A man went to see a mental doctor. He said he is depressed and unhappy. He felt lonely and desperate of his life and he wants some medicine. The doctor said, “That’s easy, you do not need any medicine. The greatest clown will come to city tonight. Go to see his show and you will be happy forever.” The man cried and said, “ But, doctor. I am that clown.”
Believe it or not many comedian stars get depressed because work pressure. Can you imagine that? The actor who played Mr. Bean was depressed; also actors like Chaplin, Jim Carrey, Stephen Fry all have depression. The famous actor Robin Williams recently committed suicide, drawing our attention to the comedian’s mental health. Mr. Williams made many famous humorous movies in his life. The most famous among them was the Night at the Museum franchise. Unfortunately it was the last film of his life.
So what cause the comedian’s depression. The first reason I think is that the success humorous actors always play a crazy man in the drama. They need to put themselves down to make people laugh. This kind of method is one of the most important element to create comedian called tragic inside. In another words, they need to make audience feel they are higher level than them. For example, when you watch Mr. Bean’s funny behavior in the movie you will laugh and speak to yourself, “I will never behave like that.” The famous actor Huang bo once said, “I cannot laugh out when I watched my comedy, I just can’t. I saw I am a person who is silly and stupid.”
A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in January examined , British and Australian comedians’ personality self-assessment tests and found that the comics scored significantly higher than the general population — and even slightly higher than a group of actors — for psychotic traits such as magical thinking, difficulty focusing, reduced ability to experience social and physical pleasure, and impulsivity. According to the article comic mania can speak darkness with joy, in movie industry the bipolar disorder which Robin William suffered from is called “the illness is necessary for the art.”
I think another reason is that the desire of control. As a comedian actor their responsibility is to make people happy. So they need to know how to control the atmosphere and the respond of audience. For these actors every drama is designed very carefully, they themselves know the ending but they have to pretend to be a fool. Humors are not a natural release for them, but a kind of job. If one day they did not do a good job, they cannot control the audience like they want they may be got hurt from it. This kind of sense of control will bring long time sense of unsafe which is a torment for actors. Media comment may influence their fame can make the circumstance even more worse.
Now, let’s have a look at the bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder, with its extreme mood swings from depression to mania, used to be called manic depressive disorder. Bipolar disorder is very serious and can cause risky behavior, even suicidal tendencies, and can be treated with therapy and medication. This disorder It is serious but it can be conquered. I think Jim Carrey and Stephen Fry set up a good example for us. Here are the videos how Jim Carrey and Stephen Fry overcome their depression, respectively.
After you read this blog, I think we need to concern more about the mental problem of the actors when we watch comedian movie. We need to remind ourselves to respect them in our mind because they are the people who bring happy to us.
Reference:
comic mania can speak darkness with joy
https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/08/12/mental-illness-more-common-comedians/u6CEiEfUTEpGgx7fHbUiXL/story.html
Bipolar disorder http://www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/
Pictures:http://image.haosou.com/i?q=Jim+Carrey&src=srp
http://image.haosou.com/i?q=Stephen+Fry&src=srp
I enjoyed reading your blog post, it is always so nice to see a post that hasn’t been over done or you just have zero interest in reading. You never asked a thesis question, which was fine because your blog was more of an informative post about something widely unknown, at points I just felt it was too much of an overview on the topic though. You state that comedians always play a crazy man because it is a type of humor that people enjoy, although that is a very bold statement not accounting for stand up, troupe and prop comedians? You only mention comedian actors which leaves me questioning others. I also wish that you would have delved deeper into why comedians become so depressed. You would think that comedians go into the business and are successful at it because they love the trill of making others laugh, even with occasional rough crowds. This is also connected to the social pressures that you mention, it makes senses that a comedian would need to be the center of attention and that is why they do not enjoy certain social scenes, but at their job they are the center of everyone attention even if they are experiencing pressure to preform.
You state that ” Humors are not a natural release for them, but a kind of job. If one day they did not do a good job, they cannot control the audience like they want they may be got hurt from it. ” After reading this statement it made me think of people that do very different, yet still work very hard at their job. I feel that it would be interesting if a study was done that compared the pressure, stress, and emotion of comedians and then top officials at company’s, both large and small companies because there are both widely known and smaller comedians. I feel that certain aspects of pressure stress and emotion that comedians and business people both have could show researchers a lot about how people become depressed and how to help/ avoid depression.
There does appear to be a relationship between depression and comedians, but there may be bigger, underlying problems. Robin Williams was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia shortly before he died which oftentimes evokes depression and hallucinations, which you can read about on Fox. http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/11/12/robin-williams-diagnosis-what-is-lewy-body-dementia.html The disease may have taken over his thoughts and was what led him to commit suicide. You could have expanded your article to talk about all actors and not just comedians. Whether it be the pressure of the job, demanding hours, and more access to substances, there have been many actors in the past to be diagnosed with depression. You can find a small list on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/celebs-with-depression_n_942771.html. I also agree that spending more time on bipolar disorder and other disorders that coincide with depression would have been effective.
What an interesting topic! I was a dear fan of Robin Williams–still am. I do feel though that your post would be stronger if had a stronger transition between the study you included and bipolar disorder. The study from the British Journal of Psychiatry is a great source. The link you provided gave limited information on the study so I googled it and found an article that analyzes the data. If you quoted a source like this that analyzes the data you provided, you would have added more depth to your post and made it more organized. You quickly transition from the study to bipolar disorder without explaining why the two are connected. This quote from the article I found does a flawless job of making that connection.
Medscape Medical News writes, “‘The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis ― both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder,’ said Dr. Claridge. ‘Although schizophrenic psychosis itself can be detrimental to humor, in its lesser form, it can increase people’s ability to associate odd or unusual things or to think ‘outside the box.’ Equally, manic thinking, which is common in people with bipolar disorder, may help people combine ideas to form new, original, and humorous connections,’ he noted.”
So, while I enjoyed reading your post, I think the addition of this would have added a bit more depth and allowed me, the reader, to better understand the connection between the two topics you address in the post: the study on depression and bipolar disorder.