Harold and Maude: Mental Illness in Pop Culture

The cult classic and dark romantic comedy Harold and Maude puts a humorous yet existential gender spin on the May-December motif, with 20-year-old Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) proposing his love to 79-year-old Dame Marjorie “Maude” Chardin (Ruth Gordon). Filled with attention-seeking attempts at shock and awe, we discover Harold’s avoidant attachment style to have originated from lack thereof with his mother, known only as Mrs. Chasen (Vivian Pickles), who may be well intentioned but doesn’t know what to make of Harold’s morbid fascination with death (Thanophilia) and multiplicity of fake suicide demonstrations. In contrast, Maude represents utter fascination with life itself, and we learn an implied bitter backstory has led her to choose an optimistic and vivacious embracement of living life fully until its end. Through their relationship, and underscored by a pre-MTV almost magical juxtaposition of song with image via the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, Harold experiences emotional entropy of Maude’s sheer joy for life and living in the moment.

In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media.