SiftPop

By Devan Meyer

We live in a golden age for representation in media, where marginalized voices are finally allowed to speak up and depict the reality of their situations. Fresh, innovative films from diverse filmmakers who are telling stories we’ve never seen put to film in such honest and realistic ways. Yet one background that continues to be left out and marginalized time and time again is the mental health and disabled communities, which, while making up 1 in 4 of the U.S. population, currently only represent about 2.5% of characters on film, with only a small percentage of that even being portrayed by legitimately disabled actors.

As someone who has lived my entire life with disabilities and mental health issues, having been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, ADD, OCD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression at a young age, I never saw much, if any, representation in the movies. If I did, it was in the villains, or the side characters you were never meant to relate to. And looking at the films still being released today it seems Hollywood is still stuck in the formulas of the past. 

When looking at the history of childhood mental illness in film, it has long been characterized by depicting two extremes – one the sappy, crowd-pleasing, inspirational end (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), and the other, the terrifying, homicidal-killer end (The Bad Seed, The Good Son). Both ends of the spectrum portray these children as borderline supernatural, with a fundamental misunderstanding of the effects mental illness really has on a child and their family. It is used as a plot device, to either manufacture a film that makes the audience cry or make them scream. Essentially, those who are “abnormal,” or disabled, in some way, in the minds of these writers, should be gawked at by the viewer—to be laughed at, or terrified of, or inspired by. 

In horror movies, the evil child trope, or enfant terrible, as it is called, is an adorable child–one who is quiet, isolated, socially awkward, and with murderous intentions. They look innocent on the outside but cannot be trusted. Like the trope of “the devil in plain sight,” they are always watching, but may never be caught, and usually enact their schemes in secret, under the protection of family and friends. 

This common horror movie trope, rooted from a dangerous stigma against those with mental disorders, stems from years of discrimination and forced hospitalization, separating those who appeared “different” or “off” from the rest as presenting a threat to the societal norm. In fact, it makes sense that the initial craze of the evil child trope began to trend after the mass deinstitutionalization of the 1960s, in which thousands of involuntarily-committed mental health patients were moved out of state-run insane asylums and began to integrate into community mental health centers and regular society. 

And, somehow, sixty years later, the trope is still nearly as prominent as it was in the heyday of Village of the Damned, with films like The Prodigy still receiving funding and grossing legitimate return-on-investment at the box office. Is it that the stigma against those with mental disorders still pervades the public consciousness to this day, or that we just refuse to let the past die?

This leads me to Brightburn, a movie with a reasonably intriguing premise–What if Superman came to Earth as a being of destruction—done in the worst possible way. 

The main character of our pseudo-Superman story is Brandon Breyer, a boy who is described many times as “different” and has “difficulties around other kids.” He’s reserved, neurotic, anxious, socially awkward, and a little obsessive about a certain object in the barn of his family’s farm. His foster parents—the substitute Ma and Pa Kent—are Tori and Kyle Breyer, one an overprotective Mom, the other a clueless Dad who is way in over his head but tries his best to connect to his kid. Now, anyone who lives in a family with a child with a mental disorder can see the parallels the writers are trying to create, which is what makes it so frustrating when everything about Brandon’s characterization is sloppy and vague.

There are a few moments when the writing felt like it was attempting something genuine, a story about the complicated issues presented by family life with a child with mental disorders. Brandon becomes upset at his birthday party when his parents won’t allow him to have the gun his uncle gifted him, and they have to leave unexpectedly; when Brandon is in school, he gets picked on for knowing too much about the subject matter, but develops a crush on the one girl who sticks up for him, and he doesn’t know how to cope with these new feelings; and Brandon’s parents are worried about the pictures he is hiding under his bed, leading to an awkward sex talk in which Brandon misunderstands his father’s advice.

However, any good will the film develops through these early interactions is immediately squandered by the loathsome turn of events that follow. After he discovers what is in that barn he is so attracted to, a sort of “evil switch” turns on in his brain. Brandon becomes a stalker in the night, then slaughters the mother of his crush when she disapproves of his actions. Through the next few nights, he embarks on a bloody rampage through the town, always evading capture from the police—or notice from his mother, who continues to protect him, even after his father grows suspicious. But enfant terrible strikes again – how could such a sweet little kid commit such gruesome crimes?

“Maybe there’s something wrong with Brandon,” Kyle says to his oblivious wife after the body count starts piling up. In this genre, there’s always something wrong with the evil child. Maybe they’re possessed, or ghosts, or a grown adult posing as a child, or just straight-up homicidal maniacs. But it’s never anything realor something that can be treated. There must be an us vs. them factor, something that divides the normal from the abnormal, the sane from the insane.

This is the seed that implants itself into audiences’ minds whenever another example of this unfashionable genre rolls out into cinemas every few months. They may seem harmless—as harmless as Brandon or the enfant terrible itself—but beneath the crowd-pleasing surface is something far more destructive. 

Now, I’m not insinuating the writers—Brian and Mark Gunn–intentionally meant to offend those with mental disorders. In fact, as I said, I think it’s more of a deep-seeded issue. The stigma is so ingrained into people who don’t live with it every day that they have to be reminded of it, and that’s OK. But it’s not something that can just be forgiven, either. The more we recognize it and call it out, the less it will happen again, and perhaps we’ll start to realize that us vs. them is really us vs. ourselves.

As I said before, I’ve never seen myself represented properly in any form of media. Really, how could I, when modern Hollywood isn’t even trying? But that doesn’t mean that in 10 years, Hollywood can’t turn this around and inspire the next generation of kids who grow up like me. The enfant terrible genre long outlasted its lifespan and was a product of outdated fearmongering tactics meant to further isolate people with mental disorders. It’s time for Hollywood to let go of the past and welcome fresh blood into the talent pool, made up of differently abled and neurologically diverse writers, directors, actors, and other crewmembers, to diversify the landscape, and truly allow representation and inclusivity for all.