Advocates protest Halloween ‘Asylum of Terror’
October 31st, 2009
From the [Newark, NJ] Star-Ledger:
A haunted house at the Red Mill Museum in Clinton, NJ, has angered mental health advocates, who say the “Asylum of Terror” theme reinforces negative stereotypes about mental illness.
Advertisements for the fictional show warn visitors that the wretched souls imprisoned in the asylum were tormented by “dementia, paranoia, violent sociopathic behaviors, physical abnormalities and deformities,” which led them to torture and murder all 200 staff members in 1942.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness issued a nationwide alert about the haunted house, saying, “It’s trick or treat time again. We don’t mind ghosts and goblins, but when ‘haunted house’ attractions become ‘insane asylums,’ featuring ‘mental patients’ as murderous ghouls, we protest.”
(Star-Ledger photo)
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on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 7:52 pm and is filed under advocacy, mental health, stereotypes, stigma.
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