Cartoons by Australian Consumers of Mental Health Services: Fighting Stigma, Questioning Normality, and Presenting Alternate Perspectives

Abstract:Subversive humour, expressed in jokes, satire, ridicule, cartoons, and short stories, is articulated by marginalised social groups to criticise power hierarchies and repressive social conventions. In protest movements, humour builds and solidifies personal and collective identities and solidarities by realising temporary and symbolic reversals of power. Among individuals with a lived experience of mental distress, humour may express dissatisfaction with mental health services, problematise stigma, question normality, and provide alternative perspectives. This article analyses cartoons by Merinda Epstein and Sandy Watson, and their function in the first decades of the Australian consumer movement.