Norman Bates In Psycho

“He [Norman] only half-existed,” the psychiatrist stated after taking a look at Norman himself (Psycho). Norman Bates is a character in the movie Psycho, whose mental illness caused him to turn murderous. Psycho is not the only film that uses a mental illness to produce a villain. The Joker from the Batman series is diagnosed by the viewers to be psychopathic, and he is known to be a mass murderer. From the 1960 film to modern movies, many producers create their villains with mental disabilities. Because the mentally ill are portrayed as villains, this causes the viewers to classify them as capable of turning monstrous and harming those around them. This stereotype leads to the vilification of all those with a mental illness. Producers create

villains that have mental disabilities to show how they are separate from the norm, causing the viewers to relate more to the protagonists while building up a monstrous stereotype for the mentally disabled. Although each villain may be portrayed differently, the Joker being more destructive and wrathful than Norman Bates, each portrayal of the character negatively affects how the viewers view mental illnesses.
Norman Bates is a character from Psycho who is believed to have schizophrenia.

Norman’s mind housed two personalities, his and his mother’s. After his father had died, Norman and his mother had lived “as if there was no one else in the world.” A few years later, Norman’s mother met a man that she planned to marry. Driven with jealousy, Norman murdered both the man and his mother because he had felt replaced. The guilt ate him up and caused him to pretend that his mother was still alive. In order to do this, half of him became his mother. Just as Norman was jealous of any man who came near his mother, the mother half of Norman was also jealous of anyone that aroused Norman himself. Therefore, when Marion came to stay at the Bates Motel, owned by Norman, he was attracted to her, and his attraction spurred the mother half of him to become jealous and murder Marion. Sometimes Norman would dress up as his mother when reality came too close and threatened his illusion. Since his mind was housing two personalities, there was a battle, and eventually his mother won and completely took over Norman. Norman was gone, and his mother has fully taken over (Psycho). The viewers realize that Norman Bates never meant to hurt anyone. It was his jealous emotions stemming from his mother that caused him to murder Marion. In Norman’s case, his mental illness was to blame for his vile crime. Through this portrayal, the viewers are more likely to view mental illnesses negatively. Because Norman’s

schizophrenia caused him to murder Marion, the viewers will start to believe that mental illnesses can cause you to act monstrous. Therefore, they end up classifying the mentally ill as monsters.
Not only does the character portrayal in Psycho affect how the viewers view the mentally ill, specific scenes are shown in a way that alienates Norman Bates from the “normal” characters: in this case, characters with no mental illness. Specifically looking at a scene at Norman’s office, the difference between how the camera was angled when showing each of the characters shows the contrast in their lives. When the camera was focused on Marion, the camera was angled directly at her. On the other hand, the camera was angled from the side at a low perspective when focusing on Norman. Also from this perspective, half of Norman’s body and face is covered by a shadow of darkness. Through the differences in camera angles, Alfred Hitchcock shows that Marion lives a normal life, while Norman’s unnatural camera angle shows how different he is and hints how unnatural his life is. The shadow that covers half of his face emphasizes the two sides of Norman, himself and his mother. Throughout the movie, he is covered in dim lighting, showing that his mother is starting to take over. Because of how Alfred Hitchcock presents Norman visually through camera angles and lighting, it is easy for the viewers to isolate him from the rest of the characters. Even without finding out about his mental disability, he is already considered an outcast. The movie builds up Norman’s character in a way that completely isolates him from not just the other characters, but the viewers of the movie. Through this, the producer vilifies Norman’s character by showing that Norman’s actions surpassed the boundary of what is considered normal in society.
Psycho is not the only movie in which a mentally ill character is a villain.

Many recent movies contain this same concept, one of which is The Dark Knight. The most famous villain in the Batman series is The Joker. The Joker is considered a mass-murderer, a psychopathic killer, and an unstable character. Like Norman in Psycho, “…the Joker has often been casually diagnosed with schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder,” showing that through how the villain is portrayed, the viewers classify them with a certain disorder without fully being aware of what the actual symptoms of the disorder is (John Goodwin and Izzat Tajjudin). As people are classifying mental illnesses with no background information other than what is given in the movie, stereotypes for mental disorders are formed. These stereotypes vilify those who are mentally ill because they have a predetermined outlook on each illness based on a movie. Because the movies have mentally ill villains, like the Joker, the viewers will automatically think that the mentally ill are very capable at turning into a psychopathic killer. Therefore, movies like the The Dark Knight cause the viewers to believe that those who have a mental disorder can easily become monstrous due to their state of mind. The movie does not give them a chance to prove it

otherwise.