I (Dr. Veilleux) love musical theatre, and witty subversive TV shows. So it should come as no surprise that I started watching the CW show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend during the 2015-2016 TV season, because it’s a musical (I will watch at least one episode of just about any musical TV show). What I didn’t expect is truly how clever the show is, with excellent writing and great performances, and how on target it is with depiction of mental illness. The only thing a bit off about it is the title, which makes it sound like a reality show, but the title sequence itself describes how the title is problematic, as highlighted in this article.
Although I could talk about the show’s feminist bent, or accoladaes for including a middle aged bisexual male character, I’m not going to do that. I’m instead going to talk about how this show portrays emotion and self-regulation. The main character, Rebecca Bunch, clearly has some depression and anxiety going on, and I mean that in the more culturally appropriated way (“I am so depressed,” or “I am so anxious”) as I’m not about to diagnose a TV character. That said, the portrayal of Rebecca’s mental health issues are really well done. She tries to act happy, organized and friendly in public, even though she’s often sad and ruminative when she’s alone. She often believes that her actions are going to be helpful to her, even though we (the audience) can tell that she’s just going to mess things up for herself…again. Then there are the times that she knows what she’s doing probably isn’t the best idea, but she just can’t stop herself from doing it anyway (self-regulation troubles, anyone?). She’s really not all that likable much of the time, because she plays such a huge role in contributing to her own misery. The writers allow Rebecca to have a job, to have friends, and to still be miserable even with plenty of good things that happen in her life. It’s a well rounded picture of psychological distress, instead of a “one note” image of a depressed person who can’t get out of bed. Don’t get me wrong, there certainly are people who suffer from depression who can’t get out of bed, but the true picture of depression and anxiety is often a mask, and I think this show hits that on the nose. I also like that although they allude to a prescription for meds and at least one diagnosis, they never tell us what it is, a choice that seems purposeful and helpful, as it helps avoid pigeonholing related to specific diagnoses.
Best of all, because the show is a musical, it can portray the inner workings of the characters’ minds in clever ways, ways which are not typically available in your standard romantic comedy, or even subversive romantic comedy. I like to play video clips of the show’s songs in my senior seminar course focused on emotion and self-regulation. We watch the songs and then discuss the emotional concepts raised in the song. Take this number, which is called Face Your Fears and seems to be about the idea of exposure–we can’t get over our problems by avoiding, instead we have to address what plagues us head-on. This is not a new idea; most adults have probably heard the idea of “face your fears” at some point in their lives. Yet the show takes it further, as “best friend” character Paula (amazing Broadway actress Donna Lynne Champlin) sings wholeheartedly about doing things that are acutely dangerous (“If you’re in a burning building, and smoke is everywhere, keep calm, take a deep breath, and stay right there!”). It’s a great example of not taking sayings at face value, at thinking about the implications of your decisions, and being effective (to borrow a term from Dialectical Behavior Therapy). As much as I wish I had a rule book that always provided the “right” course of action, good mental health is really about being flexible, and recognizing when a situation can be tolerated and when escape is truly in your best interest.
I also show this one, Angry Mad, where Josh (the guy Rebecca is “ex” girlfriend to, as implied by the title) tries to express his feelings. The actor is more of a dancer than a singer (especially in the first season), so this takeoff of a training montage is more about the dance. But it’s actually the lyrics that I have my students focus on. This video is a great example of poor emotional clarity and subsequent issues with emotional labeling, as Josh struggles to find words to express how he feels. [Post edited to add that Josh has another great song in the second season about the mind-train that his thoughts can go on, called Thought Bubbles, which we also discuss as an example of catastrophic thinking–one little thought can lead to a stronger thought, and suddenly your mind has you dying alone in a gutter. This kind of thinking, where small nagging thoughts lead to bigger, more catastrophic self-thoughts, are particularly common in people with anxiety and we see them a lot in clients with psychotherapy. Unsurprisingly, they tend to be associated with a lot of negative emotion.]
Finally, my absolute favorite number is this one, You Stupid Bitch, a song about “self-indulgent, self-loathing.” It’s a great example of rumination and self-blame, with Rebecca chastising herself in a repetitive, critical-but-vague way, all while dressed in sparkles and singing a power ballad to what sounds like a packed house. It hurts me to watch this number, probably because I think it gets at the real pain inflicted by self-blame that most people don’t share with others. Therapy clients don’t even always share this kind of thinking with their therapists. In my class, we talk about how this song is indicative of ruminative processes, where people get stuck in the “clothes dryer full of bras” kind of thinking (credit to a past therapy client for coming up with that one)–thoughts get tangled together, repeat themselves, and although people try to understand WHY they are like the way they are, they don’t really try to solve the problem or find meaning that allows them to move on. It’s brilliant and hilarious and heartwrenching all at once.
For anyone interested in emotion and self-regulation, Crazy Ex Girlfriend is a great show to watch….and I look forward to watching each week to see what ELSE I can show in my classes. I’m not holding my breath that they’ll somehow do a song about statistics, but that’d just make my year. Until then, there is plenty of fodder for my emotion and self-regulation seminar!
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