Jim Carrey’s comedy films have not been known for their sensitivity or political correctness. His latest film, however, titled "Me, Myself, and Irene," has been condemned by a host of professional and citizen mental health organizations for its use of the lead character’s supposed schizophrenia for comic purposes.

On June 16 a coalition of Canada’s largest mental health organizations joined the chorus of condemnation, labeling the film’s depictions of mental illness as "inaccurate, insensitive, and hurtful." Finally pushed over the edge by years of unexpressed rage that his passivity and meekness kept him from venting, the Carrey character suddenly displays a new personality with a different name who is a loud, obnoxious, ladies’ man. The film uses this personality split as the base for not-so-subtle gross-out humor.

The Canadian coalition pointed out that ads for the movie, which use "from gentle to mental" as an advertising slogan, "promote the myth that schizophrenia is a split personality and implies that people with mental illness are violent."

Coalition members include the Canadian Psychiatric Association, the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, the Canadian Mental Health Association, and the Mood Disorders Association of Canada.

The film has also been the object of protests in the U.S. by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association, and the Mental Health America.

In addition, John Blamphin, director APA’s Division of Public Affairs, sent a letter prior to the film’s June 15 opening to movie critics of the country’s largest newspapers alerting them to its stereotyped and incorrect portrayal of people with mental illnesses.

Blamphin emphasized that "Carrey’s depiction of a person with schizophrenia trivializes a severe, crippling, life-wrecking illness with a high incidence of suicide, makes a clown out of a ‘schizophrenic,’ and is factually wrong."

APA Medical Director Steven Mirin, M.D., wrote a letter to the hometown newspaper of movie-industry decision makers—the Los Angeles Times—condemning the film’s laugh-seeking take on people with mental illness. Where this supposedly light, summer entertainment can do harm, Mirin pointed out, is when that film "reinforces myths and further stigmatizes a group of people who can’t always advocate for themselves." The letter ran in the paper’s July 3 issue.

Citing the monumental struggles that people with schizophrenia engage in just to function in society, Mirin said, "I doubt that the millions of people who suffer from this, or some other form of severe mental illness, or their parents or friends, will find the outrageous behaviors of Carrey’s character(s) very funny."

He went on to take the film industry to task for perpetuating "centuries-old myths" about schizophrenia. "Throughout history, people with mental illness have been treated as if they were creations of the devil—burned at the stake, chained to the walls of an asylum, or, in modern times, left to fend for themselves on a subway grate," Mirin wrote. "Surely in the most technologically advanced and richest country on the planet, we can do better."