The Pitt And Shrinking Are Properly Exploring A Devastating Ailment (And It's About Time)

Though conversations around mental health and the portrayal of various ailments that affect the brain have really improved in pop culture in recent years, one topic has mostly still been the subject of either crass jokes or melodrama: any kind of dementia. Whether it's something sort of silly like Sophia (Estelle Getty) on "The Golden Girls" being forgetful and becoming extra blunt after a stroke, or heart-breakingly tragic like one lover forgetting another in the film "The Notebook," mentions of dementia tend to be inaccurate at best and genuinely harmful at worst. While a few films over the years have explored various forms of dementia with nuance, it's been especially rare on TV, until now. 

It makes sense that the hit HBO Max series "The Pitt" would take its portrayal of characters with dementia seriously, as it has been praised for its incredible medical accuracy, but the Apple TV+ comedy "Shrinking" is also giving us a truly nuanced, complex portrayal of someone slowly losing themselves a bit at a time. Because dementia isn't one single ailment but is rather just the catch-all name for a number of different injuries and illnesses that cause memory loss, confusion, and disorientation, no one portrayal will ever encompass it all. Still, it's nice to see "Shrinking" and "The Pitt" treat dementia with proper care. 

Frequently characters with dementia are cast as tragic villains who cannot control their own rage and confusion, like manipulative mother Francis Cobb on "The Penguin." While these depictions can be accurate, they're definitely not always the case, and the proliferation of so many negative portrayals impacts how people view those with these conditions. Alternatively, on "The Pitt," we get introduced to Willie Alexander (Harold Sylvester), an 81-year-old man with dementia who comes in to have his pacemaker reconnected. Instead of focusing on his dementia specifically, the series uses its brief moments with Willie to give us a full portrait of a complex human being. 

Willie was once part of the Freedom House Ambulance Services, the first true paramedic service in the U.S., staffed entirely by Black medics, so his medical knowledge is impressive even if he sometimes doesn't comprehend more basic things about his situation. His plot thread in the series actually brings a bit of levity to one of the most heartbreaking episodes, and never at Willie's expense! His personality and his history are joyous and fun, showing that while living with dementia can be difficult, it's not always the nightmare we're used to seeing on TV. "The Pitt" series creator R. Scott Gemmill has said that he wants the series to inspire people to be more empathetic and kinder to one another, and treating characters with dementia as more than just plot points is a great start. 

Jason Segel, Brett Goldstein, and Bill Lawrence's series "Shrinking" might be a comedy, but it will absolutely rip your heart out on occasion. Lawrence has spoken about how the show is an attempt to find the humor in grief, and that includes the grief surrounding various kinds of dementia. Inspired by his own grief over his father having Lewy bodies dementia at only 75, Lawrence populated the series with several characters dealing directly with loss due to dementia. In season 2, we see perpetually grumpy psychiatrist Paul (Harrison Ford) really settle in with his girlfriend, Julie (Wendie Malick), but things are complicated. They started dating while she was still married to her husband Elliot (Robert Arcaro), but he was in a care facility because he was in an advanced state of dementia, and he later died. That's a lot to navigate, but Paul also has Parkinson's, a disease that tragically leads to profound memory loss and dementia in 4 out of 5 people.

As Paul starts to occasionally have problems with recall and his tremors get worse, he grieves what he's going to lose, and we see the people he loves grieve with him. It's profound stuff that we rarely get to see in fiction because it's so hard, messy, and complicated. "Shrinking" is incredible because it lets its characters be flawed without shaming them for it. They feel like real people, and that includes Elliot and Paul. Instead of demonizing characters with dementia, both "The Pitt" and "Shrinking" remind us of the most important thing: they're human, with all that includes, and deserving of empathy, patience, and understanding.