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Health Funding Authority

Auckland Office
Level 3, Unisys House, 650 Great South Road, Penrose, Auckland, New Zealand
Private Bag 92522, Wellesley Street, Auckland, New Zealand
Telephone: 64-9-580 9000 / Facsimile: 64-9-580 9001

The Secretary
Advertising Standards Complaints Board
PO Box 10 675
Wellington

30 June 2000

20th Century Fox advertisement for the film "Me, Myself and Irene"

This is to complain under sections 1, 2, 3 and 6 of the Advertising Code for People in Advertising regarding the attached advertisement for the film "Me, Myself and Irene".

Our reasons for complaining are as follows:

1. The advertisement promotes a film about a person suffering from schizophrenia. Although the advertisement does not explicitly state this, it portrays the head of a person in two halves - one with a friendly smile, the other with a menacing leer. This is accompanied by the strapline "From Gentle to Mental"
2. The image and strapline exploit inaccurate, out-dated stereotypes of people who suffer from any form of mental illness, and in particular, schizophrenia. These stereotypes are:

• schizophrenia as "split personality"; and
• the "normal" personality as "gentle" and the "mental" personality as violent.

These stereotypes are based on an out-dated understanding of schizophrenia popularised in literature such as the novel "Dr Jekylll and Mr Hyde" and the film "The Three Faces of Eve", and a large number of derivative films. In fact, schizophrenia is a diagnostic term applied to a group of serious mental disorders which distort the way a person thinks, feels and perceives things. Schizophrenia tends to develop in the late teenage or early adult years, that is, in the consumer group targeted by the film. Furthermore, by using the vernacular term "mental", the advertisers extend these negative stereotypes of people who suffer from schizophrenia to include all people with mental illness.

1. The "star" of the film, whose image appears on the advertisement, is a well-known comedian, Jim Carrey. This clearly implies that the film is a comedy, and that the theme of "split personality" and the condition of schizophrenia will be subjected to ridicule. In doing so, the advertisement employs humour in a way that encourages intolerance and prejudice.
2. The advertisement was placed on the back cover of a magazine entitled "Girlfriend". This magazine appeals to young people, especially young women. It is of additional concern that an outdated, inaccurate and derogatory representation of a serious mental illness is being promoted to a youthful audience, who are less likely than the general population to understand the nature of schizophrenia and to be able to disassociate the facts about schizophrenia from the conventions of comedy. In our opinion this advertisement employs the stereotype of people with mental illness (and schizophrenia in particular) to target a particular consumer (young women) in a way that is neither appropriate not acceptable.

Although we have seen only this advertisement, we understand that in the United States the film is also being promoted via t-shirts that carry the slogan "I'm schizophrenic and so am I". Should 20th Century Fox use other forms of merchandising with similar straplines and images to promote the film, we would consider complaining about those as well.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter,

Yours sincerely,

Warren Lindberg

Manager

Project to Counter Stigma and Discrimination Associated with Mental Illness

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