When Girl, Interrupted was released in 1999, it was panned and mocked by critics. It was called boring, melodramatic, annoying and shallow, but the film ended up becoming a cult classic. Like Lana Del Rey, Thirteen, The Virgin Suicides and Sylvia Plath, it became emblematic of the sad girl archetype, now called Girl, Interrupted Syndrome. Contrast this reaction from critics with the reaction towards 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Considered a powerful piece of cinema, criticizing how psychiatry can be used to oppress those who violate social norms, the film was described as honest, powerful, sobering and profound. Both Girl, Interrupted and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest have a similar plot: a young person is admitted to inpatient psychiatric care in the late 1960s where they befriend the other patients who are subject to electroshock therapy and domineering staff and are confronted by the same question: what does it mean to be crazy anyways? Both films were based on books on the authors real life experiences in mental health facilities. So, why were these movies viewed so differently? The answer lies in the gender of the characters.
The term hysteria means ungovernable emotional excess and it used to be a medical diagnosis for women (female hysteria). The root of the word hysteria comes from the ancient Greek word for uterus. The ancient Egyptians attributed behavioural abnormalities in adult women to “a wandering uterus”. The ancient Greeks attributed this wandering uterus to a woman’s inability to bear children or unwillingness to marry. In the Middle Ages, women with hysteria were viewed as “evil minded” (Wikipedia). Freud and others in 19th and 20th centuries wanted to change the perception of hysteria. Freud applied the diagnosis to men (including himself) and associated it with childhood trauma, particularly sexual abuse. By the 20th century, diagnoses of depression and anxiety replaced the label of hysteria. Following WWI, somatic disorders which used to dominate among women were also being noticed in men, particularly those that were experiencing “shellshock”. In 1980 (yes, only in 1980 despite not having been used in decades), hysteria was removed from the DSM (the diagnostic manual of psychological disorders) (Wikipedia).
Even today, the spectre of hysteria lingers over how we view mental illness both in on screen and in real life. Think of all the thought pieces following the American election about the “male loneliness epidemic”. All of these pieces were written with compassion, seriousness and notably and did not mock or blame the subjects they were writing about. Now, think about how loneliness in women is discussed in the media. The cat lady archetype comes to mind (Wikipedia). From JD Vance to The Simpsons, the crazy cat lady is almost used as a cautionary tale to women—don’t marry or have children and you’ll go crazy alone with all your cats (Andrew, 2024). Again, like how hysteria in women was associated with being unmarried or childless, loneliness or mental illness in women is seen as a personal and moral failing and can only be cured by marrying a man and having children.
Other examples are more pernicious, figuring in everyday speech. Have you (if you are a woman) been upset or gotten into an argument with a man and they tell you (often mockingly) “Are you on your period?” (Ochoa, 2019). This presumption, that female reproductive organs are responsible for any alteration in a woman’s mood, harkens back to the beliefs of ancients, that women being anything other than docile and sweet is “unnatural” and due to funky things happening in their uterus. Again, we see how this archaic misogyny still permeates in language. This isn’t helped by film and TV, which perpetuates the notion that when women are angry with men, it is caused by menstruation, such as in season 3 of Modern Family in the episode Leap Day.
Circling back to Girl, Interrupted, why are women’s struggles with mental health deemed “shallow” or “melodramatic”? I’d argue that it has to do with how psychological disorders most common in women are portrayed in media. Can you guess which psychological disorder has the highest mortality rate? If you said Anorexia Nervosa, you’d be correct (Barlow, 2024). In movies, TV and online, Anorexia is portrayed as a consequence of extreme vanity, a malady of privilege, of wealthy white women in their mansions. This is not only extremely stigmatizing and inaccurate, but misogynistic when you consider that over 90% of patients with anorexia are young women (Barlow, 2024). Even more concerning is that Anorexia Nervosa is one of the only psychological disorders mostly caused by sociocultural factors (Barlow, 2024); family, friends, fashion and media. Teenage girls are especially susceptible to the ‘thin is best’ messaging, when their developing bodies are no longer matching up to the ideal. When men on podcasts are broadcasting that women who do not look like the ideal should ‘be humbled’ and ‘will never find a man’, no wonder so many young girl’s biggest fear is being overweight. Moreover, think of how Borderline Personality Disorder, again more prevalent among women than men, is reduced in the media to the “crazy ex-girlfriend” stereotype (Savin, 2019).
In conclusion, as long as women who are struggling with their mental health are viewed through the lens of hysteria, the media and society at large will continue to view the struggles women face as self-induced and shallow.
References
“Hysteria”. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteria. Accessed March 11th 2025.
“Cat lady”. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_lady. Accessed March 11th 2025.
Andrew, Scottie. “How ‘cat lady’ became an insult for women of a certain age. ”. CNN, July 27th 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/27/us/cat-lady-explained-cec/index.html#:~:text=The%20stereotypical%20%E2%80%9Ccat%20lady%E2%80%9D%20is,hurls%20her%20cats%20at%20passersby.
Ochoa, Melisaa. “The question you should never ask women-period”. The Conversation, May
13th , 2019, https://theconversation.com/the-question-you-should-never-ask-women-
Savin, Jennifer. “Why we need to stop using the term “crazy ex-girlfriend””. Cosmopolitan,
October 25th, 2019, https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a29588440/crazy-ex-girlfriend/
Barlow, D.H., Durand, V.M., Hofmann, S.G., & Lalumiere, M.L. (2024). Psychopathology: An
Integrative Approach to Understanding, Assessing, and Treating Psychological
Disorders. (7th Canadian Edition). Cengage. ISBN: 9781774740323