The new game of Fort Boyard does not pass. Called “The Asylum”, the test places the candidate in the skin of a patient suffering from a psychiatric illness and locked in a padded cell. His goal: to detach all the white balls hanging from his tank top in order to escape as quickly as possible from his prison …
Except that according to 7 associations supporting psychiatric patients, this ordeal is “stigmatizing”: they have lodged a complaint against the public channel France 2.
“In this cell from another age, furnished with a mattress on the floor, a toilet bowl and the combined bucket-mop-mop, the candidate twists in all directions, and even walks on the ceiling”, described Unafam (National Union of Families and Friends of Sick and Psychically Handicapped People), in a press release published on June 28, 2017. “On the walls cleverly staged, we read the words: ‘Help’, ‘SOS’, ‘No future ‘,’ Fool ‘… ”.
“Would we dare to mount an attraction on the theme of another disease?” “
In an open letter addressed to the president of France Televisions, Unafam denounces an “anxiety-provoking test, but above all totally stigmatizing for people living with mental disorders and psychiatry”.
“Would we dare to mount an attraction on the theme of another disease (AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis …)? At a time when misconceptions about psychiatry are rife, how do you fight stigma with such entertainment on a public channel? “
“Hospitalization in psychiatry remains a traumatic ordeal from which it is difficult to recover,” adds the specialist site Comme des fous.
If the artistic producer of the show reacted quickly by assuring “not wanting to shock anyone”, the complaints remain topical. A new case to follow.
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