Stereotypes.

I watched two films yesterday, both older: "Fatal Attraction" and "The Abyss". (I daresay I thought "The Abyss" was a much stronger film.) One thing that struck me in both films were scenes depicting the "psychotic, dangerous" character as being symptomatic in self-harm. Please forgive me, as I do not recall either character's name...In "Fatal Attraction", Glenn Close's character was holding a butcher's knife aloft toward Michael Douglas' character's wife. Glenn Close's character became agitated and began nervously stroking the blade of the knife toward her thigh. It scarcely showed what she was doing, except that the knife was blood-stained and the fabric at the thigh was torn.

In "The Abyss", one of the characters goes decided insane for several reasons. I believe he was played by Michael Biehn, though I am not certain. There is a scene wherein all the crew has gathered for a meeting. Michael Biehn's character has an expression of concentration, or perhaps a mask over his rage. The camera moves to under his table, where he is tightly gripping one of the legs of the table as he slowly and deliberately making gashes into his forearm.

In both of these scenes, it is apparent that the only reason it was written into the script is to prove the depth of the character's psychosis. It made me wonder if, perhaps, this is not partly the reason society sees that self-harmers are not just dangerous to themselves, but to others. We are fortunate that the parents have really researched on self-harm and know that we would not dare harm another in the way we harm ourself.

Granted these films are older, ten years old at least, if not more. Perhaps Hollywood has decided against such stereotypes for now. I just think it odd that suicidal characters in films are met with compassion or empathy, and characters who self-harm are met with fear.