Contains spoilers for BoJack Horseman Season 5.
Plenty of modern TV shows depict or are driven by the mental health problems of their characters. Girls, Fleabag, and Crazy Ex Girlfriend follow the chaotic lives of (mainly middle-class white) young women with personality disorders;End of the F***ing World and 13 Reasons Why take radically different but equally intense approaches to teen trauma; This is Us, Mr. Robot, and Homeland are underpinned by anxiety, dissociation, and bipolar respectively.
Though not without their complications, shows like these mark a turning of the tide away from ridiculous stereotypes—your “tragic heroines” like The OC’s Marissa Cooper or The L Word’s Jenny Schecter, and the “difficult genius” leading men of Sherlock, House, and Dexter—and toward moving portrayals of mental illnesses. The more socially accepted ones, at least.
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