Fort Boyard’s new game does not pass. Dubbed “The Asylum”, the test puts the candidate in the shoes of a patient suffering from a psychiatric illness and locked in a padded cell. His goal: to detach all the white balls attached to his tank top in order to escape as quickly as possible from his prison…
Except that according to 7 support associations for psychiatric patients, this ordeal is “stigmatising”: they have filed 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-broom-mop, the candidate contorts in all directions, and even walks on the ceiling”, described Unafam (National Union of Families and Friends of Mentally Sick and Disabled People), in a press release published on June 28, 2017. future’, ‘Fool’…”.
“Would we dare to set up an attraction on the theme of another disease? »
In an open letter addressed to the president of France Télévisions, Unafam denounces an “anxiogenic ordeal, but above all totally stigmatizing for people living with mental disorders and psychiatry”.
“Would we dare to set up an attraction on the theme of another disease (AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, etc.)? At a time when misconceptions about psychiatry are legion, 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, meanwhile, the specialized site Comme des fous.
If the artistic producer of the show reacted quickly by ensuring “not wanting to shock anyone”, the complaints remain topical. A new case to follow.
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