conventions or mental illnesses. Alternatively maybe there was just a miscarriage of justice and both men were placed where they didn’t belong.
On a final point Carnage has repeatedly shown that he is honestly waaaaaaaaay beyond help of any kind. Short of a fictional cheat involving super powers or pseudo-science, no one can sincerely reform Kasaday and no one can stop him from wanting to kill and torment people.
Additionally Carnage’s perception of reality seems to be more accurate than Shriek’s for the most part (though I’m no Carnage expert so please correct me if I’ve got that wrong). This would seemingly indicate he was more aware of what he was doing when he was killing everyone. It was more his moral compass either didn’t exist or that he was just born with a predisposition towards violence he couldn’t control; although he did seem to really enjoy himself and plan his actions out to an extent now didn’t he?
So for those reasons he is in a different boat from Shriek who not only was not born with a mental illness (as far as we know) but also in this story shows promising signs that she can be reformed. Basically Kafka is justified in trying to help Shriek but with Carnage it is a genuine waste of time, but even then she doesn’t KNOW that until she tries.
Norman is a very tough nut to crack because how much of his actions are because of his mental illnesses and how much is really just down to him is very up in the air.
I mean Norman’s illnesses might’ve given him an idea or aspiration for power but what he did in pursuit of that might’ve been more of his own volition than because his illnesses were making him do those things.
With Gwen Stacy’s death for instance was that the work of a man who was being influenced by a mental illness or was it the work of someone just lashing out due to frustration, spitefulness and a desire for revenge (none of which indicate someone is ‘insane’)?
Were his efforts to destroy Peter Parker the work of a true psychopath or a man with a serious vendetta who just so happened to be mentally ill anyway?
Complicating matters is the fact that Norman was “insane” long before he obtained the Goblin formula but he had inhibitions which meant he didn’t go around killing or torturing people or anything. Furthermore it’s hard to figure out if his mental illnesses and issues came about because he was born with them or if he developed them due to his upbringing or a combination thereof.
It’s hard to say really but for what it is worth when imprisoned in Marvel Knights Spider-Man Norman was NOT sent to a mental institution but to a super villain prison alongside people like the Rhino who are definitely not mentally ill. This might mean that as far as the authorities were concerned Norman might’ve been mentally ill but his illnesses didn’t diminish his responsibility for his criminal behaviour.
Additionally, contrary to some dodgy depictions in "The Pulse", "Dark Reign" and "Siege", Norman has rarely genuinely displayed a diminished sense of reality.
Whilst Shriek believes herself to be the mother of a man too old to be her son and in spite of her never being pregnant, Norman has never seen things which weren’t there or wholesale believed things which didn’t happen.
Yes he saw visions during the Lee and Conway runs but that was symbolic of his amnesia clearing up. When Norman remembered he was the Goblin he saw reality just like you or me. As in he wasn’t seeing pink elephants running around and he could probably remember he did x, then y, then z the day before last.
Whilst Norman has rewritten his past to varying degrees (like his claims that he was a good father, that Peter killed Harry, etc) that’s less him being crazy and thinking things that didn’t happen, and more the fact that he is colouring his memories and the situation in such a way to suit him.
When he remembers raising Harry he remembers giving him a bicycle and never being around much but he spins those memories in such a way to paint himself as a busy man as opposed to a neglectful and abusive father because of course he won’t accept blame for his actions. He is perfectly aware Harry died from using a toxic variant of the Goblin formula and that Peter didn’t like stab Harry to death or anything. But because he hates Peter he is still going to blame him and in his eyes Peter ‘killed’ Harry.
Now yes Norman did see and think things which weren’t there or didn’t really happen during ‘the Final Chapter’ storyline but in that storyline he was literally given the ‘gift’ of madness so we can’t really evaluate him and his actions on that basis. In fact now I think about it anytime he’s seen visions or hallucinations after that storyline could probably be chalked up to the after effects of the ‘Gathering of Five’ as opposed to his original mental illnesses.
And lest we forget, after the ‘Final Chapter’ he was given treatment and special patches in the ‘Revenge of the Green Goblin’ storyline which restored his sanity to at least where it had been before ‘the Final Chapter’. Potentially it might even have given him a handle on his other mental illnesses as well (to an extent). And yet despite that he was still a twisted and nasty piece of work who killed his doctor and attempted to break Spider-Man’s mind to make him his ‘son’.
Now, technically since he’s never directly gone to therapy or tried to ever deal with his problems we don’t actually know if Norman is a hopeless case. However…I’d be willing to bet he is beyond help and cannot change. Because of this and the fact that he doesn’t actually have a diminished sense of reality Norman is ‘worse’ than Shriek and less deserving of help than she was.
Did his illnesses mean he is completely undeserving of help and should be completely condemned for his actions?
I don’t know because we’d almost have to see what he’d act like without his mental illnesses. But for my money…he’d actually still be a pretty bad guy and probably would still the vengeful bastard he’s always been.
Realism vs. Relative Realism
I’m talking about Norman and Carnage in realistic terms. I’m talking about their chances for redemption and reforming from a real world point of view. I’m talking about how much blame they truly deserve and whether we should regard them as truly bad or truly irredeemable as if they existed in the reality.
But within the context of superhero comics and the relative realism they inhabit…oh Hell no Norman and Carnage aren’t redeemable (at least they probably aren’t).
And yes we should 100% look at them as bad guys worthy of comeuppance at the hands of our heroes who should pay for their crimes.
As complex as Norman is, as much as he might love his son or his girlfriends and his dead wife in very warped ways, he is bad.
He represents the archetype of the murderous, insane, psychopathic, sadistic, megalomaniacal villain. Those types of people aren’t realistic and if they were we wouldn’t treat them the way we do in comic books, but within comic books it’s perfectly justified to indeed treat those archetypes as the bad guys.
It’s perfectly justified to enjoy seeing them do bad things and want to see the heroes fight and triumph over them.
Again, it doesn’t apply to EVERY character because every character should be taken as an individual.
So in this specific case (ASM #390) Shriek is ‘insane’ and 'a bad guy' but with a chance at redemption, thus Kafka is justified in trying to help her.
It is all but certain though that Norman, Carnage, Venom and Joker are all indeed beyond redemption, should be blamed for the atrocities they commit, and should be understood as ‘bad’ because they are ‘insane’, and that insanity contributed to them committing those crimes.
That doesn’t mean we should take those attitudes into the real world but within the context of our super hero fiction, yeah that’s how we should handle and think about this topic.
And we’ve been applying that mentality to this genre for so long (almost from the early days of the Golden Age) that at this point it’s an integral part and trope of the genre we can’t just change on a whim.
Essentially the Joker should still act like the Joker and should still be treated as he has been and that treatment includes the understanding that he’s to all intents and purposes, evil.
