Happiness Is ... A Town Full Of Prozac
The Age
Thursday March 30, 1995
IT'S APPLE blossom time in Wenatchee, Washington, a town that's as pretty as a picture postcard. The weather is fresh and clear, the radio station is playing golden oldies and the barbershop is still the best place to gauge public opinion.
But Wenatchee isn't the town that it used to be. Once known as the Apple Capital, it has been given another name that reflects a new phenomenon sweeping the country: the Prozac Capital of America.
The town is home to Dr Jim Goodwin, a psychiatrist whose 700 or so patients have been diagnosed as depressive and prescribed the anti- depressant Prozac. The BBC documentary Welcome to Happy Valley (True Stories, Channel 2, 8.30pm, Sunday) examines Wenatchee's new-found celebrity and the raging US debate about the drug.
Dr Goodwin's patients recount stories of depression and despair, feelings of worthlessness and appalling traumas. They say they have been redeemed by therapy and Prozac.
Dr Goodwin is an former marine, a Vietnam veteran who is an over- the-top evangelist for his drug and seems to think that the entire world suffers from depression. He's alarmingly gung-ho, but his patients are a different matter.
The documentary interviews a range of townspeople and they all speak lucidly and thoughtfully about the difference the drug has made to their ability to deal with their problems. They don't talk like zealots, but like people who are realistic about their lives.
There are voices raised in protest. Wenatchee is visited by the Prozac Survivors' Support Group, who claim that the drug has caused outbreaks of sometimes murderous violence.
Dr Peter Breggin, author of Toxic Psychiatry, presents his critique.
He speaks of the charismatic and the cult tradition in America and the way in which the drug fulfils both needs. He argues against giving such medication to treat psychological and spiritual problems.
Welcome to Happy Valley is, however, an impressionistic documentary: it's not an investigation into the pros and cons of Prozac. In some ways it is as much a portrait of the place as an account of a phenomenon within it.
It's a calculated, artful depiction: producer-director Paul Sabin gives us an image of a small town straight from the David Lynch catalogue. Wenatchee is literally in Twin Peaks territory, but it's Lynch's film Blue Velvet that the documentary echoes, down to the Bobby Vinton-style pop music played over images of innocently old- fashioned small-town symbols.
It's not clear what function this dreamlike, stylised evocation of the town is supposed to perform. Does it represent the artificially induced contentment of Prozac? If so, this doesn't square with the claims of Prozac users we see, who say that the problems of their lives still remain, but the drug makes it easier to deal with them. Or is it a series of ironic quotation marks placed around the claims and counterclaims of the supporters and detractors of the drug?
Sabin also juxtaposes close-ups of Prozac capsules with shots of apples being sorted and prepared for the market: they bob through in tubs of water and along conveyor belts, emerging scrubbed and shiny.
It's interesting to consider how this imagery works. The term ``Prozac capital" is an artificial construct, after all, a journalist's throwaway phrase which has hardened into a supposed fact.
The documentary reinforces this, and it is debatable whether Sabin really explores the use of Prozac by showing us what's going on in Wenatchee, or imposes his stylised vision on the town.
© 1995 The Age