Here's Bradley Cooper depicting Pat, from Silver Linings Playbook, with Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and an all-star cast:
And here's Bud Clayman in OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive, Major Depression, Bipolar, Asperger's Movie
What's the difference, besides Bradley Cooper being an actor who can quickly move on to The Hangover, Part Eleventy-Seven, or the next Hollywood flick?
Not so very much. As I discovered when my friend Sidney Patrick and I caught a showing of OC 87 on my birthday last June, BC (Bud Clayman) was sexy, charming, and smart... before mental illness tackled him.
There is no vaccine against mental illness.
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| Cover of Catherine Zeta-Jones |
It is not nearly as glamorous in real life as in the Hollywood version.
Drugs have real side effects, like weight gain and sleepiness, which is why many mentally ill people resist or refuse to take them. They also have real co$t$, which is why some people who would take them, if they could only afford then, aren't on their meds, or are taking half the recommended dosage.
I was blown away by the lineup of pill bottles prescribed to Bud Clayman, to keep him approaching normalcy.
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| via OC87 |
Wheelchair Warriors Are Our Heroes. The Mentally Disabled? Not so much.
Except in Hollywood. Hollywood loves the Drama of Mental Illness. But it generally glosses over the ugly dangly bits. Casts glamorous actors and actresses in the parts of the mentally ill, and almost never allows them to get fat, too dirty, or otherwise unphotogenic.
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| Cover of Girl, Interrupted |
- Psycho
- Sybil
- A Beautiful Mind
- Girl, Interrupted
- Rainman
- The Fisher King
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Black Swan
- Matchstick Men
- The Aviator
- Fatal Attraction
- Lars and the Real Girl
There are hundreds more.
IRL (In Real Life), the people struggling with mental illness or developmental disabilities, like autism, can't call "cut" at the end of the scene and go back to "being normal."
I very much enjoyed Silver Linings Playbooks, which I caught on my friend Sid's birthday weekend. Sadly, unlike OC87 which she and I watched together on my birthday weekend, I had to see Silver Linings without her, because only a few months after OC87, the long term effects of living with a mentally disordered partner, and alcoholism, had taken Sid's life.
I encourage you to buy, rent, or stream, the much lesser known documentary OC87.
Today, you may be one of the few lucky ones, with no family members or loved ones affected. Tomorrow?
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