Fractured Femininities: Pendulating between Exclusion, Empathy, and Stigma in the Gendered Representations of Mental Health in House M.D. and Grey’s Anatomy
Fractured Femininities: Pendulating between Exclusion, Empathy, and Stigma in the Gendered Representations of Mental Health in House M.D. and Grey’s Anatomy

Summary/Abstract: The present article investigates the media representation of mental illness in women, synchronously revolving around female patients and medical professionals in the fi ctional medical TV series, House M.D. and Grey’s Anatomy. Rendering a mixed-method approach, concretely comprising content analysis, discourse analysis, and the underlying psychoanalysis and reinforcing statistical sampling, the research endeavour analyses tabbed episodes and female patients from the overlapping broadcasting period between 2004 and 2012. The overarching aim is to identify and dissect emotional reactions on behalf of the female patient, ranging from denial to acceptance, alongside the behavioural exhibitions, spanning from ridicule to clarified empathy, in the case of the medical professionals. Findings reveal a stifling continuation of stigma with significant differences in the employment of the reactionarily moral systems from the embodied medical professionals. House M.D. still hinges on the comical disparagement and misplaced humour whilst Grey’s Anatomy protracts a novel tendency towards empathy.

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