Mental Illness in Popular Media: Essays on the Representation of Disorders

Abstract

This book review delves into the analysis of Rubin’s Mental Illness in Popular Media: Essays on the Representation of Disorder. The premise of this book being a detailed exploration of the development in expression of psychology and culture, and how they mirror, critique, reinforce and even disprove one another over time. His carefully chosen collection of essays poses to the reader important social questions based on issues often unspoken of, such as mental health and illness, that are placed on the periphery of societal norms. The book cleverly pushes the boundaries of modern-day conversation by discussing the ways that various popular cultures represents matters of mental illness and mental health- in other words: society’s peripheral voices.