TV Editor Sam Wait looks at the various ways that poor mental health is used for profit, using examples to show how memorabilia often works to capitalise on suffering
Capitalism profits off crisis. This is a disputed claim, and rightly so. Take, for instance, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on businesses. While the market capitalisation of Amazon increased by $570 billion in 2020, the pandemic caused many high street shops to plummet into administration. As this is inevitably due to a multitude of factors, it does not provide us with a clear cut answer as to whether capitalism does profit off crisis. However, it is undisputed that capitalism can, and often does, profit off suffering.
This has been evident for centuries, as the working classes live on the ‘brink of destitution’ whilst the upper classes profit off their labour. In these cases, the suffering capitalism profits off is subtler than you may expect, but nevertheless ever-present. However, capitalism of late has become more daring and less scrupulous when it comes to profiting off suffering.
Capitalism of late has become more daring and less scrupulous when it comes to profiting off suffering
I was first struck by this when visiting Van Gogh Alive at the Birmingham Hippodrome. Brilliantly emotive, the live exhibition immortalised Vincent Van Gogh’s artwork and brought his paintings to life. As Vincent never experienced acclaim during his lifetime, I felt he would have appreciated this homage. However, this feeling quickly dissipated after entering the gift shop, where they were selling ‘earasers’ amongst various sunflower paraphernalia. An eraser in the shape of an ear. Of course, this is to commemorate when the artist infamously cut off his left ear during a fit of manic mental illness. It seems to me, however, to be incredibly disrespectful to be shamelessly profiting off a man’s deterioration into madness – and then to commodify the mutilated body part into a ‘humorous ‘novelty item. This only serves to trivialise an act of self-harm. So, in a society that is becoming aware of the importance of mental health more than ever before, why is a man’s suffering being parodied?
Another instance of this is The Anne Frank House. Their gift shop sells diaries which replicate Anne Frank’s exactly. Mimicking the red checked pattern which adorned Anne’s diary, and thus endorsing others to write in a diary like hers – the only record of her life before being captured by Nazi’s – seems insensitive and chilling when we all know how her tragic story ended. Sold for a staggering €13.95, I cannot see any other reason for this item to exist apart from profit; to profit off a young girl’s horrific and untimely death.
The worst example I found of the commodification of suffering was when researching Sylvia Plath. An avid fan of the poet, my mouth fell open when I heard Lana Del Rey’s song ‘hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but I have it’ where she mentions Plath. Rey references herself as a ‘24/7 Sylvia Plath,’ seemingly suggesting that the poet’s name is synonymous with depression. If this was not disrespectful enough, an Etsy seller has produced oven gloves emblazoned with the poet’s name. This is a reference to how Plath died: by putting her head into a gas oven. Morbid, disrespectful and completely distasteful, this reduces a brilliant mind to her illness and suicide. Those who suffer from mental illness today speak of the struggle of their illness defining them, yet for years, many have used Plath’s name to do just that.
These needless products desecrate these figures’ legacies and make a mockery of the discourse surrounding mental health today
These needless products desecrate these figures’ legacies and make a mockery of the discourse surrounding mental health today. Van Gogh and Plath should not be reduced to what their mental illnesses caused them to do. Similarly, to sell a replica of Anne Frank’s diary seems insensitive to the horrors that led her to keeping one. Cynthia Ozick notes Anne’s last line in her diary was ‘the last whimper of a prisoner in a cage.’ Why, then, would anyone long to replicate this diary which helped her momentarily escape her confinement? Can anyone truly attempt to compare her imprisonment to their own? It seems an uncomfortable suggestion, and an unnecessary product. Selling Anne Frank’s Diary and books about her life are more than enough. It is important to remember that these historical figures were real people, with hearts and minds and dreams which were stamped short. It is morally wrong to capitalise off their suffering, and worse to buy into it.
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