Mediums as Portrayed in the Media or Film. Are the Stereotypes Changing? How do you all feel?

[RicottaPuffs]

I have been watching Ghosts, (the British version) and comparing Alysson’s experiences and the writers’ views about spirit with reality as I see it.

How do you all feel about the way we are portrayed in film?

I have been thinking about everything from the gypsy woman in Lon Chaney’s The Werewolf, to the family in The Haunting of Hill House, the medium in Poltergeist, the little boy in The Sixth Sense and Matt Damon’s psychic character in Hereafter.

How does media change our perceptions of mediums? Do films and television shows evolve to portray us as run of the mill regular guys?

I feel as if we are seeing some progress?

I do know that I actually said, “Yes and stood up like a football referee calling a touchdown, during The Sixth Sense. It was progress, to me.

The television show “Medium”, did pretty well showing we have regular lives and that we are neighbors, coworkers, incognito to an extent.

How do you all feel?

Discussion

[BearFuzanglong]

>I feel as if we are seeing some progress?

It’s a push and pull. Sometimes it’s positive, sometimes it’s negative. There are always going to be blind believers, and charlatans to take advantage of them. On the other hand, there are always going to be transformed skeptics like me. Writers are able to freely chose their characters to be anything they want them to be, but they also must understand their audience and try to write to the broadest audience.

Given all that if you see mediums portrayed in a positive light, you can rest assured a lot of people in the production of that presentation have decided that this will appease the majority of the population.

In short, yes.

[AnAnonymousHelp]

I think overall they are still positive. When there’s a “charlatan” in the movies, there’s also usually one who isn’t. It’s hard to find a movie where “ghosts are a lie and all mediums are charlatans.”

[cndrow]

I’m not sure honestly. I don’t actually pay attention to media, and I’m generally not impressed with how sensitives are portrayed in media that I do see

All I know is, on the rare occasion people find out I’m a medium IRL, they have extremely rigid preconceived notions of what mediums are (and aren’t), due to media influence. And it’s never accurate. And I’m always expected to perform, to be entertainment, as if I’m a part of that media. It makes me ill