Mass Media and their influence on people’s lives as shown in

the book “A Week in December” (“It’s Madness” and the

challenge to British viewers)

Introduction

Mass media is communication — whether written, broadcast, or spoken

— that reaches a large audience. This includes television, radio, advertising,
movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth.
In modern conditions, the mass media, despite their social significance,
mass character and accessibility, have a huge impact on the political, economic,
cultural and spiritual processes taking place in society, and, as responsible
members of a society, we must understand that there are positive and negative
influences of mass media.
We as a society have put our trust on the media as an authority to give us
news, entertainment and education. However, the influence of mass media on
our kids, teenagers and society is so big that we should know how it really
works. Unfortunately, sometimes something that seemed a good idea may go
completely wrong. That’s the case with “It’s Madness”, a show about mentally
ill people in the book “A Week in December” by Sebastian Faulks.

“It’s Madness!”

When we talk about this infamous show, we cannot but mention John
Veals’ son, Finbar, through the eyes (mind you, quite blurred from the amount
of genetically modified skunk he takes) of whom we can actually “watch” it.
So, what is it about?
The fictitious reality TV show featured in Faulks's novel is imagined as a
televised competition in which psychiatric patients compete for the right to
hospital treatment. Psychological disorders aren’t treated as a real problem here,
even though it is not only in Britain, but all around the world, as well. An article
from The Guardian published in 2017 has stated that two-thirds of British adults
say they have experienced mental ill-health at some point in their lives,
according to a survey. Other research suggests that one in four people in the UK
experience a mental health problem each year and one in six in England report
experiencing a common mental health problem (such as anxiety and depression)
in any given week. Three quarters of Britons say society should consider mental
and physical conditions to be equally important, but only 15% think it actually
does. So, this is it — the British want the same treatment — or even prioritized
one — compared to treatment for physical illnesses, but little is done to achieve
this. This is the challenge to British people. This is also a challenge to British
viewers in Faulks’ novel. Do you think they cared enough? Spoiler alert: not at
all.

Reality shows are hits nowadays, take the Kardashians and “Dom 2”.
People enjoy it because it provides them with the pleasure of voyeurism, of
watching what is normally private and forbidden. Similar to “Dom 2”, “It’s
Madness” also featured a kind of a Big-Brother-is-Watching-You house, [quote]
"a remote but well-appointed one-story house (the so-called Barking Bungalow)
where the contestants' actions are recorded by "hidden cameras […], watching
them sleep and eat and clothe themselves, scrutinizing their attempts to
communicate with one another". The show that is imagined in Faulks's novel is
more ruthless in its voyeurism than what has come to be expected with regard to
reality TV, given the fact that It's Madness features contestants who suffer from
various psychological disorders and thus are particularly vulnerable. The cast of
It's Madness includes patients afflicted by bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and
chronic depression, who are routinely exposed to merciless ridicule by the
'celebrity judges' on the show. Whenever a contestant is asked to comment on
the symptoms of their disorder, they’re interrupted by one of the 'judges', who
seize every opportunity to make cheap jokes at the expense of the patients.
Serious psychological problems are thus trivialized, and the 'judges'
continuously seek to make the audience feel superior to the participants in order
to generate comic effects.
The so-called 'therapeutic challenges' the contestants are exposed to
include the attempt "to go for two days without medication" (p. 272), talking
about their sexual fantasies (p. 273) as well as obligatory karaoke performances,
which constitute "one of the most popular elements of the entire show, the so-
called 'Loony Tunes' evening" (p. 154) and are clearly yet another strategy for
exposing the participants to ridicule. It’s Madness effectively turns people who
are ill into a public spectacle. It features contestants who appear to be singularly
ill-equipped for meeting the emotional challenges inherent in this particular TV
format; they are thus exposed to lot of pressure, which finally even culminates
in one the participants committing suicide. And what happens after it? Let me
just read you an extract:

“Not just that. The starter pack, which is only a few pennies a month,
includes all our big hit shows for Channel 7. It’s Madness, for instance, which is
pulling six million viewers on 7 even as we speak …”
“But that’s a catastrophe,” said the woman. “It’s a disgusting program and
somebody took his life on it two days ago.”
“It’s far from catastrophic,” said Simon Porterfield. “It’s more or less
single-handedly kept Channel 7 afloat.”
“Better to have let it sink. And what about this poor man who killed
himself?”
 “It was very unfortunate, I admit. But I think in the long term, in the
history of television it’ll be remembered as …” Simon Porterfield looked round
for a moment, as though searching for the perfect word, then beamed in
triumph, like a retriever dropping a prized bird at its master’s feet. “Iconic,” he
said.”

It will be remembered as ICONIC. Can you imagine that? A show that’s

supposed to help people get actual help turns out to kill one of the people, and
it’s considered to be “iconic”. That’s not iconic, that’s sick.

Yet, while one may assume that contestants in reality TV shows generally
are aware of the potentially humiliating exposure typical of the format and may
in fact be anything but authentic in their own performance, the participants of
It's Madness are portrayed as helpless victims of both television entertainment
and a flawed health care system which denies them proper treatment, thus
forcing them to accept public humiliation for the sake of winning "free private
treatment for their condition for a whole year in Park View, England's top
hospital".

And back to Finbar. Although Finbar is convinced that "television was all
a con - everyone knew that" (p. 42), at least the contestants assembled in the
'barking bungalow' seem to be actually suffering from psychological disorders,
as has been pointed out above. It is part of the black humour in A Week in
December - and perhaps it also borders on poetic justice - that Finbar, who gets
a kick out of watching people afflicted by psychological disorders exposed to
public humiliation on TV, finally ends up in ward for mentally ill people.
Whether the symptoms of psychosis he suddenly displays are merely a
temporary side-effect of drug abuse or will prove to be permanent is left open at
the end of the novel, but at least the readers can rest assured that Finbar —
unlike the contestants on It's Madness — will have access to proper medical
treatment thanks to his rich parents.

Are the shows like It’s Madness?

Of course, there are. Maybe not in the format of a reality show but
certainly as much degrading to both people with an actual psychological
disorder — that being Obsessive–compulsive disorder (or OCD) — and
people who the hosts pair them with. You can watch a trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqASeC-015c
 Seems humoristic, right? Maybe some of these stories are harmless, I’d
agree. But, to my knowledge, there is a person to whom a woman says “I’d kill
myself if I had lived like this”. Well, we feel the same looking at these rooms
with endless trash in it, yeah? This person is actually a survivor of some
accident, and because of it he’s mentally challenged. Let’s say this woman
didn’t know (I do hope so)… but if she knew and said that anyway? Sad.

Questions:

1. What do you think of the show “It’s Madness”? Would you watch such
a show?
2. Does it seem familiar to another popular project, not about problems
with mental illness though? Did you see such judges who would try to
make a joke just because?
3. Do you think medical care due to mental and behavior disorders should
be better? Should it be free?
4. Do you think it’s a challenge for our country, too — problems with
mental health and how to help people with such disorders?

Thanks.