Alcoholic Aunts, Homeless Cousins, and Depressed Dads: How Mental Illness Is Invisible in ‘The Cosby Show,’ ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,’ and Beyond

This guest post by Keisha Zollar appears as part of our theme week on Black Families.

When watching Black families in film and TV like Everybody Hates Chris, Soul Food, and Bebe’s Kids, mental illness was/is invisible.  I think to myself, which Cosby kid battles with depression? Does Uncle Phil have an eating disorder? And would Dr. Doolittle ever see a therapist?

Are Black families so marginalized in film and TV that we are afraid to show the cracks of mental illness as they actually are?

As many as 25 percent of Americans suffer from mental illness, and some of those Americans are Black.

 

Growing up in the early-late 1980s and early 1990s, most of the Black TV families I saw were high functioning, white-collar families with an upstanding father figure who was always around, and there was plenty of food on the table. There were also TV shows like Roc, reruns of Good Times, and other tales of the economic divide where I saw a different Black experience. As a kid, my immediate family was more Cosby than Good Times but I did have relatives who were more Roc than The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in their day-to-day lives. Growing up, it felt like TV was holding a mirror up to my family but with one exception: why was no one as sad and anxious as I felt?  Why did no one talk about overwhelming emotions?  The process of dealing with addiction? The pain of divorce?

I also remember the Black movies of my childhood.

My grandparents took my family to watch Do The Right Thing because my Grandma said, “It’s important to support Black artists like Spike Lee.”  I remember the story, the realness, the colors–also what we might call nowadays: “grit.”  My parents would show me Roots, Bebe’s Kids, and Nutty Professor with pride and joy.

 

The movies and television I watched as a child inspired me to pursue my own journey in entertainment. Entertainment was/is a noble pursuit of truth, exploration, fantasy, and more.

Then the economic bubbles of the 1980s-1990s burst and burst and burst…

“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.”

-Ernst Fischer

 

Then in the early 2000s I became an adult; my parents divorced, I struggled with depression and anxiety, I got in therapy, and realized that the TV and films I loved as a child were missing something. Where was the “Real Talk” about mental illness in entertainment? Where was the entertainment that went beyond just telling Black people to pray, to be strong, to avoid sugar and crack cocaine? Why was everyone being so mean about Uncle Phil’s weight in the The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?

Uncle Phil’s weight in the The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air always seemed to be the punchline. Episode to episode Uncle Phil is fat shamed–by main characters, auxiliary characters, and even by himself. Every character on the show knew Uncle Phil had a problem with food. The adult in me kept thinking, “Why did no one acknowledge Uncle Phil’s cries for help, his risk factors for diabetes, his possible food addiction?”

Then I thought about Hillary’s shopping addiction!

 

And of course The Cosby Show…

Denise Huxtable was the “wild child,” or a character on TV who was crying out for help.  Denise was a beloved character that couldn’t hold onto a job, then disappeared on the show to go to college, dropped out of college, ran off to Africa, married a man unknown to her parents, then showed up on the Huxtable doorstep with her own family, then tried school again and didn’t finish (the order of events in Denise’s life isn’t fully accurate but I’m painting an impressionistic portrait of Black media from my POV, there you go Super Cosby Fans).

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qshPuptg1C0″]

Now there is Theo Huxtable, who struggled with a learning disorder: dyslexia.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxYjKDxYH2U”]

It was a liberating moment on TV to see a main character struggle with education, not because he was “dumb” as a character trait, but because he was flawed. In the episode where Theo found out he had dyslexia he was overjoyed because he had a diagnosis; it was TV saying it was OK to have a learning disorder. It felt like The Cosby Show said it was OK to see if you had learning challenges.

I remember thinking while watching the show when it aired, “This is important, and it’s OK if I have dyslexia too.”

As an adult I know I don’t have dyslexia, but I’m still waiting for my TV moment on an important Black show to describe what I do have: depression and anxiety.

 

Getting diagnosed has changed my perspective on watching film and TV.  I see the PTSD that poverty can cause in cartoon movies.  I see eating disorders where I used to see “harmless” fat jokes.  I see the stress of being Black in America but no mention of eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and panic disorder.

Now I watch these shows and I think, maybe I’m making up all this mental illness in the Black community, but then I look at Surgeon General’s reports and check out pages like this.

House of Payne shows the ravages of addiction with a recurring crack-addicted mother, and a few other shows seem to tackle addiction but it seems the vast majority make mental illness invisible.  It feels like Black TV and film wants us to ignore or pray away the fact mental illness exists.

 

Black families can be rich and poor and everything in between on TV, but why can’t we show the mental health crises Black families face?

My desire to see Black families explore mental illness in media is not about victimizing the oppressed in media.  I just want to see my own Theo moment on TV; maybe some little Black teenager who is smart and capable, but is sad and cries too much goes to see a nice doctor with her parents.  This little Black girl gets tested and gets diagnosed as being depressed and she runs home to tell her parents about her depression.  Her parents hear the word “depression” and are relieved at a diagnosis and the audience empathizes and learns, and everyone is OK.

 

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Keisha Zollar is an actor-writer-comedienne. Keisha has been seen on Orange Is The New Black, Celebrity Apprentice Season 14, The Today Show, College Humor, Comedy Central, MTV, UCBComedy, and numerous web-series.  Currently, Keisha in post production for An Uncomfortable Conversation About Race and she has recently directed her first interactive sketch called Neggers.  She is proud of her latest series In Game, a diverse web-series about LARPing (nerd stuff).  Learn more at www.KeishaZollar.com.