Khyaati Tapadia
Fatal Attraction Syndrome is a term coined by Randy and Lori Sansone in 2010 in their article that analyses the prevalence of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in stalkers. The article summarises five studies in the niche and finds that in “less forensically focused” samples, a higher number of stalkers can be diagnosed with BPD (R. Sansone & L. Sansone, 2010). Stalking, by the authors, is operationally defined as “an illogical or irrational preoccupation” with another individual. The name of the syndrome stems from the popular culture icon in the 1980s, Alex Forrest, who pioneered the hot-date-gone-crazy trope in the movie Fatal Attraction (1987).
Fatal Attraction (1987) is a movie about Alex Forrest, who stalks her one-night stand and shows a fear of abandonment, impulsivity and aggressive behaviour. Extreme physical harm to others is depicted when Alex boils the date’s rabbit and attempts to knife his wife. In a scene, Alex slits her wrists, cries, and verbally and physically abuses the date in an attempt to stop him from leaving. The behaviour shown is extreme, and although no official claims were made by the screenwriters about consciously portraying BPD, the article by R. Sansone and L. Sansone assumes that Alex has the cluster-B disorder. It’s important to note that Alex Forrest was introduced as, first and foremost, an attractive woman. The blog post argues that it can be seen through popular culture, that people with personality disorders are perceived to be crazy “but hot”, which in turn, contributes to the stigma and negative self-perception of body-image in individuals with BPD.
The blog post will not comment on Cluster Bcluster-b as a whole, and keeps the scope limited to borderline personality disorder. Although various references to BPD have been made in media through films, not many, if at all, have been explicit. Films such as Fatal Attraction, Silver Linings Playbook and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are examples of the popular depiction of, assumingly, borderline personality disorder.
In 2014 Dana McLendon, who identifies himself by the meme @hotcrazymatrix on Instagram, proposed a Hot-Crazy Matrix that categorized women into various zones including the no-zone, fun-zone, danger-zone and wife-zone (Yeager, 2019). The phenomenon gained popularity in popular culture as Barney from How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) made references to the matrix multiple times throughout the show in 2014. Since then the dated meme has surfaced in not only pop-psych articles and meme songs but also research articles. Alyson Blanchard, Thomas Dunn and Alex Sumich tested the hot-crazy matrix by operationally defining “crazy” by traits found in BPD. Attractiveness, or physical appeal, has been characterized by the reproductive health of a woman (Blanchard et. al., 2020). It was shown that men have a preference for short-term dating in women with higher BPD traits and high attractiveness over similarly attractive women with lesser overt BPD traits. Alternatively, McLendon proposed a cute-money matrix as a male equivalent to the hot-crazy matrix. The concept is dated and extremely heteronormative. Despite its comic origins, the recently published article on the matter forces the reader to take the matrix seriously and categorise individuals on abstract terms. By operationalising “crazy” by explicitly measuring BPD, the article fuels the stigma associated with the label in popular psychology and media.
Figure 1 (Blanchard et al., 2021)
The article further associates the matrix from the YouTube video titled A Single Man’s Guide to Dating Women with BPD and attractiveness. It is assumed that every woman is “a little crazy”, thus the scale for mapping “crazy” begins at a minimum of 4 (Yeager, 2019). This implies that a woman supposedly has to have some traits of the disorder to be considered a romantic candidate for short-term or long-term relationships. Although older than the research presented, Fatal Attraction reflects these findings as both, the doting wife and the hookup Alex Forrest are distinguished by the difference in the level of extreme behaviour shown by the characters. Thus, for a man, traits such as impulsivity, risk-taking, and emotion dysregulation among others might contribute to the appeal of dating an individual. Another finding of the study is that it is perceived that attractiveness compensates for any negative implications of BPD traits. Alex Forrest is initially perceived to be a mature adult who then turns out to be crazy in the film. Thus, drawing a line where a “fun” person with high attractiveness and high overlap with BPD traits enters the “danger-zone” is difficult because of the labels being used to describe personality traits.
The studies that find traits of borderline personality disorder in stalkers are few, and do not have enough literature supporting their claims. The range of overlap is broad, with the prevalence of traits ranging anywhere from 4-45% (R. Sansone & L. Sansone, 2010). Moreover, it makes one wonder to what extent a diagnosis is warranted and how dangerous could it be to diagnose an individual on the basis of some traits. For instance, Alex Forrest could be diagnosed with various other illnesses due to her past trauma and inability to empathise with another individual. The dearth of literature and the consequent suggested a correlation between attractiveness and BPD may have dangerous implications for women with BPD and perceiving the need to be attractive as a solution for problems in interpersonal relationships. Given that women are more likely to be diagnosed with BPD, it could have an implication on how women’s body-image and self-esteem (Skodol & Bender, 2003). Moreover, women with BPD are also more likely to show eating disorders, so popular psychology promoting the Hot-Crazy matrix as a scale for women with BPD, can be problematic for individuals with the disorder (R. Sansone & L. Sansone, 2011). Interpreting apathy and harmful behaviour as representative of borderline personality disorder further adds to the stigma surrounding it.
The movie Fatal Attraction is rather old, and though the findings by Blanchard et al. are fairly recent, the concept of Hot-Crazy matrix is also outdated. Depiction of disorders in popular culture has become more realistic by showing manifested traits more carefully, giving more importance to the context and by using non-alienating language in scripts. However, dated concepts such as the matrix are reinforced by the media houses through papers such as the one by Blanchard et al., which can be further studied to understand why certain traits such as impulsivity or risk-taking are correlated with attractiveness, instead of using borderline personality disorder as an umbrella term for them which just further stigmatizes an already stigmatized label, especially in women.
References
Blanchard, A.E., Dunn, T.J., & Sumich, A. (2021). Borderline personality traits in attractive women and wealthy low attractive men are relatively favoured by the opposite sex. Personality and Individual Differences, 169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109964.
Lyne, A. (Director). (1987). Fatal Attraction [Film]. Paramount Pictures.
Movieclips. (2011). Fatal Attraction (3/8) Movie CLIP- Bloody Farewell (1987) HD [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ9nOmRn6fg
Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2010). Fatal attraction syndrome: stalking behavior and borderline personality. Psychiatry (Edgmont (Pa. : Township)), 7(5), 42–46.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882283/
Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2011). Gender patterns in borderline personality disorder. Innovations in clinical neuroscience, 8(5), 16–20.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115767/
Skodol, A.E., & Bender, D.S. (2003). Why Are Women Diagnosed Borderline More Than Men?. Psychiatr Q, 74, 349–360. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026087410516
Yeager, J. (2019). Hot Crazy Matrix: A Man’s Guide to Women- ORIGINAL [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pInk1rV2VEg
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