Trivia: When Watching “Lunatics” Was Entertainment

• Ali S.
  May 4th, 2008 at 6:26 pm

  Reminds me of those old articles and stories of folks in the Victoria era going to “theaters” to watch mentally ill patients being experimented on. Ugh. The things they did that I read on that topic were horrific.

• Lamonstrous
  May 4th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

  And this is different from Springer, Maury, and countless youtube videos how?

• Nathan Gimpel
  May 4th, 2008 at 6:41 pm

  Britney Spears and her inane media frenzy have filled this void well.

• Tim
  May 4th, 2008 at 6:52 pm

  Psychiatry has always torutured and mistreated it’s patients. Nowadyas they mistreat them by diagnosing dangerous pills that cause suicide, psychosis, nerve damage, diabetis, etc… Not to mention their use of ice picks to the brain and electric shock.

  Psychiatry has never been a humane profession, and is in’t these days either. In America you get locked up against your will without commiting a crime - they call it ‘protective custody.’ In Russia you disappear off the streets and get loaded up with drugs because you oppose the government or psychiatry.

• CheeseDuck
  May 4th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

  Heh. Retarded people are funny…
  Uhm. I mean.. This is horrible! Why would people do that..?

• bean
  May 4th, 2008 at 8:00 pm

  Tim-

  Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Go take your meds and come back when you’ve calmed down.

• SenorMysterioso
  May 4th, 2008 at 8:19 pm

  same theory apparently works with television

• L
  May 4th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

  I think bean would’ve been one of the people in line waiting to offer up their pennies…

• Sofar
  May 4th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

  Hey, like reality television. We’ve come a long way.

  Tim doesn’t like psychiatry.

• Dan
  May 4th, 2008 at 8:57 pm

  bean
  lol

• Chick Splatt
  May 4th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

  Mental illness is not funny. At All. Having had a family member touched by it, my perspective has changed dramatically. The prison system has become the de facto way a society that is unwilling to deal with the issue “handles” the problems. No real treatment, no real progress. Put them away, out of sight, at minimum cost. It is appalling.

• Lemons
  May 4th, 2008 at 10:27 pm

  Makes me think of that short story in I Am Legend about the kids going to see the freakshow.

• avraamov
  May 5th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

  this gives me an excuse to spout off about a book i’ve just read called ‘the air loom gang’ by mike jay. it’s the story of james tilley mathews, who because of his complex paranoid delusions and the ambitions of the apothecary at bethlem, co-instigated what is widely held to be the birth of psychiatry. he was also the first person recorded to have delusions about an ‘influencing machine’ (the air loom) controlling his thoughts. before him, it was all demons, witches etc.

  it seems the freakshow image of the bethlem hospital is a bit of a caricature - there were plenty of mad people kicking around london anyway, so paying a penny to go and see more wasn’t on the agenda for most. the bethlem mostly failed as an institution because it was built on the cheap. it’s an absolutely superb book. i’ll shut up now.

• Diogenes
  May 5th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

  The creation of torture devices, in general, used to be for entertainment purposes. The public viewing of those within their community, that had done bad.

• Diogenes
  May 5th, 2008 at 5:10 pm

  p.s. Bedlam - Boris Karlof

• jen
  May 5th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

  CheeseDuck-
  Mental illness is NOT the same as mental retardation. Many mentally ill people are very intelligent.

• Woogie
  May 5th, 2008 at 11:20 pm

  I imagine people in 100 years time will look back on “Big Brother” and the like and make largely the same comments.

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