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"Crazy Heart," Fox Searchlight's tale of a booze-addled country singer, was among the movies honored Thursday by the Prism Awards.
Jeff Bridges, who played the country crooner, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who played his girlfriend, also received awards for their performances. (Both are pictured.)
In a ceremony held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, "Heart" was lauded in the Prisms' substance-abuse category for its accurate depictions of the subject. Paramount/DreamWorks' "The Soloist," about a mentally challenged street musician, was lauded for detailing mental-health issues.
The Prisms annually recognize films, TV shows and music that accurately depict alcohol, substance-abuse and mental-health issues. The program is presented by the nonprofit Entertainment Industries Council in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
"We salute those in the entertainment industry that promote informational truths in their work to improve the lives of the audiences they entertain," EIC chief Brian Dyak said. "Through accurate character portrayals and inspired storytelling, our industry reinforces the importance of those individuals within the caregiving and health fields."
SAMHSA administrator Pamela Hyde said honorees helped to "depict the realities of addiction and mental illness and the power of treatment and recovery with accuracy and sensitivity."
Honorees for the awards are selected by an 80-person committee of entertainment-industry professionals and specials in medicine, mental health and addiction.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
