Mental-Health Advocates Shutting Down ‘Psycho-Ward’ Halloween Themes
Everything is off-limits for the easily offended.
10.31.2016
11
Monday is Halloween, and that means it’s time for the psych ward to empty a bunch of maniacal patients into the streets to terrorize the neighborhood. But not so fast, says mental-health advocates, it’s time to stop misrepresenting the mentally ill as something to be feared.
As political correctness continues to lurch forward unfettered across the nation, Halloween attractions and costumes have come under fire for its negative depictions of mental health patients. In many cases, the complaints are working, and asylum-themed haunted houses are being shut down, and costumes are being pulled from shelves.
The Washington Post spoke with Joubert, a college freshman who was diagnosed at 15 with dissociative identity disorder (which has been renamed from multiple personality disorder because now that’s offensive, too, apparently). Joubert was bothered by an asylum-based attraction she saw at an amusement park:
“One thing that stuck out to me is that one of the actors said, ‘The voices in my head are telling me you’re going to die.’ That stuck out to me. I hear voices and it made me feel like I was being misrepresented,” she said. But even more than that, she said, she feared that the gross dramatization of inpatient facilities will scare people, especially teens like herself, from seeking help.There are examples of asylum-based Halloween attractions all over the country. Every year at this time, right next to the chainsaw-wielding masked men and flesh-eating zombies, are the mental hospital patients. The message isn’t subtle: People with mental illness are to be feared.But this year, under pressure from mental-health advocates, haunted attractions big and small have begun to change names and descriptions of — or have shut down completely — scenes that depicted mental illness as frightening. The activism is part of a broader, burgeoning movement to lift the stigma about mental illness, which has long led to social and employment discrimination.
Complaints such as Joubert’s caused that attraction, “7th Ward Asylum,” to be renamed “Urgent Scare.” But for others, the doors have been shuttered as the Post notes:
Recently, Cedar Fair, which operates 13 parks across the country, shut down an attraction called “FearVR: 5150,” featured at its parks in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto, after a father — whose son with schizophrenia was beaten to death by police — called attention to it, according to the Los Angeles Times. The attraction got its name from the California police code 5150 for when someone is suspected of having a mental-health condition.A Cedar Fair Entertainment spokesperson said in an email that its “evening attractions are designed to be edgy, and are aimed at an adult-only audience.” The spokesman said the intent was “never to portray mental illness,” but it closed the attraction because it was “impossible to address both concerns and misconceptions in the Halloween time frame.”
Another example in the report is of a mother who took “her two young children to a Halloween theme park” in Missouri and saw an attraction called “Asylum Island.” The mom said she had to explain to her kids that shock treatments and lobotomies aren’t things mental illness patients like herself normally go through:
“'Mom has an illness, you’ve met friends of mine that have an illness.' I felt frustrated, I try so hard to destigmatize mental illness that I found it so frustrating that these images are still out there.”
Again, the park closed that attraction and one nearby after a few complaints. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) keeps a running list of offenses from parks and civic centers across America.
Six Flags is feeling that pressure and renaming some of its attractions, like “Psycho-Path Haunted Asylum” to “The Forgotten Laboratory.” Also, the company changed the description of its “Massacre Medical Center” in Illinois from “local asylum” to “local medical center.” A spokesperson said, “Fright Fest is a long-time staple at our parks, and our haunted attractions are designed for entertainment purposes only. When we realized that some of the theming and descriptions might have perpetrated certain stereotypes, we took immediate action as it was never our intention to offend.”
Those crying discrimination are equating this misrepresentation to products like Aunt Jemima syrup and using images of blackface as some companies did in early 20th-century advertising.
Costumes are getting the boot, too. No longer is it acceptable to wear a straightjacket or be strapped to a hospital bed. Walmart was forced to remove a “suicide scar wound” application from its website and the costume company who made it pulled it from theirs, as well. Both companies apologized.
NAMI spokesperson Mary Giliberti said:
“This isn’t just about feelings, it’s about health care. I think many people who have these conditions realize there is a social discrimination and stigma against them and they internalize that … then to come to a ride and have that reinforced. You know this would never happen for other health conditions. You wouldn’t have a Halloween attraction about a cancer ward. It is mocking something that is a very serious illness.“I realize that some think our protests are political correctness run amok but when you know people who are afraid of seeking treatment because they don’t want to be seen as ‘loonies,’ you understand just how harmful these costumes can be.”
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