Judy Garland

 

Thinking about Judy Garland, having  just seen “End of the Rainbow” http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/16/entertainment/la-et-cm-tracie-bennett-end-rainbow-20130317, with fellow psychiatrists, we engaged in a heated debate about the nature of her suffering. ?Bipolar, ?ADHD, was the launching pad for the discussion, and yet my thoughts turned to her horribly sad childhood in which, she made money for the studios, and in the process, she was fed prescription drugs to keep the “machine” going. “Trauma,” I said firmly, in trying to understand this icon. She seemed robbed of a time in her life to “play” even though some might say that acting is a form of playing, Judy Garland had to play like she was told and so, by definition, this was not the kind of play in which she could make up her own rules, and have a time in her life in which her activities were inconsequential. This left an inner emptiness, a “zombie state,” as a colleague of mine says, in which she could never experience the sensation of being alive, but rather she enlisted her superego to do what she “was supposed to,” thereby leaving her feeling without satisfaction or fulfillment. She never had a chance to experience her ego, as her superego was running her life, from such an early age. Her many husbands, it seems to me, provided this superego, until one of them tired of the emptiness. She never seemed to know herself, to know her ego, and as such, she could never find a path towards happiness. As Ray Bolger, her co-star in the Wizard of Oz, succinctly stated, “”she just plain wore out.” Like a machine, the gears could no longer turn. Sad, sad, and sad. There is no diagnosis, as far as I can see, but only an incredibly talented woman who never developed a sense of herself. What do we call that? I call that child abuse.

Tiger Woods: Why We Care

This is part of my series on the mental health and the media.

Tiger Woods rose to stardom and now he is falling. We viewers love the story. First, we enjoy having heroes. Heroes makes us feel that we can achieve anything that we want. They affirm life. We identify with super stars and we begin to believe that we can also do anything that we set out to do. We feel empowered. Then, after a while, we begin to grow envious of our heroes. Tiger is getting a lot of attention. We stop identifying with Tiger and now we secretly hope for his decline. Sure enough, there is a scandal. We, the viewing public, are excited. We were excited to see him rise to the top and we are equally excited to see him fall.

As a viewing public, we are prey to marketing experts. These marketing geniuses know that they can create an image that the public wants to believe in. A salesman relies on common sense. In particular, the common sense that people want to feel good about someone so that they can feel good about their own lives. Sports icons, like all stars, give us hope in our world and in our selves.

Everyone loves to know a secret. It makes them feel special. This power in knowledge kept hidden is thrilling. Tiger had many secrets. We, the viewing public, felt excited to know about them. Privacy is respected, but secrecy is stimulating.

In 2007 we learned for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ affair. Again, the public expressed shock and contempt, after believing that he was a “family man” standing by his wife who had a diagnosis of breast cancer, and his three living children. The shock was ours because we believed the image. We wanted to believe the image.

According to Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times, on December 11, 2009, Woods announced that he would leave professional golf for an indefinite period to work on healing his marriage. “He asked his fans, colleagues and business partners for two things: understanding and privacy.” Understanding is not an issue. We all understand succumbing to temptation. Privacy, on the other hand, is another matter. He marketed himself to promote products. Name recognition made him profitable. Publicity made him rich. Now, he wants privacy so that he can then re-enter the public  eye and get publicity again.

Indeed, Tiger Woods will be back. Not only, do we, the viewing public, love a new hero, and then love to see the hero fall, we also love a come back. It is as if Tiger knows this. He is asking for a reprieve from the publicity, so that he can come back a “new man”. We want this redemption for him. We want this for ourselves.