Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 4A — Friday, November 8, 2019 Alanna Berger Zack Blumberg Emily Considine Emma Chang Joel Danilewitz Emily Huhman Krystal Hur Ethan Kessler Magdalena Mihaylova Michael Russo Timothy Spurlin Miles Stephenson Nicholas Tomaino Joel Weiner Erin White FINNTAN STORER Managing Editor Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. MAYA GOLDMAN Editor in Chief MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA AND JOEL DANILEWITZ Editorial Page Editors Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS BRITTANY BOWMAN | COLUMN The harm in non-organic tampons ALANNA BERGER | COLUMN ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN How pop culture sees mental illness Has neoliberalism run its course in Chile? A s I settled in to catch up on HBO’s award-winning series “Barry,” an atypical opening announcement took me by surprise. In a show about a former hit man looking to start anew, pre-show warnings on violence are the norm. However, this disclaimer stated that “the following program contains post-traumatic stress disorder,” quickly followed up by “and it’s ok.” The next announcement was a reminder to call a mental health hotline run by both HBO and the National Institute of Mental Health if the viewer or someone they know is in crisis, with an additional website address for further information. These new mental health- oriented “bumpers” are a part of HBO’s initiative to increase awareness for mental illness. However, as opposed to issuing viewer discretion warnings for depictions of mental illness, as Netflix did with the controversial “13 Reasons Why,” HBO’s alerts serve another purpose. They highlight the reality that living with a mental illness is normal and provide a reminder that there is no shame in seeking help. Rather than advising those who are sensitive away from certain scenes because of their content, these bumpers act as invitations of discussion on specific mental illnesses. These “viewer conversation encouraged” advisories will accompany some of HBO’s most popular programs, such as “Euphoria,” “Girls,” “Succession” and “The Sopranos.” In addition to the use of mental health-oriented bumpers, HBO’s partnership with NIMH includes a series of educational videos with expert commentary on myths surrounding mental health issues as well as discussion on their portrayal in the episode. This initiative by HBO represents the beginning of a larger societal change regarding mental illness. The media has a profound influence on the reinforcement of public perception of a certain population based upon their common portrayal. The American aversion to conversations on mental illness is often augmented by inaccurate portrayals in popular culture. However, current depictions in TV programs and movies demonstrate drastic progress in the understanding of mental health over the past century. In the 1950s, for example, the majority of the U.S. populace equated all mental illness with psychosis. During this era, issues pertaining to mental health were often avoided, contributing to such inaccurate perceptions. The danger and violence often associated with mental illness is highlighted by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror film “Psycho.” In the film, serial killer Norman Bates develops what is now known as dissociative identity disorder and engages in a series of violent murders. The horror genre’s emphasis on violence and mental illness continues with John Carpenter’s famed 1978 classic, “Halloween.” The storyline of this film involves an escaped mental asylum patient, Michael Myers, and his deranged killing spree of teenagers in his suburban hometown. Breaking away from horror films, mental illness was again in the spotlight in the Academy Award- winning 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Based on the popular 1962 novel of the same name, the film stars Jack Nicholson as Randle Patrick McMurphy, a convict who feigns mental illness to avoid a prison sentence. In many senses, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was a radical, innovative portrayal of mental illness. The oftentimes patronizing and inadequate care experienced by institutionalized patients is at the forefront of the plot. The characters involved are treated as children by their caregivers and have little hope for life after release. As opposed to portraying them as violent killers, the mental health patients here are humans condemned to life in a health care system that cannot properly care for them. However, the movie’s most memorable scenes involve terrifying moments as McMurphy’s character undergoes violent electroconvulsive shock therapy as a punishment for unruly behavior. Eventually, the once-lively McMurphy is lobotomized and left in a zombie- like state before being euthanized by his roommate. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” certainly challenged the status quo in terms of typical representations of mental illness. However, the popularity of the film influenced common ideas of mental illness for years to come. A 1983 study finds that college students viewed those with mental illness more negatively after viewing the film. Understandings of mental illness began to change at the end of the 20th century. In contrast to perceptions in the 1950s, Americans in 1996 showed a deeper understanding of the non- psychotic symptoms of mental illness. However, these same results also found that U.S. society by the late 1990s still maintained negative attitudes toward those with mental illness. Representation of mental health in pop culture seemed to turn a corner with 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind.” The biographical film about the life of famed mathematician John Nash and his schizophrenia diagnosis demonstrated those with mental illnesses as capable of achieving remarkable goals. “A Beautiful Mind” depicted the vivid, haunting hallucinations that followed Nash throughout his life while also showing his triumphs, including a Nobel Prize for economics and his ability to have a family. The relationship between public perception and pop culture portrayal of mental illness cannot be ignored. All too often, movies and TV shows fail to accurately demonstrate the reality of mental health problems, further stigmatizing an already marginalized population. However, the HBO-NIMH initiative represents changing ideals on popular culture’s handling of mental illness. While films such as “Psycho” and “Halloween” demonized those with mental illnesses, more contemporary depictions represent a different path. NIMH has praised movies such as “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012), “The Skeleton Twins” (2014) and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (2012) as examples of humanizing, accurate portrayals of mental illness. However, negative and harmful portrayals of mental illness still persist. “13 Reasons Why” received criticism for targeting a vulnerable teenage audience while highlighting a suicide revenge fantasy and failing to mention mental health or mental illness at all in the first season. M. Night Shyamalan’s 2015 thriller “Split” once again features a violent villain with dissociative identity disorder, reviving a trope seen since “Psycho.” Despite these instances, Hollywood seems to be reversing the trend of demonizing mental illness. More and more films released recently have received praise for accurate displays of mental illness. The HBO-NIMH partnership represents a societal trend on opening honest dialogue surrounding mental illness, as Alanna Berger can be reached at balanna@umich.edu. F or the past several weeks, Chile has been rocked by massive protests, mainly in the capital city of Santiago. Traditionally, protests of this scale are the result of major political, social or economic decisions made by a government that citizens feel would dramatically impact their lives. However, in Chile’s case, the uprising was caused by a seemingly innocuous change: the city of Santiago’s decision to raise the price of metro tickets by 30 pesos, or about four cents. While this may seem like a strange catalyst for nationwide protests, the increased metro fare cannot be viewed in isolation. For many Chileans, this is representative of systemic problems with their nation’s society and government which have gone on for far too long. Since the mid-1970s, Chile’s socioeconomic identity has centered on neoliberalism, and this free- market ideology helped spur a period of growth which economist Milton Friedman once called the “Chilean Miracle.” However, while some raw data may point to Chile’s neoliberal period as a time of success, this is misleading. In reality, Chile’s economic growth has almost exclusively benefited the social and political elites, and the country’s neoliberal policies have left most citizens struggling mightily. Ultimately, what Chile and Chilean citizens need is not a return to lower metro fares or a reshuffled government, but rather a systematic shift away from the neoliberal economic policies that have propped up economic growth for decades, but have simultaneously failed to provide for the vast majority of the Chilean people. To begin, it is important to critically evaluate the Chilean economy’s impressive statistical growth of the past 40 years, since on a purely numeric level, some of the numbers are undeniably strong. In 1980, Chile’s GDP per capita sat at $2,577.32 per person, essentially level with the world average of $2,530. However, by 2013 Chile’s GDP per capita had risen to $15,941.40 per person, substantially higher than the global average of $10,764 per person. In South America specifically, Chile’s economic trajectory has followed a similar path. Around 1980, the nation’s wealth was in line with the regional average, but by 2013, it was one of the wealthiest nations in South America. However, these statistics don’t tell the whole story of Chile’s economic development under neoliberalism. First, overall economic growth has been stagnating in Chile in recent years. Since the nation first introduced its neoliberal economic policies in the 1970s, annual GDP increases of over 5 percent have been common. However, in recent years this growth has tailed off, and since 2014, Chile’s GDP annual growth rate has never surpassed 2.5 percent (the five year period from 2014 to today is the only period in which this has happened). More importantly than the country’s overall economic standing, Chile’s neoliberal policies have created massive inequality within the country, which is at the heart of many protesters’ discontent. Today, Chile is the most economically unequal member of the 36-country Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with a greater wealth disparity than countries such as Mexico, Turkey and Hungary. Additionally, while the country’s overall poverty rate has declined, much of the urban population is still impoverished. Unsurprisingly, Chile’s focus on privatization and market-based policies has created a societal structure which worsens the difficulties already inherently associated with working-class life. The most prominent inequality in Chile’s current political system is the nation’s tax plan, which has two major problems: It both fails to raise sufficient revenue for federal projects and is highly inequitable, frequently foisting a great deal of the nation’s costs onto the lower class. First, Chile has by far the lowest tax revenue of any OECD nation, which prevents the government from effectively providing public services to the people, a problem which is particularly pertinent for lower and middle-class Chileans. Intertwined with this is Chile’s second problem, which is the nation’s extremely unprogressive tax system. Today, Chile only has three income brackets taxed at above 20 percent (for comparison, under President Trump’s tax cut, the United States has five). The nature of Chile’s neoliberal tax system means the nation misses out on a chance to actually raise revenue from society’s wealthiest members, leading to limited government spending or disproportionate taxation of the working class, either through increased income taxes or an excessive reliance on regressive policies such as sales tax. Taking all this into account, it’s easy to see why protesters across Chile have taken to the street. Their nation’s economic model has promoted growth overall, but has left the vast majority of the citizenry behind. This is not a protest over a particular leader or corrupt government official, but rather over an entrenched economic system that requires substantial overhauling. So far, Chilean leadership seems unwilling to acquiesce to the protesters demands, with President Sebastían Piñera removing some hardline government officials, but not making any drastic changes. Furthermore, the government has cracked down on protests with violence, something that has a very ugly history in Chile. Unfortunately for Piñera and the government, the endemic problems behind the citizens discontent are omnipresent and are unlikely to simply fade away. In order to truly counter these problems, Chile must finally drop its focus on neoliberalism and make a systematic shift toward raising taxes, nationalizing certain goods and services, and focusing on providing for its working-class citizens — then, and only then, will the problems behind this movement be abated. Zack Blumberg can be reached at zblumber@umich.edu. W ith so many new companies offering organic cotton menstrual products, my housemates and I got to talking one night and wondered why so many people were making the switch. There are the obvious reasons: There’s less waste with silicone cups, and the smaller companies are run by knowledgeable women versus huge corporations. There’s also the glaring concept that, compared to non-organic items, organic products are simply better for you due to the lack of chemicals. My friends and I began to look up the ingredients of commercial and conventional tampons and realized we actually knew nothing of what goes into them. Like many things, the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t thoroughly require toxicity testing for menstrual products or that all ingredients and the manufacturing process be made transparent to consumers. They do recommend that tampons should be free of pesticide residue, but many still contain trace amounts due to the manufacturing procedure. Furthermore, the cotton that constitutes non-organic tampons is commercially produced, meaning it goes through rigorous bleaching and chemical cleaning that exposes the cotton fibers to toxins. More insecticides are used to grow conventional cotton than any other commercial crop. First, let’s consider the area of the body that tampons regularly come into contact with. As many of us know, tampons are inserted directly into the body to absorb blood and stop external leakage. The tampon then resides in the upper two-thirds of the vaginal canal, an area rich in blood vessels and mucous membranes. Additionally, the vaginal epithelium is covered in multiple layers of dead and dying cells, and the vaginal mucous membrane helps to protect against harmful microorganisms and bacteria. However, this tissue is nowhere near as thick as our external skin, and this tissue is efficient at carrying chemical messengers and other materials throughout the body. A report from Women’s Voice for the Earth, a nonprofit organization, states that within menstrual products, there are ingredients used that are known or suspected to be endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs. The endocrine system is a complex physiological network of glands and organs that work to produce and secrete hormones. When the endocrine system functions normally, it works brilliantly to regulate healthy development and body function. However, when exposed to EDCs — which can be substances in the environment, food, personal care and/or manufactured products — this system is disrupted. Some EDCs can act as “mimic hormones” and trick our bodies while others can stop natural hormones from doing their job. They can increase or decrease natural hormone levels, change how sensitive our bodies are to hormones and have the ability to ultimately cause various injurious health outcomes. These deviations of healthy processes can include abnormalities in sex organs, endometriosis, early puberty, changed nervous system or immune function, including respiratory, metabolic, cardiovascular issues and more. The breakthrough concerning EDCs came following a time when female researchers realized there was really no scientific research into the development or effects of conventional tampon usage. Vaginal research desperately needed more attention, and women such as Penny Hitchcock and Nancy Alexander took this opportunity to begin research programs on vaginal physiology, microbicides and immunology. These new programs founded by women led to the knowledge that certain chemicals, many of which were conventionally used in or around reproductive organs, could irritate or even damage vaginal epithelial cells. While nearly everyone who menstruates uses some type of tampon or sanitary pad, the chemicals in those create a perfect environment for altering normal vaginal physiology. In a study conducted in 2000 to provide numbers for how many people use which menstrual hygiene product, a range of 50 to 86 percent use tampons, 75 percent use panty liners, 62 to 73 percent use pads and so on. With a rough majority of users opting for the tampon route, many people choosing conventional tampons are directly and unknowingly subjecting their body to microdoses of chemicals and parabens. Groundbreaking menstrual health research, which has only started in the past few decades, creates greater awareness surrounding chemicals in hygiene products, but there’s still a large data and funding gap. This means people who menstruate really don’t know what is going into their bodies and how those products are affecting their health. This brings us to the upside of organic cotton tampons. To be labeled organic, any product must go through considerably stricter FDA guidelines than their nonorganic counterparts. For this reason, we know exactly what we are getting, and that is often pesticide-free, rayon-free, synthetic fiber-free, all-organic, cotton tampons. The wonderful women who started the organic tampon movement industry, pioneering companies like LOLA and Cora, ensure their consumers that their companies do not contain synthetic fibers, chemical additives, fragrances, dyes, chlorine bleach, GMOs, pesticides, toxins, latex or formaldehyde. We can assume that if a company specifically states those ingredients are not involved in their products, it would be logical to believe those bad ingredients go into the widely purchased, conventional tampons — But we don’t really know, do we? Of course, the FDA does regulate tampons as medical devices and provides many guidelines companies should follow. However, this doesn’t mean the micro- amounts of chemicals still allowed in non-organic, conventional menstrual products are necessarily safe for you or ideal to put in your body. For the same reason many people made the switch to organic foods to avoid consuming trace amounts of pesticides, fertilizers or carcinogens, many are now making the switch to organic tampons to avoid those same things. For some, including myself and my housemates, organic tampons have anecdotally reduced menstruation time or lessened period cramps. These results could be due to a variety of reasons, but it gives us peace of mind to know what we are putting in our bodies. Brittany Bowman can be reached at babowm@umich.edu. SOFIA ZERTUCHE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT SOFZER@UMICH.EDU