Essay on Mental Health Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin

Staring into your eyes, laughing at you, unseen to the world, mental health is an issue that many people struggle with. But it hasn't always been something so accepted in our society. In the 1960s people were just being let out of the mental hospitals. While we have now seen real depictions of people with mental illness because of the increase in communication  and understanding of the subject since the 1960’s, and we can see that in the change of relationship between Norman Osborn and The Green Goblin over time. In the days of his character's first appearance the Green Goblin was more of a persona that was used by Norman Osborn to hide his identity. We see this in the amazing spider man issue #14 When Norman is putting his suit away, with his face covered he says “The world hasn't heard the last of The Green Goblin”. He(Norman Osborn) is telling the reader and the world he will be back to do more dangerous antics.

In modern adaptations of his character such as spiderman: No Way Home he is shown more sympathetically. Early in the movie we see Norman Osborn shatter his helmet because it is telling him to do evil things. We see that it doesn't work though as the goblins laugh plays while he runs away, showing that it's more than a suit, that the Goblin is in his head. He isn't in the right mind in the movies. He's being told what to do by voices and even being controlled by them.

During the 1960’s, at the time of The Green Goblin's first appearance in comics. The world did not view people with mental illnesses nearly the same as we do now. It would be very unlikely that someone suffering from mental issues could be a businessman in the 1960’s  or they would possibly have to hide it and not receive proper help. The University of Michigan has said “nearly 560,000 people in the U.S were hospitalized with mental illness”. During this time the people were far too busy hiding away their mentally ill. They hid the mentally ill so they didn't have to see them. I doubt we would see proper mental health portraits on the big screen. As a people we have slowly but surely made our way in the right direction of treating others who may be menally ill.  With more and more being identified and more information on already known illnesses being discovered it has increased the acceptance of being public with your issues and struggles. The American Psychological association says “...87% of American adults agree that having a mental health disorder is nothing to be ashamed of” We have learned the more people accept others the more we grow. And because we are open with ourselves about our struggles it allows us to see it portrayed in media like movies. During the modern portrait of The Green Goblins character by Willem Dafoe they have not hidden the fact that he is mentally ill. This is largely because we as a society have become very accepting of people's mental illnesses. As acceptance of these issues grows, writers can now use this to give a character more depth. In Spider-Man:No Way Home Norman says “Sometimes I’m not myself. I’m... someone else.”. This scene he's shown in a sympathetic light as he can't even control his own actions. He's no longer just using The Green Goblin as a mask but it is something that takes over. This makes the character not only more relatable but gives him a more sad and deep story that will make fans connect to him when otherwise it would be hard.

There are now more real depictions of people with mental illness in our media due to the increase in understanding of the subject since the 1960’s. We can see this through the relationship between Norman Osborn and The Green Goblin. We have progressed but we need to learn the importance of accepting differences and why it is important and helpful. Without people learning to accept mental illness many regular people with things that we have been used to seeing would be locked away. I hope as the future continues we will continue to grow and accept more people and we will be able to see more depictions of life on tv and media,