Raising Awareness

Tackling the Stigma from the Stage, by Nancy Tobin, is an article that explains the impact Next to Normal had on society. At first the authors of the play didn’t know the type of reaction the musical would receive because it was introducing the topic of a mental illness. The author wanted, Diana Goodman, to be an average person because they didn’t want that audience to think you had to be an extraordinary person to have a mental illness. The actress that plays Diana, Alice Ripley, can relate to what the authors were trying to show. She explains how the role of Diana has influenced her physical and emotional life. After she finishes the role of Diana, Diana is still underneath trying to come out whenever she can. And she does come out because one day Diana was in the subway and she said something out loud. She said she didn’t mean too and she’s not diagnosed as bipolar but this incident was something that just happens in our everyday life. The reason so many people are able to relate to Next to Normal is because its talks about an average mother and Ripley says, “I need the audience to believe it.” In the end of the article, Tobin talks about an 18 year old boy who was diagnosed as bipolar and he was able to relate to the musical, and the purpose of the musical is to “expose the stigma of mental illness.”

I agree with what Tobin argues in her article. Not many people write about day to day situations, let alone mental illnesses. When people do write about mental illnesses, they make the characters crazy when in reality these people don’t act like that in real life. I also believe that when things seem realistic you are able to relate to them more because you understand what is going on. In the article, Tobin explains how a boy was diagnosed as bipolar and he was able to relate to Diana because he knew what how it felt to be in Diana’s situation.  I also agree with Tobin because in the media many people who are diagnosed with a mental illness are extremely talented people but because they can’t control their illness they become crazy and their talent goes to waste.  That’s not true because in the musical Diana is a stay at home mom who does things just like everybody else. She doesn’t go around killing people instead she leaves because she feels it’s time to let her family live normally without having to worry about her. This is why I believe people should be more aware of mental illnesses so that the media doesn’t show people with a mental disability in a negative light. Instead causing awareness can help others  with what they are going through by showing them that there are a lot of people dealing with the same situation, just like Diana and the 18 year old boy.  (word count 494)

Are the 1950s related to Next to Normal ?

 

                What We Really Miss about the 1950s, by Stephanie Coontz, is an article that talks about the great era of the 1950s. Although many people would like to go back to this time period, they don’t really understand what was happening. Coontz argues that this was the era of racism, sexism, and inequality. When you think about the 1950s you think about a perfect little family that consists of a hardworking father, a housewife, and usually two children. Well Coontz explains to us that these women didn’t have a choice. Many people believed that women were supposed to stay at home and take care of the family, and this idea was portrayed through the media.  In a famous TV series one of the characters ask the women, “Are you after a job or a man? You can’t have both.” Women had to be dependant of a man, and if they went to work they would be mistreated by the male employees and wouldn’t receive the same benefits they did. The rate of teenage pregnancy was high in the 1950s and many couples would get married before the baby was born and their life was settled. The father would go to work and the mother had to stay at home and it didn’t matter if the couple was happy or not.  People who were defined as “Other” which consisted of blacks, Jews, gays or lesbians, and Puerto Ricans were treated with hostility and riots against them emerged every day. Although the 1950s did have its downfall, this was the era where parents had hope for their children because many people didn’t have to have a college education to get a well paid job and they could afford to be economically stable.  

             Some of the concepts are present in the musical, Next to Normal.  First of all Diana seems to fit the description of a women during the 1950s. She’s a stay at home mom, who looks after her two kids, Gabe and Natalie, and was married at young age. Throughout the play we can see that she’s unhappy but she usually puts her own feelings aside to try and please her husband and kids. She continues to live with them because she would rather keep her family happy then explains to them how she really feels. After she goes through electro shock therapy it seems that she has gained a new confidence. She realizes that the reason she married Dan was because they were young and she was having a baby.  She realizes that she was a child and her decisions were rushed. I also think that second half shows women in today’s era because she gains confidence to leave her family. She tells Dan that if he’s always there to catch her, she will never learn to stand on her own. In today’s society women are independent, even if they’re married and they have the same rights men do. In the 1950s, you were always tied down to a man and women never seemed to leave the men to go find their happiness because they were aware of injustices towards women. Once Diana learns she has a voice, and she’s allowed to express her feelings she packs her bags because she’s tired of feeling vulnerable she wants to feel independent. (word count 550)

 

Next to Normal

Next to Normal, is a musical about a family who tries to live a “normal” life while having a family member diagnosed with a mental illness. Diana, the mother, lost her son at 8 months old and was never able to accept the death of her son. She continues to establish a relationship with her son, Gabe, acting as if he was still alive.  It’s been eighteen years and she’s the only family member who can see and hear him. The father, Dan, tries to help Diana by sending her to multiple doctors who prescribe her with different medications to try and cure her illness. Nothing seems to work and at one point she tries to commit suicide. Meanwhile her daughter, Natalie, is tired of being “invisible” because she feels that her mother doesn’t acknowledge her presence and she feels that her mother would rather have Gabe alive. While Dan continues looking for ways to cure Diana, he encounters a doctor that persuades him to try electro shock therapy. Diana gets tested and she forgets about Gabe until she starts remembering what happened the day he died. She’s overwhelmed with the new information she just learned and believes it’s time for a new beginning. Diana leaves Natalie and Dan behind, where all three of them hope to start over fresh.

              The part that stood out to me the most was when Diana tells Natalie “I love you as much as I can” because I feel like this is an important part of their relationship. Natalie is positive that her mother prefers Gabe over her and if Diana had the opportunity to bring Gabe back she would. I feel like Natalie is selfish in a way because she wants to have a normal life and wants her mother to be someone she can’t. Diana is pressured by Dan and Natalie to be the best wife and mother when she doesn’t really know who she is.  Dan is taking her to different doctors who are prescribing her different medications to try and make her better, but they don’t know how she really feels. So when Diana tells Natalie that she loves her, what she’s trying to say is that even though she can’t be the “ideal” mother she loves her in the way she can and knows how to. When Diana is scheduled to go through electro shock therapy Natalie says that she “cried for all we’d never be”, I feel like this is where Natalie understands that her mom is never going to be okay, not even with all the therapy and medications, and she doesn’t want to lose her trying to change her. Later she says, “I don’t need a life that’s normal, but something… next to normal.” At this point Natalie understands who her mother is and she’s willing to accept her for the way she is.  
            
           After reading, Next to Normal, I feel like Diana hadn’t dealt with the death of her son in the right way and that incident affected her for the rest of her life. I feel like sometimes we are to quick to jump to conclusions without allowing others to express what they really feel. We force them do to things they aren’t comfortable with or don’t want to do and at the end of the day we push them away. And once we have pushed people away we realize what we’ve lost. I now believe that sometimes you just need to be there for that person and accept them with their best qualities and with their flaws because you don’t know what they have been through.
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