Part four of an interview for The Wiire with NAMI Executive Director Mike Fitzpatrick.
EW: Do video games need a Rain Man moment? Something that brings those issues to the forefront without doing so much harm…?
Fitzpatrick: It’s not easy to do in a video game. It’s easier to do in a movie, it’s easier to do in a television program, it’s easier to do it in a book. It would be a great achievement, and again, some television producers and filmmakers have approached us with ideas. We’d be open to a video game producer approaching us if they’re producing a product where they are talking about mental illness, we’d be open to really having that dialogue. We’re inundated by a number of very creative people, and a lot of these artists are very, very well known.
EW: Why is it easier in other forms of media? What are some of those things that other artists do about “getting it right,” where video games are typically missing the mark?
Fitzpatrick: I think that video games that end up, um, being… you know, end up with that “Mature” audience tag put on them are looking to create something that’s out of a late-night horror movie. You know, edgy, violent, war – and again, that’s just – our only concern is that a certain demographic buys those and, in many cases, for us, it’s really the next generation. Many of those people in their own families and lives will experience mental illness, and we just feel that companies have a social responsibility not to do harm. [Video games] are edgy and problematic, they have responsibility also, on the other side, to educate the public – really, participate with other companies to assist in educating the public – [that] things like mental illness are not…
The reality is, mental illness is an illness like any other. You don’t create video games that make fun of people with cancer, or heart attacks, or what have you. That’s our issue. Our job is to really open up a dialogue – we’re simply not there to throw stones – we’d like to have a conversation with manufacturers and filmmakers and – we do on a regular basis.
EW: What happens to these dialogues when they’re brought into pop culture through video games. Is something lost…?
Fitzpatrick: Again, it’s what I said earlier Eric, companies are in the business to make money. Certainly the issues around Manhunt 2 – [Rockstar] will get a lot of publicity, they will sell a lot of copies of this game. [Rockstar] will meet their end – to sell a lot of copies and make a lot of money.
The point is, the depictions of mental illness in this game are destructive. They’re problematic. It puts us in a position working with state governments, federal government… we all spend a lot of time, a lot of money, in the media – in the public, talking about what mental illness is and what it isn’t. It is treatable. People recover. It’s like a broken arm or a heart attack or what have you. In fact, the recovery rates for beating mental illnesses are actually higher than recovery rates from a number of heart procedures.
To have a video game using that as part of a vehicle to [make] money is problematic.
EW: Is there anything else you’d like our audience to know?
Fitzpatrick: What we’re looking for is a dialogue and we’re asking companies that produce products like this to do, really, two things: don’t produce them in the future; in the meantime, work with us to provide education to the general public around mental health and mental illness.
What we really see now is an open dialogue. You go to Hollywood, you talk to people who are writing books, you talk to people in the media, and many of them get it. We see less companies sort of crossing the line. More that are not involved in gratuitous violence in depictions of mental illness – and we are making progress. We are upbeat about this. Thankfully, we don’t have many situations like this as we did, you know, five years ago even.
EW: Thank you very much, Mike, for your time and for the insight.
