Last month it was Tesco and Asda, this month the culprit is Thorpe Park. This Halloween the troglodytes Thorpe Park and Liongate have teamed up to bring theme-park goers 'terrifyingly entertaining horror attractions', one of them being called 'The Asylum'.
The 'attraction' includes walking through a mock psychiatric hospital, with 'actors' playing mental patients; some of which are jumping down from fences, jumping out onto visitors and others chasing them with chainsaws. Top marks to Thorpe Park for reinforcing an incorrect negative stereotype of mental illness. Discriminating against people with mental illnesses is just utterly unacceptable. This makes me sick to my stomach. Once again, some idiot(s) has thought that doing something like would be acceptable and that nobody would batter an eyelid. No! Many people, including myself took to Twitter to complain and show our disgust to Thorpe Park. They had the audacity to tweet this:
'A fantastical experience'?! What on earth are they thinking? How can they get it so wrong? The only right about that tweet is that it is not 'a realistic portrayal of a mental health institution'. That being the case why are they even hosting such an 'attraction'? Do they not realise how offensive this is to so many people? Whether it is intended or not to be a realistic portrayal it still reinforces the negative stereotype that people with mental health problems are violent and murderous. When in actual fact people with mental health problems are far more likely to be victims of violence - it is things such as these that can evoke such violence and hostility towards people with mental health problems. As well as this, such hostility is what can prevent someone from seeking the help they desperately need. I fear that Thorpe Park don't care what we think, or how much they have offended so many people. As long as it makes them money then that is all they care about. I am suggesting a boycott; hit them where it hurts - their wallet. Perhaps that is the only way to get this 'attraction' withdrawn, unless they have any shred of human decency or compassion (which I doubt they do). This is not the end of this.
I do see where they're coming from. They're not so much as purposefully permeate a misconception of mental illness, it's more using the horror trope. I think that's what they mean in the their tweet about 'fantastical'. I'm not saying don't be upset by it if you are, by all means, be upset about it, I understand where you're coming from as well. But if I was to play the Devil's Advocate, so to speak, that's what Thorpe Park's intent was. Not to be malicious about people with mental illness, but simply making use of a well known trope that, rightly or wrongly, is part of the horror genre (and you can see how. Most of the things in the horror genre come from fears we used to have of things we didn't quite understand. Naturally in and pre-Victorian times, the understanding of mental illness was painfully limited.) You might then say we should take steps to remove it from the genre. Possibly.
I do see where they're coming from. They're not so much as purposefully permeate a misconception of mental illness, it's more using the horror trope. I think that's what they mean in the their tweet about 'fantastical'. I'm not saying don't be upset by it if you are, by all means, be upset about it, I understand where you're coming from as well. But if I was to play the Devil's Advocate, so to speak, that's what Thorpe Park's intent was. Not to be malicious about people with mental illness, but simply making use of a well known trope that, rightly or wrongly, is part of the horror genre (and you can see how. Most of the things in the horror genre come from fears we used to have of things we didn't quite understand. Naturally in and pre-Victorian times, the understanding of mental illness was painfully limited.) You might then say we should take steps to remove it from the genre. Possibly.
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