‘This Is Us’ should be remembered for its nuanced portraits of mental health, dementia, and identity

CCome out as a queer teenager. Fostering a child to adopt. Dealing with transracial adoption. Examine how addiction and body image affect behavior. Coming to terms with dementia, depression and anxiety. Balance of mental health over time.

“This Is Us” showcased all of this and more for six outrageously successful seasons.

This NBC series explored the lives of three children: twins Kevin and Kate, whose parents adopted a third baby, Randall, whose father had abandoned him at a firehouse. As avid fans, we meet weekly to discuss the twists, turns, and tears in the Pearson family saga, which concludes on May 24. From our public health and ethnic studies perspectives, the series achieved a rarity for a fictional television show: It showcased the ways in which the conditions in which people live, work, and play can influence their health.

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The series’ subtle approach to sexual orientation and gender identity did its part to try to help normalize them in the real world. The show casually revealed that Randall’s long-lost biological father was bisexual when his mistress showed up at a family gathering. And when a high school daughter came out as gay, she only created relatively minor family drama.

The fact that neither plot was a big deal is actually a big deal. America has come a long way as a society since Ellen DeGeneres came out as gay. in 1997 on his ABC sitcom “Ellen.” advertisers boycotted the show and Reverend Jerry Falwell He called her “Degenerate Ellen.” That season’s final episodes of “Ellen” were criticized for focusing too much on homosexual themes, and the show was canceled the following year.

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“This Is Us,” through its nuanced and sensitive approach to sexual orientation and gender identity, held up a mirror to the real world and tried to model an ideal: that many people are moving toward the idea that being openly LGBTQ is just one of the many characteristics that make up complex human beings.

Much more front and center in “This Is Us” is the thread of mental health, which runs through many characters. The matriarch of the family is diagnosed with dementia, and as the show moves back and forth in time, viewers witness her decline, even as they remember the vibrant young mother she was.

Throughout the seasons, the show highlighted post-traumatic stress disorder related to military service, first in Vietnam and later in Afghanistan. The main characters struggled with depression, debilitating anxiety, addiction, eating disorders, and weight and body image. Each story explores the ways that mental health affects everyday experience and how access to mental health care affects quality of life.

Perhaps one of the best illustrations of this is how the series portrays the battles with substance addiction on the part of Randall’s black biological parents, compared to his white brother Kevin. Randall’s parents, William and Laurel, lose their son, their relationship, and years of their lives while trying to sober up. But when Kevin, the wealthy celebrity with a family support system, deal with addiction, it is invariably treated as a disease rather than a crime. His access to his intensive rehab, followed by a temporary stay with his mother, helps ensure his sobriety.

Although this story may have been fictional, it shows how race and access to resources and support systems dramatically impact the outcomes of this disease for countless Americans today and specifically how addiction among economically struggling Black parents leads to criminalization by the justice system.

One of the ways that structural factors concretely affect people’s lives plays out repeatedly throughout Randall’s story, from the events that led to his adoption by white parents to the adoption years later of a teenage girl named Leave by Randall and his wife Beth. It is shown that Deja has a romantic relationship with her biological mother Shauna, but it is not enough. Her lack of financial privilege and family support is shown, but “This Is Us” finally suggests that her risky decisions and personal irresponsibility cost him the loss of his home and her child. In this case, the story missed the point, downplaying the structural barriers faced by black mothers and a reception system that disproportionately removes black children of their birth houses.

The show’s focus on these structural barriers became more nuanced as Randall worked through his transracial adoption trauma. Viewers learned about her biological mother who, like so many black mothers, was incarcerated rather than treated for substance addiction, a documented pattern in real life by legal scholar Dorothy Roberts. Instead of judging his birth mother harshly, as he had initially judged Deja’s mother, Randall finally accepts his birth mother’s inability to raise him.

Randall’s growing understanding of the structural barriers that disadvantage marginalized groups is evident after he is confronted by a man who breaks into his home. When he realizes the intruder is desperate and sick, Randall, in his role as a city councilman, develops programs for people experiencing substance addiction. This shows a deepening understanding that “crime” is often rooted in unmet needs that, rather than punishment, must be met with resources and support.

We will remember “This is Us” for showing us how people are the same in what affects our lives (love, family, pain, joy) without ignoring the factors that make our lives so different.

Sarah MacCarthy is the inaugural chair of LGBTQ health studies at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Jalondra A. Davis is a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego.