One of the greatest taboos in my house when I was growing up was deriding people who are mentally challenged. Any derision which referenced a mental or physical disability was strongly frowned upon. To this day, I am careful, particularly in my parents company, about this. My father is a psychologist and dedicates his life to advocacy for people who are mentally and/or physically challenged.
I watched four episodes of Monk last night on DVD. The show is about “Former police detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub), whose photographic memory and amazing ability to piece together tiny clues made him a local legend, has suffered from intensified obsessive-compulsive disorder and a variety of phobias since the unsolved murder of his wife, Trudy, in 1997”. http://www.tv.com/monk/show/9130/summary.html
The show is quite funny and is thoroughly entertaining.
But, obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobic disorder are serious mental illnesses. I wonder about the appropriateness of this show. The primary entertainment values of this show are the fascinating detective work, and Monk’s struggle with his mental challenges; the former sets this show apart from other detective shows. I am not sure about this. Any thoughts from the audience?
2 comments:
Josh, I personally LOVE Monk. Yes, people laugh at his OCD and phobias on the show, but they still respect his abilities. More importantly, once you get past the humorous use of the OCD/phobias on the show, you see a man and a group of friends/co-workers who can still function and produce results while working around these issues. Monk even performs better because of his issues.
New season starts on July 18 - can't wait!
There is a very funny show called The Big Bang Theory, the main character has asperger's (they don't say so, but it's pretty obvious), and it's really funny. Aspergers is kind of like a mild form of autism.
I think we can laugh at mental illness; but not the Holocaust (based on a recent experience where I told a Holocaust joke and it didn't go over too well).
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