About a year ago, I wrote an essay for the online magazine The High Hat on the depictions of mental illness in film and television over the years — you can find that essay here. However, a few months earlier, I’d done a radio show on the very same subject with my friend and fellow cinemaphile Molly McAshan on that same topic. The original broadcast was split into a few parts since we were in the midst of a station pledge drive at the time, but I’ve condensed the show for your listening pleasure. As a mental-health professional in Chicago, Molly has a great deal of insight on the challenges that actual psychologists and psychiatrists face. (Do therapists typically have therapists of their own, a la Dr. Melfi in The Sopranos? Molly says yes.) She also has a film blog called Celluloitering, which I’d recommend even if she did give a thumbs-up to Burn After Reading. (I know, I know — but I think the Coen Brothers are overrated. I realize I’m in the minority on this one…) [Originally broadcast on WLUW’s Under Surveillance in 2007.]
- December 30, 2009
Mental Illness in Popular Culture, w/guest Molly McAshan
Kevin Fullam is a writer and researcher, with extensive experience in fields ranging from sports analytics to politics and cinema.
In addition, he has hosted two long-running radio series on film and culture, and taught mass media at Loyola University.
Episodes of his two shows, Split Reel and Under Surveillance, are archived on the Radio page.