Signs and Symptoms of the Mad Genius

In a new article, Simon Cross explores whats at stake in the representation of the 'mad genius'.

 

He argues that the madman is a protean figure in the popular imagination slipping through in dreams, fairytales, ballads, paintings, sculpting, literature, and as this chapter discusses, more recently in cinema as the mad genius in films. The chapter argues that madness and genius in films like Shine must be seen and understood concomitantly as each symbolises our culture’s fascination with the boundaries and limits of our own mental functioning. The signs of mad genius in film reveal creativity out of the chaos of symptoms. The conclusion argues that the meaning of the mad genius is heroic, strangely special, and utterly mythic. 

Simon Cross (2013) ‘Signs and Symptoms of the Mad Genius'. In Julian McDougall and Pete Bennett (Eds.) Myth Today and Together: Theory under Reconstruction (Routledge, 2013)

Populism and Pathology in the British Tabloids

In a new article, Simon Cross representations of crime and responsibility in British tabloids.

He notes that the tabloid press is the section of the British media that has mobilized most vehemently on crime and responsibility. The logic of the tabloids is to sensationalize crime whilst insisting that criminals are morally responsible for their actions. However, this logic is thwarted when offenders are insane. The solution for British tabloids has been to invoke the illogical notion that mentally disordered offenders are mad and bad. The article argues for the need to understand this tabloid heuristic in relation to the politics of mental health care in the community policy in the 1990s, and the politics of tabloid populism. Tabloid reporting on the ‘mad and bad’ is further illustrated in the case of offenders housed in England’s top-security Broadmoor Hospital. By identifying hypocrisy in tabloid reporting on Broadmoor patients, the article concludes that British tabloid logic should be viewed as pathological. 

Cross, S. (forthcoming) ‘Mad and Bad Media: Populism and Pathology in the British Tabloids’. To appear in European Journal of Communication. 

Mad and Bad Media

Simon Cross recently gave a conference paper on press representations of the 'mad and bad' at a Conference on Language, Culture and Politics in Krakow.

--> Simon argued that, in the wake of the UK’s Leveson Inquiry into the ethics and practices of the popular press, journalism educators must reconsider whether ‘poor’ journalism practice can remedied. A case in point concerns media reporting on mentally disordered offenders, which is pock-marked with infected consequences of ‘mad and bad’ clap-trap dished out by pathological tabloids. The idea that tabloid reporting on the mad and bad is a condition of ‘poor’ journalism not only misdiagnoses the problem but also reckons it has remedy to improve the condition: educating editors in the error of their ways. Drawing on original research his paper shows that instead of educating tabloid editors and journalists we need a radical response to eradicating tabloid pathology. His ideas aimed to counter a tendency in journalism studies reluctant to criticize tabloid populism on mental disorder. By doing so it moves beyond a heuristic dictated by tabloid logic on mad and bad and speaks to our need to develop a political sensitivity in journalism education beyond the status quo. 

SImon Cross, 'Mad and Bad Media: the Pathology of British Tabloids', 5th Annual International Conference on Language, Culture and Politics, Tischner European University, Krakow., 6-7 June 2013.  

Recognition, Transgression and the Politics of Mental Health

Simon Cross's latest article explores recent developments in the ways in which the voices of 'the mad' are heard. 

He argues that the segregation and silencing of the mad in institutions did not stem from inhumanity; it was the logical consequence of a psychiatric credo that the mad spoke only gaggle and babble. Deprived of their point of view, the utterances of the insane were prevented from adding to the stock of available reality. Challenging this state of affairs, psychiatric patients and their advocates have pursued a politics of recognition that has necessarily meant transgressing concrete and medical boundaries determining the psychiatric patient’s place in the political community. However, during the 1990s, changes in the social setting of psychiatric care enabled mental patients to once again re-enter the public sphere. In doing so, broadcast talk in the same decade expanded to encompass schizophrenics and voice-hearers in documentary and other actuality formats. But this expansion of broadcast talk to encompass the politics of voice hearing coincided with the rise of reality TV as the predominant form of actuality television, squeezing out available space for ‘mad’ experiences and opinions to be heard. At the same time however, the rise of the Internet has meant new forums are available for listening to the voice of the mad, though not without attendant problems such as ghettoization. The article contextualizes these developments and argues for a combined politics of recognition and transgression in the wider politics of mental health. 

Simon Cross (2012), ‘The Voice of the Mad: Transgressions and Public Talk about the Voice-hearing Experience’, Transgressive Culture, Vol. 2(1): 129-145.  -->