Much as I do like the Eurovision Song Contest, I did not watch all of this year’s event, for reasons that are simply too dull to go into. The presenters managed to offend ‘mental health campaigners’ (where were they when I needed them?) when a line of models showed off Eurovision “memorabilia”. The Guardian reports: Swedish co-presenter Petra Mede said: “If you’re a really crazy fan I strongly recommend the Eurovision straitjacket.” A man wearing a Eurovision-branded straitjacket then came into view, modelling the item by turning around as Mede observed: “You know what they say – crazy is the new black.”
Now I am quite sensitive when it comes to mental health matters, primarily because they have been a bit of an issue for me. Life, for me, has been a long, long road of depression, ranging from a severe clinical version all the way down to mere depression itself. Sometimes very bad, sometimes bad, sometimes not very bad at all but always there. Throughout all this, I have tried to maintain good humour or at least an illusion thereof, but now I read that the presenters recommend I wear a straitjacket because I am both crazy and a fan. I should be horrified, but I’m not.
‘Time to change’ is a part-government funded organisation run by ‘Mind’ and ‘Rethink Mental Illness’ and it was horrified by the straitjacket sketch. “It’s disappointing that mental health problems, which affect one in four of us in serious and sometimes devastating ways, are being used as part of a Eurovision gimmick,” said Kate Nightingale, the campaign’s head of communications. “Trivialising mental health problems and reinforcing outdated stereotypes of people in straitjackets has harmful consequences, making it harder for people to reach out for help and support. The Eurovision song contest is watched by many and it would be great to see it used as a platform for raising mental health awareness, not fuelling stigma.”
A few things here. At worst, Eurovision has, perhaps, been a little insensitive to madmen such as me. I don’t actually see it quite like that, mind you. I didn’t look at the straitjacket and think: “Hmm. That’s a nasty little attack on those of us who grapple with severe depression and four different types of anxiety.” Some might say, to my eternal shame, I thought it was a group of people using English as a second, or even third, language in a way that might not come across in the way which they intended. It was more of a “If you love Eurovision, you have to be a little crazy”, rather than “If you watch Eurovision, you are suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and you need to be put in a straitjacket.”
Do we really need zero tolerance when it comes to humour? No, we don’t need to tell racist, sexist or any other kind of ‘ist’ joke you like, but let’s be sensible. I am forever referring to people as “mad as a box of frogs” or “a sandwich short of a picnic”. I can’t think of a time when I said this in any way other than in fun; never to offend anyone.
“He’s mad, he is,” we must have said about someone all our lives. Let’s not inflict a situation whereupon people are frightened to say anything that might insinuate jocularity in the direction of people who are genuinely ill.
This mental health malarkey, it’s complicated. As with everything else in life, everyone is different, no one feels the same way about the world.
Crazy isn’t the new black. I am not sure I really understand what the hostess with the mostest meant by that, but, as I suggested, the joke, such as it was, could have been lost in translation.
I’m not mad, well not that mad anyway, and I have no issue with the jocular ‘mad’ analogy. Some great charities have been offended by Petra Mede’s comments and, probably, for all the right reasons. However, there is no need to push this, to take it any further.
So many songs use the word crazy, never in a bad way. Kiss, Prince, Gnarls Barkley, Slade and Patsy Cline to name but a few, always in a nice way. Not necessarily lighten up – mental health is serious shit – but perspective.
All I can do, in conclusion, is to quote Napoleon VI from 1966:
“And They’re coming to take me away Ha Ha
They’re coming to take me away ho ho he he ha ha
to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time, and I’ll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats
And they’re coming to take me away ha ha.”
You see, I still laugh at that, which probably tells you everything you need to know. Ha ha.
