Published: September 05, 2008 02:16 am            

STAWAR: Still crazy, after all these years

Whenever my wife Diane and I drive up to Wisconsin, just outside of Chicago, we always see these billboards, advertising “Crazy Kaplan’s” fireworks. Their slogan is “Buy one, get six free.”

Each billboard is illustrated with a drawing of a frightening-looking man with unkempt hair, protruding tongue and bulging eyes. And of course, for the coup de grace, he is wearing a laced-up straitjacket. Most people today think such ads are highly offensive, but others still take such marketing in stride since it has been around for a long time.

This style of advertising was popularized in the early 1970s with the “Crazy Eddie” television commercials for a chain of New England electronics stores.

“The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening spoofed the genre in his science-fiction cartoon series “Futurama,” featuring a robot car dealer named “Malfunctioning Eddie,” whose head actually explodes. Fellow cartoonist Ruben Bolling delved deeper into bad taste with his character “Crazy Morty,” a retailer whose disjointed and incoherent advertisements include a statement from his psychiatrist, affirming that Mort is “clinically insane” and thus incapable of setting prices related to the value of the items he sells.

Given his self-conferred nickname, it is not surprising that “Weird Al” Yankovic also satirized the motif in his film “UHF,” a movie about a low-budget TV station that includes the mandatory psychotic used car pitchman, in this case one named “Crazy Ernie.”

Even one of my favorite authors, outdoors humorist Pat MacManus, defies political correctness with his character, “Crazy” Eddie Muldoon, Pat’s childhood crony and partner in crime.

“Crazy” may still be a perfectly good word when referring to something that is “foolish, impractical, or senseless,” but it is not such a good way to refer to people with mental disorders.

Unfortunately many of these advertisements go out of their way to perpetuate the stereotype of people with mental disorders as dirty, unpredictable and, most of all, dangerous. Like the terms moron and imbecile, crazy has evolved into a very destructive pejorative that can be used to harm others in a variety of ways.

You might think these notions are alarmist and such things simply cannot happen in this day and age.

As a case in point, however, I recently was given a copy of a letter written by a presumably educated and sophisticated senior executive who represents a local branch office of a national marketing concern located adjacent to a treatment center.

In this letter the executive characterized the mental health clients her employees came in contact with as not only “a frightening lot,” but also as “lewd, crazy, dirty, unkempt and discourteous.” These people were further described as “unsavory, loud and obnoxious” as opposed to her savory employees who were portrayed as “professional, clean, organized and courteous.” She also wrote that her employees “fear for their lives on a daily basis,” were afraid to walk to their cars at night and did not want to use the same bathrooms as that “type of people.”

The real tragedy is that this person doesn’t seem to realize that “type of people” is really just us. It might be you, me, her or even one of her frightened employees. And if it isn’t any of us, at this moment in time, they most certainly are found among our neighbors, friends, relatives and loved ones.

It is important to remember that one in every five people will have a mental disorder at some point in their lives. Mental illness is one of the leading health challenges and causes of disability today, directly effecting more than 450 million people, as well as their friends and families. Effective treatment is available in most cases, but one-half to two-thirds of people never seek the assistance they need. Embarrassment and stigma are still a formidable barrier for many people seeking help.

Dr. David Satcher, the former Surgeon General of the United States said in his 1999 Report on Mental Health, “Stigma ... appears as prejudice and discrimination, fear, distrust and stereotyping. It prompts many people to avoid working, socializing and living with people who have a mental disorder. Stigma impedes people from seeking help for fear the confidentiality of their diagnosis or treatment will be breached.”

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill’s StigmaBuster program seeks to eliminate discrimination and stigma “by encouraging individual action to change public attitudes from fear, rejection and isolation to acceptance, understanding and support.”

The group urges the public to actively protest prejudice and stereotypes in the media by contacting the editors, authors, station managers and sponsors, telling them when a publication or broadcast is misleading or if it offends or harms people with mental illnesses.

They also recommend that people communicate with company CEOs and local store managers when they see offensive advertising and commercial products like T-shirts and bumper stickers.

Other NAMI stigma busting strategies include having members and supporters write to commend outlets that provide accurate information and a depiction to improve the public’s understanding of mental illness and reaching out to civic groups and associations to enlist their support.

However, despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, public educational campaigns by NAMI, as well as other advocates, fear and stereotyping are still rampant. There is still much to be done. As Surgeon General Satcher has said, “For our nation to reduce the burden of mental illness, to improve access to care, stigma must no longer be tolerated.”

Terry L. Stawar, Ed.D. lives in Georgetown and is the CEO of LifeSpring the local community mental health center in Jeffersonville. He can be reached at tstawar@lifespr.com or 812-206-1234. Listen to his Welcome to Planet-Terry podcast this fall at www.lifepr.com.

        

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