Mental illness and the evil spirit narrative in Ghollywood: the bane to the realization of mental health sustainable development goal in Ghana

In many West African countries, the conceptualizations of mental illness are still entrenched in the cultural and religion worldview that beliefs in supernatural provenances for numerous health-related problems. Unfortunately, this primitive, worldview preserves it fitting in Ghana in the 21st century with great thanks to Ghollywood, the Ghana Film industry. In Ghana movies, mentally ill characters were presented through the evil they have committed. This misconception leads to stigma and discrimination that discourages the individual with mental health problems to seek medical help for fear of discrimination. Therefore, the study examines the underlying factors that contributed or influenced the decisions of movie pro-ducers to cast mentally ill characters in their films in the way and manner they are depicted. Also, to bring to the fore of development discourse the implication that such casting of mentally ill have of the realization of the SDGs on mental health in Ghana. Qualitative data was collected through content analysis, telephone interviews with movie producers and actors as well as semi-structured interviews with Ghanaians living in the Neth-erlands. The data collected were subjected to an analysis from various theoretical perspec-tives, which includes social learning, cultivation, framing, and representation theories. The findings show that the movie producer's primary aim is profit as the targeted audience of x movie producers differs from each other. As a result, the producers construct and design their stories to meet the cultural, religious, and traditional expectations of the audience, which will make the movies to be more appealing. Secondly, religion plays a crucial role in casting mental illness in Ghana movie by producers in which some of them are pastors, imams, and other religious leaders. Thirdly, casting mental illness in a negative light in some cases are unintentional, the intention is to use mental illness as deterrence to criminal behaviors and shape the behavior of the public to conform with good societal standard. However, the representation of mentally ill persons tends to have negative impacts on the way as well as the responses that are given to address mental health in Ghana as a whole. As such, people who suffer from mental health are seen as people who are dangerous, vio-lent, fearful, wrongdoers within the Ghanaian communities. To address the problem it was suggested that the Ghana government need to intervene and regulate the Ghollywood as well as collaborating with religious leaders and faith-based organization to work towards reforms in the Ghallywood.